It’s a dark, disturbing future that playwright Jacqueline Goldfinger lays out in her play, “Babel,” currently receiving an uneven staging at Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre.
The story looks at a time, a few years beyond now, when society has seen the need to control what type of children can be born.
Tests reveal possible traits such as anger or sociopathic tendencies.The option: abort and try again for a certifiably-perfect fetus or condemn your child to a sort of Siberia for misfits, whether or not those possible tendencies ever came to fruition.
Renee (Elizabeth Falcón) and her wife Dani (Callie Hutchison) have been trying for eight years to have a child. Finally pregnant Renee is in a panic — is she doing the Lamaze breathing correctly? Will she be a good mother? And, most of all, will the doctor pre-certify that her yet-to-be-born baby is on the road to perfection?
Dani tries to calm her, but when the doctor refuses to pre-certify the baby because the test indicates potential sociopathic behavior, there is no calming Renee. To make matters worse, a couple, close friends, is also expecting. They worry, too, but they don’t yet know if their fetus will make the grade. And Renee and Dani dare say nothing about their pregnancy as they are sure to be ostracized.
The play, which premiered last year at Unicorn Theater in Kansas City, is not perfect and has a sometimes-hard-to-follow storyline. But it also has compelling moments and plenty of humor.
Unfortunately, much of the humor was lost in this production as the pacing was off. Which is surprising: it was directed by Bryan Falcón, who usually has a keen eye for humor and pacing.
Elizabeth Falcón’s Renee started on a high, hysterical note and stayed there. That left the character with no modulation, no place to go.
Hutchison, as the more calm Dani, gave a solid strength and a quietly threatening nature to the character.
It’s thrilling to see live theatre again, and to have Scoundrel & Scamp back producing newer and adventurous theater. Even when it doesn’t work, we love that they have the courage and commitment to theater to do it.
