KIDSTUFF

Written by Edith Freni

Directed by Erica Gould

At Theater Row Studios

412 West 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036

(212)279-4200

 

Review by Ethan Kanfer

 

Although it’s in need of a few rewrites, Edith Freni’s bittersweet comedy explores an intriguing truth: how the unfinished stuff of adolescence surreptitiously drives the decisions we make as adults.

 

After the death of her mother, 30-year-old Eve, played by Sarah Nina Hayon, finds herself cast emotionally adrift in life with little sense of direction. The only thing that seems to interest her is endlessly reexamining her first love and its awkward demise. High school beau Chet was the love of her life — until she caught him cheating on her with the (of course) vastly inferior Francesca. Eve seeks help from psychodrama guru Lou, played by Peter O’Connor. Using Eve’s script, actors take on the parts of the teenage lovers, adding improvised behavior as they go. Lou prompts them to explore their emotions, but internecine squabbles and inflated egos cause the sessions to deteriorate into unproductive mayhem.

 

Bittersweet: Sarah Nina Hayon and Vincent Madero revisit the past in Edith Freni’s Kidstuff.

 

A chance to really reenact the past occurs when Eve bumps into Chet, played by Justin Blanchard, at a jewelry store. As it happens Chet, too, has never quite gotten over the relationship. The two enter into a cautious rekindling of the romance. But before things can go very far, more ghosts from the past come back to complicate their happiness. 

 

At its best, Freni’s dialogue captures both the comedy and melancholy of the struggle to come of age. Unfortunately, many of the play’s more intriguing elements are underdeveloped. Flashbacks offer a tantalizing glimpse of  Eve’s detached Dad and alcoholic brother, played by Christopher Van Dijk and Vincent Madero. Yet the reasons for their behavior, and how the family dynamic influenced Eve’s world view, are barely touched on. The connection, or lack thereof, with her departed mother also goes largely unexplored. Instead, large amounts of stage time are devoted to the repetitious psychodrama sessions, which provoke few laughs and move neither the play nor its protagonist forward.

 

Under Erica Gould’s direction, the cast hits the script’s somber and farcical notes with equal proficiency. Hayon especially, captures the ambiguities of a psyche that is simultaneously immature and wise beyond its years. It is to be hoped that the gifted playwright will take another pass at the material. Like its characters, Kidstuff has what it needs to succeed. But without further attention paid to the script, it will stay stuck in state of arrested development.