Review Roundup: The Critics Weigh In on THE CHILDREN on Broadway

Manhattan Theatre Club's American premiere of The Royal Court Theatre's production of The Children, the new play by Olivier Award winner Lucy Kirkwood (Chimerica), directed by James MacDonald (Top Girls at MTC), opens tonight, December 12, at MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (261 West 47th Street).

The production stars acclaimed London cast members BAFTA Award winner Francesca Annis (BBC's "Cranford"), Olivier Award nominee Ron Cook (Juno and the Paycock at The Donmar), and Olivier Award winner Deborah Findlay (The National Theatre's Stanley).

Direct from an acclaimed run in London, the powerful Royal Court Theatre production of Lucy Kirkwood's astonishing new play will make its American debut at MTC with the heralded original cast. In a remote cottage on the lonely British coast, a couple of retired nuclear engineers are living a very quiet life. Outside, the world is in utter chaos following a devastating series of events. When an old friend turns up at their door, they're shocked to discover the real reason for her visit.

Let's see what the critics had to say...

Jesse Green, The New York Times: But for all its clever construction, I doubt "The Children" would feel so important without Rose's agenda and the challenge that comes with it. I will say only that it has to do with selfishness in both its ordinary and also its existential varieties. When Rose tells Robin that "we can't have everything we want just because we want it," she means, yes, the love of one's youth, but that's just the start. A good death is not guaranteed. Even electricity, as the local disaster has proved, is not a right.

Michael Dale, BroadwayWorld: With another author, the 100-minute play might have been shaved down to set up an adventure story of sensational heroism, but the great impact of Kirkwood's drama comes from its naturalism and simple presentation of a moral issue. Hazel and Robin seem like perfectly nice people who lived their lives as products of their generation and now wish to be left alone. But do they owe younger people more than just no longer contributing to what's damaging the world? Is it their responsibility to participate in the struggle to fix what their generation has done?

Matt Windman, amNY: Black humor occasionally pops up, as do secrets from the past. At one point, the characters listen to James Brown's "Ain't It Funky Now" and recreate a choreographed dance routine from 40 years earlier. But first and foremost, "The Children" is a social drama that is disturbing and thought-provoking.

Adam Feldman, Time Out New York: Hazel is correctly wary of her motives-Rose was a rival for Robin's affections way back when and remains a disruptive force-but Kirkwood keeps angles of their romantic triangle secondary to a larger concern: the mess that baby boomers have made of the world and what they can do to clean it up. As Rose, ever the femme fataliste, says: "We can't have everything we want just because we want it." Behind the subtleties of its direction and acting, The Children's central question is blunt: What does it mean to be responsible?

Joe Dziemianowicz, The Daily News: First comes the reunion. Then, the reckoning. So it goes in "The Children," a slow-moving but ultimately thought-provoking and haunting drama about legacies and how the past always catches up with the present.

David Canfield, Entertainment Weekly: The Children may take place within an apocalyptic landscape, but you'd barely know it. Within the confines of its remote, modest cottage home is a whole world of personalities, ideas, humor, and conflict. Virtually anything could be going on outside, an idea rendered brilliantly in the stage design: The set's a small, slightly tilted box surrounded by vast areas of dark, empty blue. We, like the characters, stay inside.

Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter: A thoughtful and provocative theme about one generation's responsibility to the next eventually comes into play, but unfortunately, the evening takes way too long to get there. The plot, such as it is, doesn't kick in until nearly an hour into the intermissionless proceedings, when Rose finally announces the reason for her visit. Before that, there is an endless amount of small talk that, while it teases out revealing information about the characters, proves a trial to sit through. The attempts at comic relief, such as the lengthy exchange revolving around whether Rose did "number one" or "number two" in the couple's temperamental downstairs toilet, hardly amuses.

Tim Teeman, The Daily Beast: That swirling unknown is bought startlingly to life at the end of the play, in one of the most visually stunning denouements on Broadway right now. And the true test of sitting and watching a play with no intermission for close to two hours is that you want to follow Hazel, Rose and Robin to where they are going, to listen to them more. But Kirkwood has imagined the right end for them, right before a far more profound end presents itself.

Barbara Schuler, Newsday: Ultimately, this is a difficult piece of theater, and the ambiguous though beautiful ending (with evocative lighting by Peter Mumford) presents so many implications it makes the head spin. Whatever the conclusion, anyone who sees the play will find it hard to stop thinking about the universal and troubling issues it raises.

Sara Holdren, Vulture: The Children - which premiered at the Royal Court in London last year and has now transferred to Broadway's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre with its original cast and director, the deft, deceptively unostentatious James Macdonald - is a play about responsibility and guilt, reparation and redemption. It's also a British play, so these heavy matters are handled lightly, wryly, approached from the side until circumstances absolutely demand a head-on confrontation.

Steven Suskin, Huffington Post: And here, from Manhattan Theatre Club via the Royal Court, comes another doomsday play. Lucy Kirkwood's The Children is a sturdy drama; interesting, arresting, and enigmatic enough to hold interest for its almost two-hour running time. It has crossed the sea intact, importing director James Macdonald, his design team, and his cast of three. All do a fine job, making The Children a worthwhile evening in the theatre. But is worthwhile, one wonders, enough?

Robert Hofler, TheWrap: "The Cows" would have made a better title. The poster for Lucy Kirkwood's new play features its three actors suited up for what looks like a tour of a nuclear power plant, and emblazoned across their bundled-up bodies is her chosen title, "The Children." This very scary, cautionary drama opened Tuesday at MTC's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, and there's no doubt about it. Splashed across all that protective gear, "The Cows" would have been more provocative.

Roma Torre, NY1: "The Children" is a very small play about some very big things; profound, in fact, with its life and death matters. And yet this provocative British 3-hander, so brilliantly performed, could probably have gone a bit smaller. With its slightly tilted set, we're tipped off right from the start that something's not quite right here. For the characters, this is the new normal following a massive disaster that brings to mind the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima.

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