Children
Children
BackStage
Lisa Jo Sagolla
October 27, 2011
"Children" is the kind of show that sends a critic to her thesaurus seeking synonyms for the word "perfect" or new ways to say "couldn't have been better" and "I loved every minute of it." A compelling little A.R. Gurney play, running just under 90 minutes, "Children" is tidily rendered by the Actors Company Theatre, a troupe one has come to depend on for first-rate revivals of rarely produced theatrical gems.
First presented in 1974, Gurney's shrewd play is ostensibly a family drama about an upper-crust clan of WASPs whose neatly drawn identities and traditional values are called into question when they are confronted by radical changes upsetting the culture at large. Set in 1970, the narrative concerns a mother and her three grown children (one of whom, an estranged son, is never seen) spending the Fourth of July weekend at the family's summer home on a New England island. Sharp and delightfully unpredictable conflicts arise, instigated by the influences of feminism, divorce, permissive child-rearing, interreligious marriage, and the era's overall celebration of declarations of personal freedom and the defiance of social rules.
Despite its '70s-rooted themes, the story feels utterly contemporary. Gurney's spot-on characterizations help us see how much the self-absorbed habits and competitive perspective of the well-off influence American society. It shames us to realize that though such astute observations were made decades ago, we are still equally, if not more, oppressed by the entitlement of the "haves."
Sensitively directed by Scott Alan Evans, the show delivers its heady punch with warmth, comedy, and charm. The actors' well-observed portrayals are surprisingly inviting and make the off-putting characters difficult to dislike and continually intriguing. As the mother, Darrie Lawrence conveys gentle yet indisputable matriarchal authority. (Is it a coincidence that she looks so much like Barbara Bush?) Margaret Nichols is beguiling as the rebellious daughter, who is planning to shack up with the family's former gardener. And as the immature son, for whom life revolves around tennis games, Richard Thieriot employs just the right amount of levity and contrast, making what could be a one-dimensional depiction into a colorful portrait of a complex, sympathetic figure. But it is Lynn Wright, as his wife, who gives the most enthralling performance. Buried deep within the character's simple, quiet approach to everything, we detect the brewing tensions at the heart of social revolutions.