City Lit Presents EMMA’S CHILD Review

Jean Farrell (Kat Evans) is nursing a glass of white wine which we infer is not her first of the evening, even if she isn’t yet full-frontal sloshy. She teases and cajoles her husband, Henry Farrell (James Sparling) to sing along to Xmas carols, though both his Jewish background and lack of vocal range present a handicap in doing so. At some point this banter mode fails Jean, and just as she is about to fall into an abyss of angst, Henry leaps from his chair and quickly moves to her side. He then protectively cradles Jean in his arm and with a slightly tremulous voice acquiesces to her request for a Xmas carol.

There it is laid bare—the love, the superglue of their marriage bond.

It’s the ability of a severely disabled newborn to summon deep bonds, or not, that is the driver of this story. For 16 years Jean and Henry had been on a path to become parents, and the severely disabled titular Emma’s Child is not what they had in mind. Jean, along with the intensive care nursing staff, relishes even the smallest steps the baby takes to survive. Henry, on the other hand, is repelled. For him, the enormity of their legal and financial difficulties in taking on the child is paramount—and perhaps even more, his appreciation of the emotional costs doing so entails.

City Lit Gives Outstanding Script Its Due

Add in the couple’s old friends whose marriage bonds have just dissolved, and playwright Kristine Thatcher gives us an X-ray of how bonds happen and un-happen. Don’t think of an old-fashioned X-ray machine that takes images from one static spot. Rather, think of 3-D imaging that slices and dices the heart of the matter from every angle. You too may especially be tickled by the script’s deep dives into the internal lives of its characters in what feels like real time. As Jean has a moment of self-awareness saying out loud, to paraphrase, “Oh, did I say my husband was an ogre?” we get walloped by her voice oozing both regret and surprise. Better, there is nothing about these characters that feels like they were exported from central casting. For those of us who savor the complexities of the real multi-dimensional humans in our address book, Thatcher especially delivers.