Review: FIRE WORK at Theater Alliance

Let’s hear it for child labor!  It’s an odd thing to consider, especially in a week that began with Labor Day. But that’s an early surprise turn in Mary Glen Fredrick’s fiercely strange play “Fire Work” that is having part of its “rolling world premiere” at Theater Alliance.

It does make one think: After all, banning child labor made jobless the kids who were ostensibly helping their families survive — albeit at only 14 cents a day. 

Child labor wasn’t curbed in the U.S. until 1938 and it was not until 1941 that they couldn’t work in manufacturing or mining. But “Fire Work” is not tied to a country necessarily, or a time, or maybe even logic. 

In fact, nobody realizes the ramshackle 30-something ensemble on stage are supposed to be kids who are actually of single digits. 

You’d never know it from the way they all talk, cuss, smoke and toss around contemporaneous psychological terms (Or how big they all obviously are). 

Even when they’re playing an exuberant dodgeball variation called Eat the Rich, you’d just think they’re radical Gen Y types getting in touch with their inner child. But no. 

Having full grown adults playing kids is reliably unnerving on stage, but it has worked in things like “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” And you might begin to think of this group as an intensely radicalized “Peanuts” gang — particularly in the dance party that cops all their best moves— except for everything they say, and all of their actions.

Eleanor and Bartholomew work in a glass factory and are married (but we later learn they’re only pretend married the way kids do). They run into a gang of kids who lives under a bridge and want to stop a proposed  law that would stop child labor. They don’t want to accomplish this by, say, petitioning, lobbying or persuasion, for example. Their idea is to blow up the legislative building where it’s being considered and killing all the representatives inside. 

And who better to help them than this fake married couple whose job each night is to light fireworks over the city (a part of the story so way out that reality loses its final moorings).

Absurdity may be a goal in a play meant to be a romp but at some point it loses meaning especially when a boss shows up and encourages their terrorist plan, because, after all, he’ll continue to benefit from their exploitation the most.

The arrival of the boss is the one delightful highlight of “Fire Work” — and one good laugh — that’s worth the spontaneous applause it’s given. It’s the kind of casting move that never happened in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” and probably shouldn’t be revealed in detail here (But I have to say the reason this “special appearance” is split between two actors is because of actual child labor laws).

Given the weird, unsatisfying premise too strange to even serve as metaphor, the Theater  Alliance crew does its best with a largely solid cast and thoughtful production. 

Andreá Bellamore, as Eleanor, has more dramatic depth than a grade schooler might have; Solomon Langley is sound as Bartholomew, the lone voice of reason, though he seems more glum than alarmed when plans get violent. 

Madison Norwood and Alana Collins Maldonado are fine as bridge gang members with differing methods of persuasion — the former more crafty, the latter tough. 

The exuberant Victoria Gómez is the one cast member who comes close to approximating a child. And Eric Lane has a different dramatic chore, being the one cast member who doesn’t express himself verbally. While others in his gang on stage can easily understand what he tries to furiously mime, much of it is lost on the audience. 

Shanara Gabrielle directed with less pizazz than a play this weird might require. But the Theater Alliance’s current setting, in a bleak, empty urban retail space is perfect for a play about unhoused youth creating their spaces on the fly. Gisela Estrada creates a playful, well detailed set largely out of detritus. 

Lighting director Yannick Godts and sound designer Matthew M. Nielson, working with projections designer Jonathan Dahm Robertson, have a good time setting off indoor fireworks using lights and sound only. But there’s some delicate business involving a firefly as well. 

Costume Designer Danielle Preston deserves a shout out not for the typically dreary togs of the struggling revolutionaries, but for the stellar top hat and cane for the special boss man’s appearance. 

Running time: About 90 minutes, no intermission.

Photo credit: Andreá Bellamore and Solomon Langley in “Fire Work.” Photo courtesy of Theater Alliance. 

“Fire Work” runs through Sept. 21 at Theater Alliance, 240 Maple Dr. SW, Washington, DC. Ticksts available online.