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March 24, 2006 > Arts & Entertainment > Baby sheds playful light on childbearing

Baby sheds playful light on childbearing

By Bryce Gray | Thresher Editorial Staff

Unexpected pregnancies, marriage, abortion and male impotence are all complex and challenging issues. So what better way to confront them than through … song! Wiess College’s spring musical, Baby, does just that, offering its audience a look at the difficulties and joys of three couples who experience concurrent conception.

The first couple, Alan (music graduate student Tom Conroy) and Arlene (Wiess College junior and show director Nicky Rodin), are a pair of uptight empty-nesters surprised by the unforeseen consequences of a night of drunken passion. The second, Nick (Isaac Chua, Baker ‘05) and Pam (Martel College senior Suzanna Attia), are a married couple struggling to conceive, and the third, Danny (Will Rice College senior Diego Tucker) and Lizzie (Sid Richardson College freshman Marisa Young), are a college couple who move in together just before discovering Lizzie is pregnant.

While Baby has a small principal cast, the play’s focus rarely lingers on any one of the couple’s narrative threads for long. Occasionally the whole cast shares the stage, but each couple remains in an isolated scene; during these choreographically challenging ensembles, it is difficult for the audience to ignore the characters frozen in place on the periphery.

The play is stronger when only one pair of actors is present onstage. Each couple has a slightly different chemistry, and the variation helps hold the audience’s attention.

Rodin and Conroy showcase their vocal talents in several duets. An upbeat tango number provides welcome energy early in the show and is countered by a dramatic song about the couple’s marital problems after intermission. The actors’ voices blend with virtuosic ease as they trade lines above a simple accompaniment.

Tucker and Young also work well, although their acting is slightly more convincing than their duets. However, both have little trouble taking control of the stage during their solos, and they belt out their lines with conviction and clarity, striking a beautiful balance with the show’s musical accompaniment.

Because of the play’s disjointed structure, Baby’s accompanists have a challenge in providing cues and timing transitions for the actors. Music director and pianist Chris Burt, a Wiess junior, fearlessly leads drummer Julien Jaworski (Baker ‘05) and bassist Elliot Cole, a Baker junior, through these rhythmic labyrinths. The three have a simplistic and tight sound that belies the complexity of their music.

A simple set aids the instrumental musicians and eases scene changes. The stage is bare and black, and the same props are recycled from scene to scene, minimizing the distraction of each entrance and exit. A few awkward and unavoidable set changes plague the first act — as the writing tries to wrap up each couple’s story, Rodin cannot help accommodating the playwright’s breaks.

Overall, Baby successfully walks the line between serious themes and comic scripting. There are several very funny moments, from Wiess freshman Jason Hawley’s cameo as a bumbling doctor to a troupe of baby-obsessed geriatrics cornering a very pregnant Lizzie in the park. Entertaining, heartfelt and only occasionally preachy, Baby provides an interestingly eclectic and melodic perspective on the prospect of birth.

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