Theater Review—

A Culture’s Fading Institutions, At Westport Country Playhouse

By Julie Stern

WESTPORT — Designed by James Noone, the setting for A.R. Gurney’s Children is a sprawling, weathered, slightly shabby summer house situated on an island off the coast of Massachusetts, overlooking the ocean. At Westport Country Playhouse it is created in lovingly realistic detail, down to the aging barbecue grill and the battered croquet set leaning against the side of the porch.

Such efforts are typical of Westport Country Playhouse’s perfectionism, but in this play — one of Gurney’s early gems — the house is a potent symbol that embodies the playwright’s particular theme.

With its beachfront location, its private tennis court, and five acres of undeveloped land shielding it from encroachment, the house is a bastion of New England privilege. But the roof needs work, there is no central heating, and above all, the property needs a new sea wall to protect it against the inevitable erosion by winter storms.

Gurney, famous as the chronicler of the American WASP, used a John Cheever short story (Goodbye My Brother) as his inspiration for this examination of a family fighting over their inheritance, even as the values of their heritage are being questioned and eroded by currents of social change.

It is the July fourth weekend in the early 1970s. Mother, a strong minded matriarch, informs her newly divorced daughter, Barbara, and her son Randy, a Latin teacher and coach at a boys’ boarding school, that their black sheep brother, Pokey, is arriving on the ferry, with his wife and children. Including Randy’s wife and four kids, and Barbara’s two, it will be a full house.

Pokey hasn’t been seen in five years; he has refused to set foot on the island ever since his father died in a swimming accident. He is coming now, Mother explains, because she wrote to him and informed him that as of September, she will be giving the house to the three of them — as per her husband’s will — because she is planning to get married again, to “Uncle Bill,” an old family friend.

As someone who has always stirred up dissension, Pokey is a rebel who criticizes all the family customs and practices. He dropped out of Yale, he works for the Justice Department investigating Civil Rights violations, and above all, he is married to Miriam, a Jew, who doesn’t shave her legs, is working on a PhD, and persists in reading to her children — in the daytime — rather than encourage them to go out and engage in healthy sporting activities.

In discussing what they want to do with the house, Randy is adamant that the first order of business is to repair the tennis court. Barbara, who hates living in Boston on the measly pittance her ex-husband gives her, demands that the house be winterized so that she can stay there all year round.

The unseen Pokey issues a demand (through his mother) that they buy him out… which they can only do by selling the property to someone who would develop it.

While brother and sister squabble like a pair of ten-year-olds, Jane has been hanging out with Miriam and comes back to declare that she likes Miriam, and that while Miriam’s ways are certainly different from what Jane was brought up to be, they seem pretty interesting.

Under Randy’s suspicious prodding, it comes clear that Barbara’s desire to move to the island year round has to do with her romance with a married man — a townie, named Artie Bieber, who was once their yard boy, and who grew up to become a builder (who is in turn in line for the big job of fixing up the house).

What Gurney is doing is examining the fading institutions of a culture which embodied the preppy values of family ties, tradition, athletic accomplishments, manners, and physical attractiveness. At one time they carried with them a secure sense of entitlement, whereby outsiders knew their place, and the younger generation succeeded their elders in the bank, the country club, and the Ivy League.

But by the 1970s, when Children takes place, the younger generation has deteriorated into a bunch of spoiled, immature complainers, while aggressive and ambitious newcomers are pushing at the gates, unaware, or unconcerned, that their presence is not welcomed.

The play is not angry, and it is not a slam against the old values. Rather, it is a wryly affectionate portrait of Mother, who sees her old world crumbling, just as the house is in danger of being washed away in a few winters. She understands her limitations, and sees her children for what they are. What she will decide to do is the ultimate resolution.

Judith Light does a marvelous job in the role of Mother, amply supplemented by Mary Bacon as Jane, Katie Finneran as Barbara, and James Waterston as Randy.

If you enjoy Gurney — one of my favorite playwrights, best known for Sylvia, Love Letters, The Dining Room and The Cocktail Hour — you should really enjoy this show.