Most of My Moms Are Gay continues at the Sprout Studio at Greenside @ George Street until 29 August 2026.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
This original comedy musical blends storytelling and 13 original songs and is directed by Eddie Grey. It is a captivatingly charismatic confessional cabaret.
Abby Goldfarb is the star of her own show at last. Declaring that achieving a big dream does not promise happiness, and that a good life is a smaller, quieter dream, this personal journey is shared in as tumultuous a way as possible to a varied, newly composed soundtrack by Goldfarb (also book and lyrics) and Jody Shelton.
The Goldfarb story, origins and all, is relived in one of the tiniest venues of the Fringe. The intimacy of the space both hides and reveals deep emotions about growing up, and the expectations, disappointments and relationships of the person who lands in front of us.
A suite of mothers step in. You have to be there to grasp just how many moms there are in this ‘lesbionic soup’, but for simplicity’s sake it’s biological mom, the constant Carolea, who was there at the first junction who resounds in Abby’s inner voice and whose actions shape the childhood reminiscences which spark the narrative. Indeed the impetus for this show is the common age of 34 that these connected Goldfarb women have experienced, a fact which underlines the continuing strong influence of background on identity.
Marking the second life junction, the strong ballad ‘With Just One, I Can Be Anyone’ liberates the show as teenage angst is heightened tragically and comically by step modulation.
Then Mom 3 arrives in the form of a lipstick lesbian. Other moms pale into insignificance. Goldfarb interprets this arrival as a liberation because it straightens out her erotic orientation. Following a lot of sporting prowess (which sits uneasily and perhaps does not achieve much except to suggest this prompted reactionary singing), it’s a trip to Europe that ultimately diversifies her spirit: “Across the sea, I’m really lovin’ being me.”
Through further scenic changes, Goldfarb struts her stuff fearlessly and is a natural mover. No doubt those embarrassingly-wobbly double bicycle rides over the Brooklyn Bridge to school helped her poise achieve its balance. Her vibrant voice is always in tune, capable of some highs and lows in dramatic recitative.
The musical accompaniments to this vibrant physical theatre insistently convey a tangible sense of OCD rituals, traffic and a quite obsessional pain of rejection representing a performing career at a crossroads shaped by the decisions of others.
The songs are great, boppy and littered with really funny rhymes such as ‘gravy’ and ‘baby’, ‘game’ and ‘pain’. With the concluding ballad ‘I am ME… Abby!’ the audience is well and truly ‘Goldfarbed’. So much so that appreciation of this likeable, charismatic Off-Broadway performer is quite heartfelt.
Charlotte Purkis
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