Review: THE CHILDREN at Artists Repertory Theatre

About halfway through Artists Repertory Theatre's production of THE CHILDREN, the show finally takes a breath. Prior to that, it's frantic, as if the characters are running headlong into disaster. Which they are. Or maybe they're running away from disaster. Or perhaps a little bit of both.

Lucy Kirkwood's Tony-nominated post-apocalyptic play (which doesn't actually contain any children) takes place in the wake of a nuclear disaster. Retired nuclear physicists and married couple Hazel (Linda Alper) and Robin (Michael Mendelson) are living a bare-bones life after the local nuclear plant, which they helped build, melts down. She spends her days doing yoga and talking on the phone with Lauren (their eldest but apparently emotionally stunted child); he visits their old farm (which is inside the exclusion zone), purportedly to take care of the cows, who are miraculously still alive. One day, after a 38-year absence, Rose (Elizabeth Elias Huffman) appears. An old frenemy, Rose has come to make a request that will upend Hazel and Robin's carefully constructed life.

The play raises a lot of uncomfortable questions - moral, ethical, and environmental. It addresses issues like what older generations owe to younger ones and who is responsible for cleaning up messes. It's about accepting our mortality and how to live a not-entirely-selfish life.

Processing these things take time, and I wish this production, directed by Luan Schooler, allowed for a little more of it (based on some cursory research, it looks like other productions have run about 2 hours; this one clocks in at barely over an hour and a half). The frenzied pace robs the show of its many merits, not limited to what I imagine could be the enormous impact of slow-spreading dread. Kirkwood's writing is sharp and concise, but it's hard to appreciate when new barbs are flung before the old ones can land. And actors the caliber of Alper, Mendelson, and Huffman deserve more than a race to the finish line.

Overall, I would like to see THE CHILDREN again, with at least the first half played at 0.75x speed.

THE CHILDREN runs in the Ellen Bye Studio at Portland Center Stage through May 15. More details and tickets here: https://artistsrep.org/performance/the-children/

Photo credit: Lava Alapai

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