| A quiet, cryptic play. Perfectly played by a cast of three, THE CHILDREN points in a number of directions at once which could either frustrate or intrigue depending on your investment in hearing what these three sixty something characters have to say. And what they're not saying. A horrible, nuclear event gives the play a shape, but the more compelling fallout here is of the mortal variety. The anxiety about aging and yielding to what time requires of us all is what darkens the play and gives it depth. At what point might it be selfishness--and an impediment to the advancement of the young and so culture--to want to stay alive? Children must exceed their parents and parents, of course, must get out of their way. An important part of this is relieving children of the need to repair ruptures that they didn't cause. Kirkwood is smartly sympathetic, intellectually and emotionally, to the tension between the ageless wish to keep advancing and the need to sometime step aside so that the world may, as it must, spin ahead. |
