By Michael J. Toscano
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, September 14, 2006; GZ10
Rockville Little Theatre opens not only a new season, its 59th, but perhaps a new chapter in its artistic growth with its current production of Jane Anderson's "The Baby Dance."
The play explores an issue of contemporary life, an excellent example of the power of theater to probe a complex, emotionally fraught subject with no easy answers, or maybe no answers at all. None of that would mean anything if execution of the challenging material were not successful. But under the steady hand of Sara Joy Lebowitz in her Rockville directorial debut, "The Baby Dance" achieves its full potential to engross, entertain and engage the mind and the heart.
"The Baby Dance" is about adoption, specifically one of those lawyer-arranged adoptions between strangers, with financial considerations involved. In this story are the thorny issues of social and economic class, guilt, greed and personal character. And then the playwright adds a twist that takes the issue in entirely new directions. It all seems vividly real, perhaps because Anderson has spent so much time with this subject. Over the years she has presented "The Baby Dance" as a novel, a made-for-TV movie and a play. In the midst of that, she endured her own experience with adoption.
Lebowitz reportedly had to shop the play around before finding a theater company that would stage it. There's nothing particularly controversial or offensive about the material, but there is an unconventional aspect to the play that may have left some groups fearful. (To go into that any further here would dilute your experience with the play and its ultimate impact.) So Rockville Little Theater deserves credit for its courage not to pander to audience expectations.
Wanda and Al (McCall Noelle Farrell and Brian Dettling), the poor couple giving up the baby, live in a Louisiana trailer park and already have a small brood of kids they are not able to support. As the play opens, Rachel (Kim Gowland), an older, upper-middle-class wife, arrives to meet them. The low-income couple is resentful of their situation, while Rachel patronizes them, concerned about Wanda's prenatal habits and the couple's casual racism.
The first act is entertaining but unremarkable as it veers back and forth between light comedy and serious moments. The gripping Act 2 is set in the hospital as prospective adoptive father Richard (Mike Young) shows up with Rachel and their lawyer, Ron (Bruce Kaplan), for the birth.
As the baby is being born, nervousness escalates into intense anxiety and then anguish, as the adults are forced to look deep within themselves. The finale is searing and troubling.
Anderson exposes human foibles through deft wit and sardonic comment, which Lebowitz's cast negotiates with skill and precision. They seamlessly make their way from moments that Lebowitz has them play for laughs to exchanges that peel away facades and lay bare unpleasant human weaknesses.
The actors avoid cliches in playing characters who are close to stereotypes: they could easily be the trailer-trash couple, the moneyed interlopers and the shyster lawyer. But Lebowitz keeps them grounded in multifaceted reality, which enhances the grief you might feel that the baby may be lost in the swirl of this dance.
"The Baby Dance" concludes this weekend, performed by Rockville Little Theatre at F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre, 603 Edmonston Dr. at Rockville Civic Center Park. Showtime Friday and Saturday is 8 p.m., with a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m. For tickets, call the box office at 240-314-8690. For information, visithttp://www.rlt-online.org.
