‘The Children’ Is Provocative Theater

Brian Mani, Mary MacDonald Kerr, Shariba Rivers. Photo by Michael Brosilow.

The title is both misleading and extremely appropriate. The Children might sound like a roomful of tots sitting around watching Disney films, but this play is about the retired generation. And its purpose is to explore what society has given the children to inherit and endure and what the older members should now do for the salvation of, yes, their very own children.

As is true in the best and most disturbing family dramas in our theatrical literature, British author Lucy Kirkwood is both topical and futuristic. She stirs our recognition of humanity through provocative domestic discussion by characters we know, though in outline they may seem strangers – a retired couple of middle-class nuclear scientists living in a British seaside cottage, visited after 30 years by a fellow worker with a secret mission.

We will not reveal the secret in this review, but patrons should embrace serious questions about the mission and the recognizable characters who bat the banter around. We should also applaud Next Act Theatre for trusting us with this largely unknown play and casting three strong actors surrounded by good technical elements.

The cottage dwellers – and it is both a cluttered and tidy cottage created by designer Jeffrey D. Kmiec, which perfectly fits the demands and message of the setting – have recently suffered an earthquake that roiled the ocean. They live near the affected nuclear power plant they once worked in.

Like many of us, they are survivalists of a sort — worrying about what they eat, plant and grow despite the ravages of the environment and nuclear disasters. Hazel is a ball of energy, constant cleanliness, critical advice and motherhood. Husband Robin is definitely not as health conscious, willing to risk exposure to nuclear radiation to keep his local roots, certainly verbose with a roving eye (largely harmless at his age), but devoted to the family values Hazel harps on.

Rose the visitor is a former co-worker who knew both well and Robin briefly intimately. She is a sounding board for the couple to reveal their personalities, but then she reveals her own private self and makes something of a demand on their mortality – and their morality.

Kirkwood writes complex dialogue exchanges with actors’ gifts in mind – sometimes too much so. There is the difficult feat of overlapping dialogue, of punchlines that depend on a tilt of the head, a wink, a look, the flick of a kitchen knife. These are the sort of challenges actors thrive on, and here it is rewarding theater, though the cast relies mainly on stage mid-Atlantic English rather than the British kind.

Director Marie Kohler usually makes the interplay look easy and natural, giving actors room to show in body language what the story is really about, and she has actors who delight in the challenge and meet it.

As Hazel, the vigorous know-it-all and do-it-all wife who refuses to give in to age or to any version of reality that is not hers, Mary MacDonald Kerr is intended as the play’s sparkplug and most disruptive element. She relished the part as we relish her.

As Robin, Brian Mani brings a Falstaff heartiness that is justified in the dialogue as well as reflecting his years at American Players Theater. But at key moments he humanizes the selfish and dependent aspects of the character in ways that dominate the stage.

These two are noted Wisconsin theater figures. Here they are joined by noted Chicago actress Shariba Rivers, who has the difficult task of drawing the others out while hinting in slight asides at her own dark purpose. She is both the hardest character to maintain and the one who most reflects our contradictory human nature.

The play’s secret solution, the mission, is also a dilemma. It is not something all will agree with, because it weighs the hardiness of the older generation against the uncertainties of the younger generation. Once again, the performing arts use current events to indirectly guide important discussions about the quality and purpose of living.

The Children performs through March 9 at the Next Act Theatre, 266 S. Water St. Get tickets here.

The Children Gallery

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blog here and here.