What I liked
Great Concept, Interesting Theme
What I didn't like
On Hannah’s Role
Hannah is introduced as the emotional center of the story—bright, self-aware, and seemingly positioned as the moral compass of the play. Early on, she carries a quiet strength, and her willingness to face her past mistakes head-on offers the audience a glimmer of accountability and hope. She’s played by a genuinely talented actress, who brings real emotional texture and vulnerability to the role, especially in the opening acts.
But as the story unfolds, Hannah’s character begins to unravel—not because of natural development, but because the writing gradually reshapes her into a sympathizer for her brothers’ actions. Despite her own acknowledgment of harm and her desire to grow from it, she becomes a passive figure who ultimately excuses or minimizes the very behavior she seemed poised to challenge.
This shift doesn’t just weaken her—it undermines the entire emotional foundation of the play. In a story that deals with such heavy and sensitive subject matter, Hannah’s arc should have anchored the narrative in moral clarity and introspection. Instead, her late-stage transformation into someone who grants absolution without consequence feels like a betrayal of her earlier strength. It plays less like complexity and more like a disturbing attempt to romanticize or excuse abusive behavior.
Had the play kept Hannah at the center, it could have explored the macabre with needed introspection. Her perspective was the one most grounded in moral struggle and emotional realism. Centering her story would have allowed for a more responsible and compelling interrogation of trauma, harm, and accountability. Instead, by shifting focus to the brothers, the play tilts toward an apologetic lens that dangerously implies sexual violence is something that can be understood and forgiven without being reckoned with. It’s not just a narrative misstep—it’s a thematic failure.
Bobby – Younger Brother
Bobby, the youngest brother, is initially portrayed as vulnerable, emotionally fractured, and shaped by a difficult past. There are strong explanations that he suffers from an addiction—potentially tied to his trauma—but the issue is never truly explored. Instead of taking the time to unpack his psychological state or examine how trauma and harm intersect in complex, often painful ways, the play reduces Bobby to a narrative device. His pain exists only to prop up broader, vague ideas about forgiveness and “both sides” empathy, which feels wildly inappropriate given the severity of the subject matter.
What’s most troubling is how the play uses Bobby’s trauma as a free pass for behavior that should be interrogated, not excused. His mental health and addiction are treated not as aspects of a real, complicated human being, but as convenient shields from accountability. There’s no emotional depth, no reckoning—just vague excuses and character defenses that undercut the entire moral weight of what’s being discussed.
A particularly miscalculated element is the romantic subplot involving Bobby’s ex. Her role seems designed solely to humanize him—to show that he is still capable of being loved, of being wanted, of being “not all bad.” Their interactions, her lingering love for him, and their suggestion of getting back together all attempt to soften the audience’s perception of Bobby. But this does nothing for the actual story. It doesn’t challenge him. It doesn’t deepen our understanding of his trauma. It simply paints him as someone worthy of forgiveness and intimacy without having earned it through accountability. The romance undercuts the weight of his future complicity or actions, and worse, feels like narrative justification disguised as emotional closure.
And then, at the end, we’re expected to watch Hannah—who should be the moral center of the play—team up with Bobby in what feels like a strange alliance or truce. The two of them move forward while the older brother Scott, is painted as the ultimate villain, which conveniently erases Bobby’s complicity and subtly reframes him as redeemable, even heroic. It’s an incredibly problematic narrative choice. If the play truly wants to confront the effects of trauma and cycles of abuse, Bobby should be held to the same level of scrutiny as the older brother or even Hannah. Instead, he’s let off the hook emotionally and ethically, which feels both dishonest and harmful.
The effect of this final act—this “team-up”—is that the play ends up reinforcing the idea that trauma justifies harm without ever demanding accountability. It leans into sentimentality and soft resolution instead of moral clarity. It doesn’t challenge the audience; it comforts them with false redemption. And in a story about sexual violence and the long shadows it casts, that’s not just lazy writing—it’s dangerous.
Scott The Older Brother – A Flat, Dangerous Villain
Scott’s character is perhaps the most frustrating and, frankly, the most dangerous part of the play. Unlike Bobby and Hannah—who at least partially acknowledge the weight of their past—the older brother embraces his darkness particularly through manipulation and flat out admission. He fully steps into the role of the villain, and worse, he seems completely unbothered by it. He doesn’t wrestle with guilt or self-reflection. He’s written as someone who believes the way he’s chosen to live—manipulative, harmful, violent—is entirely acceptable and normal.
On paper, having a character who consciously embraces their darkness isn’t inherently a problem. But in a play centered around sexual violence and trauma, that character must be constructed with psychological depth and narrative care. We need to understand why he thinks this way—not to excuse him, but to make his presence meaningful and allow the audience to process the horror of his choices through a critical lens. Instead, he’s given virtually no development. Even in the beginning his role is not clear until it’s explicitly told later. When first introduced, you cannot tell if he is their older brother, Bobby and Hannah’s foster parent, or Hannah’s fiancé. His past trauma is mentioned vaguely, almost casually, as a way to justify his behavior, but no time is spent exploring how that trauma translated into abuse or how he rationalizes his choices. The result is a cartoonishly evil character whose actions are glossed over instead of interrogated.
What makes this even more disturbing is that, throughout the play, there’s very little true opposition to his worldview. Outside of a few brief confrontations from Hannah—and on occasion, Bobby—his violence is never truly condemned. The narrative doesn’t push back. In fact, it lets him go on harming others unchecked. Even toward the end, when Hannah finally learns the full truth about what he’s done, she doesn’t take action. She doesn’t report him. She doesn’t hold him accountable. She simply lets him go. He walks away—free to continue living the way he wants—and the story allows it.
In a narrative where sexual violence is at the center, that is an inexcusable failure. To write such a heinous character without giving him complexity, without showing the consequences of his behavior, and without having the story actively challenge him, sends an incredibly dangerous message. It contributes to the larger problem in this play: a passive, sympathetic lens toward sexual violence, where trauma is either a vague excuse or a background detail rather than a call to moral clarity.
You cannot build a character like this and then let them vanish into the narrative fog without consequences. You cannot introduce a violent abuser and then treat them like just another part of someone else’s journey. If you’re going to write someone that awful, you owe the audience depth, critique, and confrontation—not silence.
The Ending
By the time we reach the final act—a moment that could have re-centered the story—it instead becomes the most disturbing and incoherent part of the play. Throughout the second half, the older brother begins grooming Bobby again—not physically, but emotionally—by revealing a hidden area and confessing that he’s continued the same cycle of harm they were once part of. It’s framed as a secret, an invitation for Bobby to return to something darker. Bobby doesn’t accept it fully, and in one of the play’s only moments of attempted clarity, he calls a family meeting with Hannah to expose what Scott has been doing.
This confrontation should be the turning point. But instead of decisive action, we get more murky silence. Hannah doesn’t respond immediately. She hugs Bobby, telling him something along the lines of “we’re in this together,” a moment that blurs the line between solidarity and misplaced forgiveness. She later attempts to call for help but ultimately says nothing. It’s not justice—it’s hesitation disguised as grace.
Then comes the final betrayal. Scott, never loud or overtly menacing, calmly invites them both to the secret area under the pretense of reconciliation. Once there, he does something to them. The lights go out. What follows is left implied—but it’s clear the cycle of abuse is not over. The audience is left not with closure, but with dread.
It’s not just that the ending is bleak—it’s that it feels unjustified. There’s no moral reckoning, no meaningful introspection, no narrative courage. The play flirts with complex themes, only to abandon them at the moment they matter most. What could have been a powerful confrontation with trauma becomes a final indulgence in it.
This wasn’t discomfort that provokes thought. This was discomfort that made me want to wash my hands and body afterwords. There’s a difference between making an audience sit with hard truths and forcing them to watch something that excuses or aestheticizes violence under the guise of emotional complexity. This play crossed that line. It didn’t just stumble through a difficult conversation—it weaponized it for shock, sentimentality, and ultimately, ambiguity that was never earned.
Other Thoughts
It’s important to say: stories like this absolutely deserve to have a place in theatre. The macabre, the painful, and the morally complex absolutely belong on stage. Theatre should be able to provoke, to disturb, and to wrestle with the darkest parts of the human experience. But there is a very thin line between grotesque and inappropriate, between introspective and exploitative.
A subject like sexual violence demands more than vague allusions or personal catharsis. It requires research. It requires listening to survivors. It requires nuance, clarity, and a sense of responsibility—especially in an industry where abuse is not just a theme but an ongoing reality. Without any of those things, work like this doesn’t challenge the status quo; it reinforces the harm. That’s why this play feels not just misguided, but dangerous.
There’s also an unrelenting obsession with sex in all its forms—conversations about BDSM, references to OnlyFans, Porn, constant talk of intimacy and desire— pseudo-incestuous innuendos delivered without room to breathe or process. Instead of sitting with the weight of the trauma being depicted, the play keeps shoving these elements forward in rapid succession, creating a feeling of sexual overload that reads more as fetishistic than reflective. There’s no contrast, no quiet space, no time for humanity—just a constant onslaught of provocation.
And then there are the truly baffling staging choices. The pseudo-incestuous energy between the brothers, the strangely sexual choreography of ensemble members crawling or writhing on the floor, the bizarre physical proximity between characters during moments of emotional disclosure—it all contributes to a deeply uncomfortable theatrical environment. At a certain point, it no longer feels like a play exploring darkness. It starts to feel like something else entirely—something voyeuristic. Simple moments like the older brother rustling his younger brothers hair feels like it could go into something extremely dark.
All of this raises a disturbing question: Is this play trying to explore difficult subject matter, or is it indulging in it? The line between confronting trauma and aestheticizing it is thin—and this production repeatedly crosses it without awareness or care.
My overall impression
Content Note: This review includes analysis of character arcs and the ending.
There’s a principle I believe all art follows: the right ingredients will always be present, but if the recipe isn’t followed correctly, the final product falls apart. In the case of “And What of the Children”, not only was the recipe poorly executed—the ingredients themselves felt moldy. The result was a deeply uncomfortable and, at times, inappropriate experience.
Some reviews have called this play “brave.” But a brave concept is not the same as brave storytelling. What unfolded on stage felt exploitative, not courageous. The handling of trauma—specifically sexual violence—was not only shallow, it bordered on fetishistic. Rather than offering a meaningful exploration of harm, healing, or justice, the play repeatedly excused violent behavior and muddied its moral stance to the point of being dangerous.
