Lucy Kirkwood’s play, The Children, arrived on Broadway after an acclaimed run in London with its original cast. The action takes place in a small cottage isolated near the British coastline. A retired couple has retreated here after an environmental disaster has left their home uninhabitable. A woman from their past stops by. Why? How are the children, she asks. We quickly learn that a nuclear power plant has been severely compromised by an earthquake and the resultant tsunami.
In The Children, Ms. Kirkwood gives us plenty to think about. What are the responsibilities of our decisions as human beings to our planet and future generations? What is the best way to have lived one’s life? Does homemade parsnip booze taste terrible but really get you drunk? Are the cows the couple own behind the exclusion zone ok? Does exercise and yoga effectively fill one’s time late in life? These and many more topics swirl around this slow building mystery of a play until we approach the ending and the real reason these three are together on this day.
Since this play is built like a mystery with deepening revelations along the way, there is a lot of space to fill. Thankfully the three actors here, Francesca Annis (Rose, the visitor), Ron Cook and Deborah Findlay, are all riveting in their portrayal of simplistic, complicated, realistic and conflicted characters. That seems to come with age and mortality looming.
James McDonald beautifully directed this play; it’s an odd combination of scary, comforting, tragic and hopeful. I’ve seen two of his previous efforts (Cloud Nine at Atlantic Theater and Cock at the Duke) which were both outstanding productions with creative staging and actors excelling in their roles. The set design for this play is also memorable. The cottage is visibly askew at an angle, maybe fifteen degrees. Everything is off kilter in The Children and the result is not only excellent theater but a pile of themes to ponder well after the curtain comes down.