Review: LEKA FÖR LIVET/ MAKE BELIVE at Playhouse Teater

Bess Wohl's play Make Belive about the Conlee siblings premiered in 2018 on Broadway. The play takes place in the attic playroom of the Conlee family. As the audience takes their seats, the play creeps into action when seven-year-old Addie enters the stage and starts playing with her favorite doll. Her siblings Chris (age 12), Kate (age 10) and Carl (age 5) join one by one. All have the classic family roles, Chris a supportive, rowdy older brother, Kate the orderly study horse, Addie caring and Carl a quiet little brother. Soon they begin to wonder where their mother is. She should be home when they get home from school. Dad is on a business trip. Time passes and no mother comes home. The phone rings, the hairdresser, work and others leave messages on the answering machine wondering where she is. Siblings get to prepare food themselves and start playing mother, father, child and dog. The friction that was felt from the beginning becomes clearer in the play when a dysfunctional family is depicted with a violent and dominant father and a depressed mother. It is poignant and painful to see what the children's image of a family is like. The young actors really reach out to the audience and stirs their emotions.

We are quickly moved 30 years forward in time. Same attic, playroom untouched. The siblings gather. Growing up has left its mark on everyone but in different ways and they have entered the adult world with different survival strategies. Secrets are revealed that shake them up.

The absence of the parents is marked both on stage and emotionally with the siblings. The perspective is entirely that of the children. Ingenious with children who first play the siblings to bring out the naive, innocent look that has already begun to crack, a look that is then changed to the adult's more experienced, but who still did not fully understand what was going on while growing up.

A well-acted play with a contemporary topic, thought-provoking that comes very close and stirs up emotions.

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