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Also this issue: The Greatest Show on Earth Power to the People Threads of Majesty Holy Mypos! Mark Brodzik |
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April 4-10, 2002
theater
The Play About the BabyThrough April 14, Philadelphia Theatre Company at Plays & Players Theater, 1714 Delancey St., 215-569-9700
“I’m going to have the baby now,” says the Girl, at the beginning of Edward Albee’s play. Then she leaves the stage and -- perhaps -- does just that.
Beyond what I’ve written above, it’s not easy to explain The Play About the Baby, both because there’s so little action, and because I risk spoiling what does happen if I reveal it. Here’s a précis: A young couple (called only Boy and Girl) give birth. They wander offstage occasionally to play with the baby, but spend more time fooling around with each other. An older couple (Man and Woman) enters. They seem to have no relationship to the younger pair, and mostly tell strange stories about themselves. Eventually a connection develops, but as with everything else in this oblique world, we’re never certain it’s real.
I’d say the principle themes here are the devastation of losing or displacing a child, and various kinds of Oedipal disorders. Both are familiar territory for Albee, the adopted son of an unyielding, formidable WASP family.But Baby is different from his other plays. First, the tone is more overtly comical and absurdist, so much so that at times we could be watching a dark farce by Christopher Durang (our other important dead baby playwright). In previous Albee works the element of the dead (or unborn, or never-born) child is a catalyst for revelations by the adult characters. It is here too, but we’re made more conscious of the baby’s perspective. Though the general conversational mode is trademark Albee, at the core Baby is a compendium of the most primordial childhood fears.
Some critics hate Baby, and heaven knows there’s a lot that’s wrong. Even by absurdist standards, it doesn’t make sense -- and the usual Albee devices (extended monologues, pedantry about language and meaning) for many have overstayed their novelty.
And yet. Albee remains a craftsman, and even the stuff that’s incomprehensible is entertaining. There’s also something touchingly vulnerable about this play, coming late in the career of a writer who is notable for what he doesn’t reveal. And for once, the language games seem like more than smarty-pants erudition -- they are a desperate attempt to find something definable in the midst of chaos.
I found Baby provocative and worthwhile. The PTC production is the Philadelphia premiere, and it is splendid; the performances by Matthew Stinton, Devon Sorvari, Lucy Martin and (especially) Munson Hicks are pitch-perfect, as is Pam McKinnon’s direction.
