By Julie-Anne Whitney

‘The Children’ Written by Lucy Kirkwood; Directed by Bryn Boice; Scenic Design by Cristina Todesco; Costume Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt; Lighting Design by Jeff Adelberg; Sound Design by David Remedios; Stage managed by Rachel Sturm. Produced by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the BCA Calderwood Pavilion through March 28, 2020.

Inspired by the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Eastern Japan – started by an earthquake which caused a tsunami that led to the death of 19,000 people – Lucy Kirkwood’s Tony-nominated play The Children is a blistering commentary on the global environmental devastation caused by human progress and development.

Hazel (Paula Plum) and her husband, Robin (Tyrees Allen), are nuclear physicists who have relocated to a dilapidated cottage just outside the exclusion zone of the local nuclear power plant. The recent “disaster” at the plant forced them to abandon their family home and into early retirement. When their former colleague, Rose (Karen MacDonald), shows up unannounced, the lifeless cottage is suddenly filled with tension, jealousy, and intrigue. 

Read more “Speakeasy’s Chilling ‘The Children’ Asks the Hard Questions”

by Shelley A. Sackett

“The Children”. Written by Lucy Kirkwood. Directed by Bryn Boice. Scenic Design by Cristina Todesco; Costume Design by Rachel Padula-Shufelt; Lighting Design by Jeff Adelberg; Sound Design by David Remedios. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 537 Tremont Street, Boston through March 28.

Playwright Lucy Kirkwood had wanted to write about climate change for quite a while when the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan provided the impetus and inspiration. With The Children, a must-see production enjoying its Boston premiere at SpeakEasy Stage Company, she has succeeded in crafting a thoughtful and provocative three-character play that manages to raise profound existential and moral questions while slowing peeling back the layers of this threesome’s long and complicated history. It is also one heck of a riveting eco-thriller/emotional detective story brilliantly acted by inimitable stage luminaries Tyrees Allen, Karen MacDonald and Paula Plum.

Read more “Child Is Father to Man in SpeakEasy’s “The Children””

By Michele Markarian

“The Children”. By Lucy Kirkwood. Directed by Bryn Boice. Presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company, Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 537 Tremont Street, Boston through March 28.

“We heard you died,” says Hazel (Paula Plum) to her visitor, Rose (Karen MacDonald), ostensibly an old friend and colleague who has dropped unexpectedly by the temporary housing that Hazel shares with her husband, Robin (Tyrees Allen). It has been thirty-eight years since they’d last seen her on their small British island, and Hazel’s welcome seems less than congenial (she has also, by accident, given Rose a bloody nose). Turns out that the women have shared more than just their former workplace, a nuclear power plant. A tsunami has rendered an accident at the plant, and the residents around it are instructed to live outside of a contaminated exclusion zone. Hazel and Robin have had to abandon their farm and their cattle, much to Hazel’s devastation. Rose, who never married and has lived in America, is seemingly less tethered. Hazel is circumspect about their old friend’s visit with good, intuitive reason – Rose has come back with a request with far-reaching responsibilities and consequences. 

Read more ““The Children” a Stunning Look at What We leave Behind”