Ben
Brantley

August 14, 2015

Teenage saints — and yes, religious history records the existence of such improbable phenomena — are apparently not so unlike other teenagers. They’re moody, rebellious, impulsive and prone to intense crushes on glamorous, inaccessible idols. They also love, loathe and are deeply embarrassed by their parents, who spend sleepless nights fretting over their wayward and baffling progeny. That, in any case, is a lesson of “Mother of the Maid,” Jane Anderson’s purposely prosaic new play about a saint and her bewildered mom, which recently opened in a Shakespeare & Company production at the Elayne P. Bernstein Theater here. Mom is portrayed by Tina Packer, the redoubtable founder and former artistic director of this long-lived troupe, and her name is Isabelle. As for the saint whose growing pains give Isabelle such grief, she’s called Joanie, a nickname for Joan. The family’s surname? Arc. Embodied with cornfed luminosity by Anne Troup, Joan is not the focus of Ms. Anderson’s comic drama, or not to the degree that she is in works by George Bernard Shaw and Jean Anouilh. Instead, it’s Isabelle who occupies center stage, where she offers a sort of how-to class on being the parent of a gifted child.