Watching ‘The Children’

Ensemble Theatre Company’s latest production The Children at the New Vic confronts the three-member cast with a stunning moral dilemma regarding the older and newer generations and environmental accountability.

After a tsunami wreaks havoc on a nuclear reactor in rural England, a married couple’s lives are further disrupted by the mysterious appearance of a long-lost colleague, delightfully played by Linda Purl with the two retired nuclear engineers wonderfully acted by Michael Butler and Nancy Travis.

The play, written by Lucy Kirkwood and directed by Jenny Sullivan, was a hit on Broadway and in London’s West End, and in 2019 London’s Guardian newspaper, edited by an old Cambridge Evening News colleague Alan Rusbridger, placed the play third on a list of the greatest theatrical works since 2000.

Kudos also go to scenic designer Sam Vawter and lighting designer Michael Rathbun.

Inspired by the events in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011, the two-hour production – which runs through April 23 – is anything but child’s play!