Review: THE GROWN UPS at Trial By Theatre

A new Rhode Island Theatre-Trial By Theatre-blazed its own trail with its inaugural production of the 2021 Dark Comedy "The Grown Ups", producing a deeply touching and impactful first play featuring an incredible cast!

Not to be confused with that goofy 2010 Adam Sandler movie "Grown Ups", this story, written by Skylar Fox and Simon Hendriques and first produced in 2021 in Brooklyn, New York, tells the story of a group of senior camp counselors on the cusp of change-not only in their own lives but in the world around them, a world that's growing closer to an all-out armageddon with each passing campfire.

While the play starts off with those comedic discussions between camp counselors on how their young campers are behaving or mis-behaving, what to do with them each day and how to improve life at camp for them, the production slowly turns dark as skeletons in the camp counselors closets crash out and the world around them slowly begins to unravel as they talk around that peaceful, tranquil campfire each night.

It's a tough enough time in a late teen's life as they contemplate the changes to come in their lives-college, relationships, adulthood and the writers through a huge kink in that plan by adding to it a world around them on the brink, something  close to what we all see around us each day...

The five camp counselors who the audience hangs on every incredibly-written word, seem to be cast in roles that were written specifically for them and their many talents.  Tim Etzel is incredibke as head counselor Aidan, stuck in his overwhelming camp resposibilities and lack of sleep while throwing a periless eye toward the hell going on in the world outside camp.  Ashley Ouellette plays the straight-laced counselor Becca, whose struggling with her own long-standing friendships that, like her world, begin to unfold in ways she couldn't have seen coming.  Divina Hernandez plays the newest camp counselor Cassie, who is yet to be fully welcomed by the counselor group but has more baggage soon to be reveiled than all the counselors put together.  Carson Pavao plays the super funny Lukas, a huge comic relief through some of its darker times-that's how Lukes deals with those isses(we all know someone like that!) as they struggle to understand what is happening not only at the camp but in the world that they only get to check into each night when their cell phones are passed out to at the nightly campfire.  Brooke Aubin rounds out the talented cast as Maeve, someone who feels like they have all the answers until they don't(we know plenty of those people too). 

I wrote a lot of great lines down from this well-written, ultra-contemporary play but the one that sticks with me the most-and the one director Cyrus Busteed also cited in his introduction to the play is-"We are the living prophesies of the future we'll create".  It's a line that should make us all think.  And force us all to do a better job in this world with the life we have.

"The Grown Ups" is a very moving, often funny play that will make you think for days after..  It's one of those intense plays that you may need to see a few times to fully grasp all of its impacts and that's ok.  It's well worth it.  I would encourage parents to bring their teens-12 and over should be good-as this is their lives, their "prophesies" that are being created here and they need to be a part of it all.  Right now.