Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Theater Review | 'Love Child'

Two Actors, Many Guises and a Skewed Greek Play

Love Child
NYT Critic’s Pick

“Love Child,” which Primary Stages opened at the 59E59 Theaters in October 2008, has returned to Off Broadway. It opened on Saturday night at New World Stages, 340 West 50th Street, Clinton; (212) 239-6200. Following are excerpts from Neil Genzlinger's review, which appeared in The New York Times on Oct. 30, 2008.

Daniel Jenkins and Robert Stanton have been in some high-profile, high-priced shows on Broadway, but it’s hard to imagine that they have ever had more fun than they’re having now in “Love Child,” a delicious romp of their own making.

Image
"Love Child": Robert Stanton, left, and Daniel Jenkins in a character-filled backstage romp of their own devising at New World Stages.Credit...Carol Rosegg

Mr. Jenkins (“Mary Poppins,” “Big River”) and Mr. Stanton (“The Coast of Utopia”) have created an outlandish backstage story full of eccentric characters: actors, parents of actors, agents, other miscellaneous oddballs. And the joy of the piece is that the two men play the whole menagerie themselves, with nothing but a few chairs on the bare stage to help them or the audience.

Seemingly every accent, gesture and facial tic in the actors’ respective kit bags is called into service to tell the story of an actor named Joel (Mr. Jenkins) and the ridiculous play he finds himself in, a modern skewing of Euripides’ “Ion.” We see the actors — a half-dozen or so — chattering backstage as they put on their opening-night makeup, Mr. Stanton and Mr. Jenkins switching from one to the next. We also see the audience, which includes Joel’s very nervous agent, Ethel (Mr. Stanton), and her sister, Kay (Mr. Jenkins). Kay has a tendency to get overly caught up in the performance she is watching, to the point of talking to the actors.

Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Stanton have said that the idea for “Love Child” was born years ago when, cast in the same play, they ran up against a particularly noisy Kay-and-Ethel pair of audience members. Part of the keep-up-if-you-can fun of “Love Child” is that the men play with perspective: one minute you’re in the audience with Kay and Ethel, seeing the play; the next you’re seeing the audience as if you were on the stage.

This show would be all just very skilled gimmickry if not for the story, which is a well-turned yarn in its own right. By the time it’s over, you may feel as strong an urge as you are ever likely to feel actually to read “Ion” yourself.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 2 of the National edition with the headline: Two Actors, Many Guises And a Skewed Greek Play. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT