Sept. 24--Playwright Aline Lathrop gives us much to think about when it comes to youth and transgender identity in 'Merchild' at 16th Street Theater.
"Nothing ever happens in Wilmette," says one of the upper-middle class characters in Aline Lathrop's "Merchild," a new play about a cute kid growing up in a loving and affluent nuclear family on the North Shore -- a kid who finds that his liberal, academic parents are perfectly willing to embrace the idea of a gay son but much less tolerant of the kid's wish to be treated as a transgender child.
Lathrop's play unspools at the 16th Street Theater in Berwyn in a world-premiere production directed by Ann Filmer. You come to admire her decision not to put her central character, Adam (Peyton Shaffer), in obviously hostile circumstances, but rather in a family where mom (Lia D. Mortensen) is a dean (at Northwestern University, presumably) and dad (Malcolm Callan) is a writer and adjunct professor. They're not troubled initially by Adam's obsession with Disney's Ariel (hence the title of the play), and their family is as together as any family could be expected to be these days. Adam even has an older sister, Rhea (Stella Martin), who enjoys hanging out with her kid brother, for the most part. Lathrop is making the point -- and making the point very well -- that transgendered kids are encountering what you might call a last great prejudice. Even when you're born into a family that styles itself as progressive, you aren't guaranteed support for your truth or a full embrace of your experience.
In the play, these bewildered parents eventually visit a conservative psychologist (played, as one of many assignments, by Ed Dzialo) whose style is to push the child to play with boys toys -- and thus away, of course, from Adam's beloved Ariel. It's here that the play stretches credibility a bit -- there's no question that many parents in such a situation, even today, might not embrace the child's self-determination and indeed might consult a damaging professional, but there is something about the way this particular shrink is drawn, with his crude aversion therapies, that works against the picture of the parents that Lathrop has so carefully drawn. They'd need to be more desperate than they seem here.
If you're a parent yourself (as I am) watching this play, your head likely will go to what you would do in such circumstances -- if your kid articulated a desire for surgery, say. Most reasonable parents, and most psychological professionals, surely would advocate doing little in a rush, but rather encouraging the kid to be who he wants to be, understanding that life choices made in childhood have to be carefully wrought. That doesn't work so well in a one-act play -- neither inaction nor a period of quiet observation is especially dramatic. But I'd still argue the piece needs to show us that they've been considered; if it did, we'd empathize more fully with everyone concerned -- which is, I think, Lathrop's intent.
"Merchild" is quite well-acted at the 16th Street Theatre, with young Shaffer offering a formidably impressive performance in a role that asks a kid to go far beyond what most child actors ever are asked to do. Mortensen and Callan are also strong, and Martin is very warm-centered, although not really credible as a young teenager. Indeed, the ages of everyone are a bit murky in this production. At one moment, Adam is offering sophisticated critical analyses. At another, we see him playing with a very young child's toys. His age thus seems to morph as the show goes on, even from scene to scene. This needs centering. In a play like this, the age of the kid is relevant. The ending of "Merchild" represents a drastic finale, not yet fully earned in all that goes before in this production.
I think it could be. "Merchild" is a risky and provocative piece of writing that made for a challenging assignment in Berwyn. Like a lot of dramas about family problems, it needs a rewrite with an eye on shading, nuance and the quieter conversations that inform how we solve things, and also how we sometimes make everything worse.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@tribpub.com
REVIEW: Merchild at 16th Street Theater
2.5 STARS
When: Through Oct. 17
Where: 16th Street Theater, 6420 W. 16th St., Berwyn
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Tickets: $18 at 708-795-6704 or 16thstreettheater.org
