Critical Corner: The Residence, Love; Mum

Uzo Aduba is the rare actor I will watch anything for. Since making waves (and winning Emmys) as Suzanne on Orange is the New Black, she has consistently proven herself to be an actor who can elevate pretty much anything. It helps when the thing is already great - as in the fourth season of In Treatment, which saw her playing a therapist - but even when the series is middling, as with Painkiller, she grounds her characters with depth and makes moment-by-moment, beat-by-beat choices that are wildly compelling. There is a scene in Painkiller, an otherwise harrowing series about the opioid crisis, where she rings a video game hint helpline for advice on how to get past a puzzle on Tomb Raider that I will remember as long as I live.

All this said, Netflix’s new series The Residence, a murder-mystery set amongst the administrative staff of The White House, is the most ungainly thing to feature Aduba yet, and not even she can elevate it to good, let alone great.

The Residence sees Uzo Aduba playing a Poirot-type character called Cordelia Cupp, an eccentric birdwatching detective who is brought in to investigate the murder of White House Chief Usher A.B Wynter (Giancarlo Esposito on low volume), who shows up dead during a state dinner between the US and Australia. Given that this thing is eight episodes, it’s not exactly an open-and-shut case, and because this thing is also a murder-mystery, the culprit is not immediately clear.

It’s a great premise that is fumbled in almost every way. The biggest misstep is the wildly shifting tone. It’s not quite funny enough to be labelled a comedy, too shallow to be a drama, and most crucially, too intentional to be camp. The jokes don’t have punchlines and the twists are leaps in logic. It’s messy without being fun. 

This tone finds some of the actors trying to ground themselves in reality – Susan Kelechi Watson as the chief usher’s presumed successor does this best – and others flailing in attempts to go big – Jason Lee as the president’s brother is a bundle of tics and screeches. The actors that do best, like Eliza Coupe and Randall Park, are the ones who ditch any attempt to stay consistent and just work with what makes sense in any particular scene. To put it more simply and bluntly: There is so much screaming and shouting on this show that it’s hard to hear anybody, let alone care about them.

The other big fumble is that the murder-mystery simply isn’t that compelling. At least halfway through the series, it becomes very clear that The Residence doesn’t have much on its mind beyond trying to keep us watching. While it posits itself as an “upstairs downstairs” kind of commentary, it is in reality more of an “upstairs, also upstairs” situation, with not a whole lot to say. The most interesting thing about the series is its setting, and the intricacies of what it takes to keep The White House afloat. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have very much to say about what that might mean, and what it does have to say isn’t particularly compelling either. We don’t really care about this murder, the murderer, or even the murdered, and that’s, well, fatal for a murder-mystery.

At the centre of all this is Aduba, who remains, as ever, brilliant. In another actor’s hands, Cordelia Cupp would be as she is written: a confused melange of eccentricities and vaguely neuroatypical behaviours. However, Aduba brings all of her craft and presence to make Cupp something she shouldn’t be: watchable. The Residence only really flies when she’s onscreen, be it sitting in silence waiting for a suspect to incriminate themselves, peering from behind binoculars or using her distinctive voice to underplay (or correctly play) some truly ridiculous lines. I won’t say the series is worth watching for her, but she definitely makes the eight episodes a whole lot better. 

(Also, Kylie Minogue has a sizeable cameo as herself in this show. I couldn’t find an appropriate place to note that, which is another sign of The Residence’s incoherence in general.)

It’s refreshing to see a piece of art that actually lives up to its premise. Love; Mum is precisely that. This debut play from Sela Faletolu-Fasi revolves around five Pasifika mothers who all meet at Mums Anonymous, a self-help group for mothers, and follows them over the years. We see them as they oscillate between the highs and lows of both motherhood and friendship, from watching their kids on the playground to watching them getting married. It’s a funny, deeply heartfelt show that clearly comes from a place of knowledge.

A show like this lives and dies on its ensemble, and Faletolu-Fasi, who acts in and also directs the show, has assembled a formidable one. As Finau, career-focussed and slightly judgmental, Tonia Noa Siasi brings real heart and warmth, while Taleta Maree grounds the wannabe influencer Judah with charm and wit. Tusi Elisara has a tremendous amount of fun as the God-loving, God-fearing Racheal, and she balances the line perfectly between embodying that character and poking just a little bit of fun at her. It’s Josephine Mavaega who has the hardest job as the proverbial straight man of the group, the anxious and comparatively less talkative Lalelei, and she makes the character as vibrant and compelling as her louder counterparts.

It’s Faletolu-Fasi herself who is the dramatic centre of the show, as Joy, who stays in a relationship with her child’s father despite herself. While the show is a true ensemble, it’s Joy’s arc towards and away from her friends that forms the backbone of the play. Faletolu-Fasi proves herself both a commendable performer and director, knowing both where and when to shift focus (which is even more impressive given that she has to self-direct).

The show is only an hour long, and covers a lot of ground. Love; Mum occasionally does feel too contained, too small a box to carry all of the conversations it is trying to have, as in one scene that fits in a considerable amount of backstory and exposition. There’s real beauty here, though. One moment of silence that sees two of the mothers standing only metres apart onstage but miles away from each other emotionally is as powerful as many of the scenes that sees all five women talking around and over each other, as real friends do. Motherhood is a topic that you could write an essay a day, a play a week, a novel a month, about and not cover all of it. For a debut to engage with that theme, and these five particular women, as clear-headed as this one does, is impressive enough.

The Residence is available to watch on Netflix. Love; Mum plays at Basement Theatre until March 29.

Other Things I’ve Consumed

• I also saw My Clowns, My Circus at Basement Theatre last night, the new piece of chaos from Sean Rivera and Janaye Henry. If you’re even remotely industry adjacent you’ll find a lot to love (and cringe at) in this one.
• I read Never Split The Difference, an old-ish book on negotiation by Christopher Voss and Tahl Razz, that is a genuinely fascinating insight into psychology! Humans are really predictable.

Self-Promo

• If you’ve got a kid and want them to do cool performance-related things during the April holidays, can I recommend checking out the National Youth Drama School? A bunch of amazing people are teaching, and I am also teaching (playwriting!).

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