Ashling is every busy parent's dream: a professional nanny with experience and a warm, sunny attitude. But from the moment Mary hires her to look after her young children, things start to feel a little…off. Are Mary's stressful work schedule and lack of sleep playing games with her own sanity, or has she welcomed an unstable troublemaker into her home? At once harrowing and hilarious, Erica Schmidt's LUCY explores the wild range of parents' emotions, asking if we can entrust others with the safety of our home.
Mary keeps shrugging off one ill omen after another. We get it: Good, reliable childcare is hard to come by, whatever the price and the pileup of red flags. But to us, the audience, Ashling is clearly a nut job. What will finally push Mary over the edge? You can count on one inevitability: The showdown will come accompanied by a couple of unanticipated revelations, held back too long and to less-than-staggering effect.
The premise is reminiscent of The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, a film about an evil nanny causing death and destruction in her path. The stakes in Lucy, though, are very low and as a psychological thriller, it is hugely disappointing. Plot points don't always make sense, and there are few clues as to why Ashling does what she does. Is it class warfare? Maybe psychological manipulation or something darker? The audience the night I saw it was primed to scream, but the revelations are laughably banal and the suspense and danger do not accumulate. We are told several times, for instance, that Lucy is at odds with Ashling, but we don't see it. They seem to get along just fine as they dance, play, and eat soup together. Even the ending, which promises a tense standoff between the two adults, is both too timid and too tepid. When the final lights went down, there was a noticeable sense of dejection in the applause.
2023 | Off-Broadway |
Audible Theater Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
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