and her Children

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Plays tend not to offer unsympathetic protagonists, people who we are unlikely to agree with on any level. Rosie Glen-Lambert and Hailey McAfee’s one-woman play and her Children is just such an example. An updated mashup of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children about a woman who profits from war by selling items to soldiers and Dana Loesch’s infamous appearance as a paid National Rifle Association spokesperson at a 2018 town hall in Florida following the Parkland high school shootings. Performed by co-author McAfee and directed by Glen-Lambert, and her Children is not only a powerful play, it is also a provocative work in this time when gun control has as many proponents as detractors. The Second Amendment is in the Constitution but does it give disaffected teenagers the right to pick up arms and shoot up their schools?

Named Anna Fierling (the same name as Brecht’s heroine), our speaker begins innocuously by talking about being selfish for one’s self or one’s children. Can one disagree that taking food off the table from one’s children to give to the poor is bad parenting? Reminding us that she is a spokesperson for the NRA, she claims to “defend the civil liberties of all Americans”: the “people’s right to protect their families.” Reminding us that there is no ethical employment under capitalism as all jobs are corrupt to some extent, she then goes on to tell us how she brought up her three children (Sawyer, Eli and Kat with the names modern translations of Brecht’s Swiss Cheese, Eilif and Kattrin). She attempts to teach them that being too honest will get you into trouble and tells us anecdotes of how badly this turned out for her son Sawyer.

She is so pleased when she is hired by the NRA as she could now pay her bills, get out of debt, and give her children the things she wanted as a single parent. However, when her youngest child is bullied at school and gets a hold of one of her guns (always locked up, so how did he get a hold of it?) and kills himself she does not see that she has any responsibility, except maybe that she should have postponed her banquet talk and stayed home and spoken with her distraught son. However, her job is what pays for the food on their table and their Christmas presents.

And then she gets to the real topic of her talk: the recent shooting up of a school in her community the previous Thursday while she was at a women’s self defense seminar. Unfortunately, her son was involved as was her daughter. But she does remind us that she continues to do her job which is to remind people “how important it is to fight for our civil liberties.” However, she does not see her complicity in what happened, that she used to do everything for her children, even those things that people might call selfish. She tells us that the next morning she went to hand in her resignation, but never went in and has continued to do her job. Her last act is to place some money in the violin case of the performer (played by Julia Hoffman) who has played live music throughout – as if this makes up for Anna’s other sins of omission.

It is interesting to see how proponents of the Second Amendment defend their beliefs even when it comes home to land on their own doorsteps. The AR-15 used in one of the massacres she recounts actually came from her stash but she does not see that she is responsible, just ponders how anyone could know the combination. Up until the end, Anna is still as convinced as ever that she is doing the right thing, while the audience may be in a state of shock.

As the contemporary Anna Fierling, McAfee is remarkable, never losing her cool, never cracking or losing her composure – except once when she is so badly heckled that she can’t be heard. Her discussing what it means to be a good mother is an interesting diversionary tactic to take away from the realities at hand. McAfee’s demeanor never breaks, nor does she ever reveal if she has second thoughts about her work as an NRA spokesperson after what happens to her own children with her own guns. She behaves as though there is something inevitable about tragic events, as though nothing could have stopped them.

Lambert’s direction is first-rate making use of the entire stage of the tiny SoHo Playhouse. Using only a tall chair backed by a U.S. flag (courtesy of scenic designer Raphael Mishler,) Lambert makes Ana move around at various times while the violinist pretty much stands her ground on stage left. Mallory McAfee’s pale blue power suit, hair and makeup design suggests the real Dana Loesch who worked for the NRA from 2017- 2019 until NRATV went off the air. The subtle lighting by Russell Chow is never obtrusive but focuses attention where it is needed. And her Children is almost unique in its depicting an anti-hero but showing us how the other side thinks – unless, of course, you agree with her on the issue of gun control.

and her children (through February 13, 2026)

Fringe Encore Series

The Attic Collective

SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, west of Sixth Avenue, in Manhattan

For tickets, visit https://ci.ovationtix.com/35583/production/1256512

Running time: 85 minutes without an intermission