POWERFUL, MOVING AND HAUNTING!!
Despite its disturbing name, this is without doubt one of the most meaningful plays I have attended in a long while. Though a fictional tale, this engaging drama effectively combines a hearkening back to the tragic outcomes of an era prior to child labor laws with the more modern social norms of contemporary China and its prescribed views toward female infants. This comes across strongly as a historical piece, set perhaps in a quasi-European locale, and seems as if it could easily pass for recollection rather than fiction. Historical elements such as the era-bound songs played throughout and the torn white patch on Annabelle's jacket, which can only remind audiences of the similar patches sewn on the Jews' clothing during Nazi Germany's rule as a sign of degraded identity, all lend a sad realism to this moral tale.
Author/Play write Jeremy Menekseoghu creates an all too familiar yet terrifying world in which parents must choose only one amongst their children to become the "chosen". The others, they are told, will fall smilingly into the kind arms of the Orphanages who will care, protect and provide for them.
But whereas Capitalism mercilessly trumps the good will of Charity, so will the machinery of child labor inevitably envelope the welfare and lives of those fated children cast aside by their parents. This tale, above all, brings to a boil the confrontation between our desire for a life of comfort and luxury and the inhuman price we are willing to pay for it.
This play was simply astounding and wholly lived up to the stated philosophy of the Side Project Theater. Baby Killers is performed by Dream Theater Company whom I shall now diligently follow due to their gritty content and excellent performance here.
The cast is four fold:
Judith Lesser (the lovely in the photo) plays Annabelle in a manner more than convincing. Due to the central juxtaposition of her character's world between that of orphan and socially accepted, her superb performance allows authentic pity, pride and moral contemplation.
Colby Sellers plays the moral crux of the tale, an executioner with a deep conscience, a part I found myself wholly engaged with.
Anna Walker (as Famous Fay) and Jeremy Menekseoghu (the Artistic Director and here as Mr Prize) also did a wonderful job in their role as characters comprising the low moral ground.
This play, which I heartily recommend, plays through February 4 at the Side Project Theater less than one mile south of Evanston, just west of Jarvis and Sheridan. For the price of entry, the proximity of your seats to the characters, and the contemplation which will inevitably follow, this experience can't be beat.
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