STAGE WEST
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page

Theater reviews

Stage West

STAGE WEST: "The Children" at Moxie Theatre

11/18/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
Left to right: Catalina Maynard, Vanessa Dinning and Neil McDonald in "The Children." Photo by Daren Scott
           The very first moment of Moxie Theatre’s production of Lucy Kirkwood’s “The Children” is an omen of what’s to come: physicist Rose is alone onstage, bleeding from her nose as if she’s been slugged by a prizefighter.
            Grim and graphic. That’s what’s coming, folks.
            You’d expect a drama set in an English cottage in the aftermath of a nuclear-plant disaster to be, well, grim and graphic. And so it is for most of its melodramatic 100 minutes. The walls of the cottage occupied by Hazel (Vanessa Dinning) and Robin (Neil McDonald) seem to close in on them as they quibble and quarrel while an invisible but deadly enemy (the radiation released by the nuclear accident) lurks just beyond the “exclusion zone.”
            The presence of Rose (Catalina Maynard), who has shown up out of the blue (not really as we learn much later) heightens the tension and claustrophobia. A surface-level cordiality between herself and Hazel vanishes when Robin returns home from the house he and his wife had been forced to abandon after a tsunami swept through it. (If the disaster circumstances in this 2016 play seem similar to what happened at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan in 2011, that’s no doubt intentional.)
            It’s crystal clear that Robin and Rose share a past, so very soon into “The Children” we have ourselves a triangle. But the volatility and impulses of that will pale beside a startling proposal Rose makes to the other two.
            “The Children,” directed by Kim Strassburger, can be depressing and certainly disturbing. Its nuclear-accident aftermath isn’t even the major reason why. These three people – Hazel, Robin and Rose – are lost on so many levels and react by lashing out -- at the fates and at each other. At least Hazel is able to retreat into the supposed mindfulness of yoga, but for Robin it’s booze and for Rose, who's stricken with more than just loss of her way of life, it’s a desperate desire to do “the right thing.”
            Unnerving as Kirkwood’s script is, “The Children” is a showcase for three actors in fine form. Maynard, with impressive credits all over town but actually making her debut at Moxie, brings a haunted, anxious unpredictability to Rose. McDonald, seen this summer in New Fortune’s excellent outdoor production of “As You Like It,” sinks his teeth into the complex Robin. Dinning is best of all as Hazel. She’s as believable steeping tea one minute as she is exploding in another.
            Credit Julie Lorenz’s set as well: the interior of a cottage that’s as cozy as one can be with a poisoned world just outside.
            If you’re not at all ready for the enforced merriness of the coming holiday season, “The Children” is a fitting indulgence.
            “The Children” runs through Dec. 4 at Moxie Theatre in Rolando.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    David L. Coddon is a Southern California theater critic.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    August 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    January 2016
    January 2015
    December 2014
    January 2014
    January 2013
    January 2012
    January 2011

    Categories

    All
    Theatre Review

David Coddon

About 
David Coddon Fiction
Theatre Reviews

Support

Contact
FAQ
Terms of Use
© COPYRIGHT 2017. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • About David
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Theatre Reviews
  • New Page