Nottingham Playhouse
30th March, 2024, matinee
“They don’t like having things
taken away from them”
A woman stands in the kitchen of a friend she’s not seen in
38 years with blood pouring out of her nose. This opening image, both comic and
dark and full of intrigue, is typical in a play full of similarly striking moments.
Set in a coastal cottage in the months after a triple-whammy of an
environmental disaster, The Children sees two retired nuclear physicists
getting to grips with the changing world around them. Having vacated their farm
near the exclusion zone of the affected nuclear power plant, Hazel and Robin
are enjoying a simpler existence: there are power shortages to contend with and
they still daren’t use running water. But other than that, they have swallowed
the immediate dangers and are seemingly content. So when their former colleague
and friend Rose (Sally Dexter) turns up out of the blue, the couple are faced
with a life-changing decision.
Lucy Kirkwood’s Tony-nominated play, which opened this week
at Nottingham Playhouse, premiered at the Royal Court in 2016. Interestingly, Caryl
Churchill’s Escaped Alone also opened at that theatre in 2016, another play
which likewise mixes the domestic and the catastrophic led by characters who are all over
60. But whereas Churchill’s play sharply contrasts banal conversations with the
dystopian through sudden monologues which express the characters’ fears,
Kirkwood’s play is more of a slow-burner. The setting tends towards the
naturalistic. As realised by Amy Jane Cook and handsomely lit by Jamie Platt,
we see a fairly sparse cottage kitchen in need of a lick of paint. You can tell
it’s not well lived-in but an attempt has been made by its occupants to make an
effort: wild flowers and melted candles sit in wine bottles, there’s a fruit
bowl on the table, and throws are draped over a wicker chair. Hazel and Robin
inhabit the setting seamlessly, ensuring there’s a veneer of normality to their
lives. ‘We haven’t seen [the children] since the disaster, of course’ Hazel
(Caroline Harker) nonchalantly tells Rose. Later, when Robin (Clive Mantle) enters
carrying a child’s trike, he casually waves a Geiger counter over it. Kirkwood places
the everyday side by side with existential terror, and Kirsty Patrick Ward’s production
excellently blends these different elements. Kirkwood’s dialogue is energetic and
filled with humour, and she’s structured the play so cleverly. Moments which
seem inconsequential take on new meaning later, and every line has been carefully considered.
The play’s setting and the environmental disaster which makes
it so captivating doesn’t override the play. All three characters have led
interesting, full and rewarding lives and that gives cause for conflict to
arise. Despite Rose not seeing Hazel for 38 years, it’s as if she’s been to
this cottage before. On being invited to sit down, she pulls a footstall out
from under the chair she couldn’t have known was there. She later fetches Hazel
a glass of water and knows exactly where the glasses are kept. Something is
clearly amiss and her relationship to Hazel and Robin is later revealed to be
more than it first appears. The characters’ hidden depths are reflected in the
performances – the production is finely acted by Dexter, Harker and Mantle.
Ward has harnessed the cast’s familiarity with the text leaving you feel
relaxed in the actors’ company such is their trust in each other. Dialogue just
tumbles from their mouths, occasionally overlapping like it would in everyday conversation.
The effect is to emphasise the realism so when the play explores
questions of epic proportion it’s all the more disturbing. As the play progresses,
the reality of Rose’s visit comes to the fore. I won’t give too much away but she
presents them with an opportunity which would involve a great deal of sacrifice.
For Hazel, she adamantly refuses. Cautious by nature (she eats healthily, keeps
fit and puts sunscreen on even during the winter), she feels she’s earnt
the right to relax in her twilight years. But Robin’s more tempted. The flimsiness
of his daily routine is apparent, the homemade wine and the tending to the cows
is all filler. In Mantle’s performance, you can sense Robin’s restlessness, a
yearning to contribute something more. An early story about him daring to drive
his tractor closer to the cliff’s edge is telling. Death, he knows, is inevitable.
But for Rose (an especially compelling performance by Dexter), we just rent our
bodies for a short time. The question that the play poses about our
responsibility to younger generations is one which lingers. And in the eight years
since the play’s first production, it carries new meanings and even more weight.
The play’s closing image is as intriguing as the first: Hazel
performs a yoga routine whilst Robin mops up water; one focusing on
self-preservation, the other cleaning up the mess around them. It’s a refinement
of the play’s central question and provides opportunity for the audience to
reflect on the responsibility we carry in our time on this planet. Plaudits go
to Nottingham Playhouse for reviving The Children, helping to cement its
status as a contemporary classic.
The Children plays at Nottingham Playhouse until 6th April.
For further information please visit https://nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk/events/the-children/
Clive Mantle, Caroline Harker and Sally Dexter in The Children. Credit: Manuel Harlan |