It’s the onset of doomsday and there is still a funny side.The backdrop of London’s latest hot ticket - Lucy Kirkwood’s new play “The Children” - gets pretty rapidly sketched in. There are cracked roads, a tsunami wave, an explosion and nuclear disaster. Yet there are still laughs to be had amid the death knell, those bells from under the sea that ring ominously as the piece comes to a portentous end.Right at the opening we have surprise visitor Rose with a nosebleed dripping onto her top, and her host Hazel promising to wash it out with a product that can remove stains of blood, butter, all dairy products and even semen. “That’s a big problem you have is it?” deadpans Rose for the first smile of the evening. Then Hazel says she is surprised to see her old acquaintance: “don’t take this the wrong way but... we heard you had died.” Another gentle ripple of mirth, but already the humor is turning darker in this work by the award-winning author of “Chimerica. Kirkwood, in her early 30s, is being acclaimed as a major force in British theater.Despite the title, there are no children seen in the play, just three scientists in their 60s. But their impact of family lies everywhere. At one point the dialogue goes: “Do you want to call your children?” “Why?” “To let them know your plans.”The trio revisits their previous lives and loves and wonders what future they will leave for the next generation, if it is to exist at all. Hazel sums up their choice even before she sees what is coming: retirees, she says, can either melt into slippers, order front-fastening bras, drink a box of wine a day and watch TV constantly – or “make a committed choice to keep moving.”We have yet another apocalypse and afterlife play here (think of Caryl Churchill’s recent “Escaped Alone” at the Royal Court, soon to return to the venue, and its recent premiere of Alistair McDowell’s “X”). Still, Kirkwood works hard to stop the topic becoming hackneyed. She subtly draws out the love triangle involving Hazel’s husband Robin – passionate kisses reprised, an angry slap and a cool “but not too cool” jerky dance by all three to James Brown.“The Children” fits the current trend of no-interval, two-hours straight-through plays – putting demands on the audience (with no readmission and periods of darkness) and especially the cast. Francesca Annis is particularly outstanding as Rose, who harbors regrets about her personal life and not having had her own family life, hears church bells under the water and yet is coolly resigned to her fate. Deborah Findlay nicely portrays Hazel, the organic-farm earth mother who is only now facing up to environmental catastrophe. Ron Cook plays Robin, who is lured astray by his milkmaid and fears his middle-aged spread has gone entirely to his ego. His physical desire is still there; he calls for steak not salad because, he meaningfully tells the others, “I feel like tearing something’s flesh with my own teeth.”The direction by James McDonald gives the action room to breathe, with naturalistic pauses for yoga sequences and considered reactions. It is full of nuance and metaphor and perhaps the three could do with quaffing more of that potent parsnip wine on offer.We are left with various plotlines unclear – which is fine: there is no rule that everything has to be tied in a neat bundle. Also we are given more questions than answers: what does family mean; have baby-boomers had it all too good; how do we respond to catastrophe – downsize; just survive; keep calm and carry on; or risk everything for our children?“The Children” is on at the Royal Court Theatre through January 14 2017.
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