The Children
Written by Lucy Kirkwood; directed by James
MacDonald
Performances through February 4, 2018
Samuel Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th
Street, New York, NY
ManhattanTheatreClub.com
Ron Cook, Francesca Annis and Deborah Findlay in The Children (photo: Joan Marcus) |
The ponderous The Children arrives in New York after raves in London, as Lucy
Kirkwood’s risible drama about the after effects of a devastating nuclear plant
disaster wastes its topnotch cast.
Post-meltdown
in rural England, 60-something marrieds (and retired nuclear engineers) Robin
and Hazel live just outside the radioactive danger zone. When former colleague
Rose arrives out of nowhere, scaring the bejesus out of Hazel—who smacks Rose’s
nose in fright, causing a torrent of blood staining Rose’s shirt—Robin and
Hazel find themselves dealing with a past that includes infidelity, along with figuring
out the kind of future (if any) they’ll have.
The play’s
title refers to the couple’s unseen offspring, whom Rose asks Hazel about more
than once, along with referring to the play’s strident plea not to ruin our world
for our children’s benefit. Kirkwood strains at understatement in her characters’
small talk and British stiff-upper-lipped reserve, however wrongheaded for her creaky
melodrama. It's obvious that all three of them are aware of past indiscretions,
so why the continued dancing around the subject?
And to
extend what might have been a taut fifty-minute one-acter into a flabby one-hundred
minute one-acter, Kirkwood drops in irrelevancies like a dance sequence to a song
the trio loves, along with a pointless conversation that finds Hazel constantly
questioning Rose if she only did number 1 in the loo instead of number 2, which
causes the toilet to clog. Rose replies that she only did number 1—and when water
comes streaming into the kitchen, (un)hilarity ensues.
Rose isn’t
settling old scores or putting their mutual past in proper perspective:
instead, she’s asking her fellow scientists to join her at the stricken plant
to take over cleanup from the much younger workers currently there. After all,
since they’re pushing 70, it makes sense for them to risk their twilight years than
those with decades ahead of them. It's a worthy sentiment, but Kirkwood drops
it in so heavy-handedly that it has little of the sense of urgency or mortality
she was aiming for.
It’s
up to three superior performers—Deborah Findlay (Hazel), Ron Cook (Robin) and
especially Francesca Annis (Rose)—and James MacDonald’s sympathetic direction to
make this shrill message play palatable.
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