What I liked
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What I didn't like
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My overall impression
(Disclaimer: I have yet to speak to the playwright so I might just be talking out of my ass.)
“Does one have the right to be brutal towards others if that’s the way they want to live? And how much of that “wanting” do we have any control over?” Those were the central questions I took away from Ryan Lisman’s thought-provoking new play AND WHAT OF THE CHILDREN…
The answer to the first question might seem like a no-brainer, “No! Of course, not!” But if the answer is so obvious, why does that very “sadism in the name of Freedom” attitude seem so prevalent with a large part of Americans right now?
So really I felt play was a metaphor for the fractured state of our country. Lisman gives us three siblings. One representing reason and evolution from the past (slavery, genocide, abuse..etc) a second sibling representing the opposite end that spectrum which prioritizes inhumane amorality in the name of “freedom” and a third sibling who fluctuates between the two ends – seeking love, satiation for sexual appetite, but not sure how much morality he can even maintain in the face of that more belligerent second sibling. The play seems to be saying, “we’re all children of these horrors, and what are we to do in the face of dominating belligerence and inhumanity? How can we not become it? These are big questions which I admire the hell out of Ryan for exploring.
And to navigate, the playwright isn’t going to try to coddle you, or distract you laughter (save one scene) to sweeten the medicine he has prescribed. His goal is to reveal, little by little, the slippage of one’s moral strength in the face of our pressing nihilistic nature.. our violent past echoing like it is in Kubrick’s The Shining.
Which leads me to the second takeaway question: “How much of that “wanting” do we have any control over?” This is a harder question, and frankly one that Ryan hasn’t fully answered here because, who can really answer it??? Trauma so vast – and speaks to our inscrutable human nature. How can we push past and not repeat? How can we realize our greater human potential in the face of an imbedded Cruelty that we have experienced and that wants us to perpetuate itself through us? How much does this darkness define us?
This question echoes throughout, and in fact echoes are the very device Lisman utilizes in the ample transitions between scenes. It’s frightening stuff, and I have to commend its bravery in facing these themes. Frustrating as its intentional lack of resolution might be for some to take, it is that very cliff-hanger nature, that makes this play truly speak to the chaotic times we live in.
