Village Squire, 1979-08, Page 20THEATRE
Dolly lSeana McKenna], Peter [Sam Malkin] and Celia [Kate Trotter] in a scene from James Nichol's
powerful play Child at the Blyth Summer Festival.
Touchy topics
deftly dealt with
in James Nichol's
Child
18 Village Squire, August 1979
If you're in the mood for some
light-hearted, light-headed theatre enter-
tainment, don't go to see James Nichol's
Child now playing at the Blyth Summer
Festival. If you don't mind being
challenged to think then Child provides
that plus some true emotions.
' It's not that Child is all black and dull.
The first night audience managed to find
quite a few laughs, particularly in the first
lfalf. But Nichol also touches on some of
the most controversial subjects of the
1970's: issues such as abortion and the
"me generation".
The play may not be too popular among
the young professionals who make up the
theatre crowd in more urban centres but it
seems to fit the feelings of the more family
oriented audience that patronizes the Blyth
Festival. It starts off dealing with a young
couple whose eight year old son walked off
to school one day as a winter storm was
blo.ving up, and hasn't been seen in three
weeks. They take turns blaming each other
for what has happened.
Eventually the story becomes just as
much the story of the two neighbours who
come to visit the couple one evening and
get storm stayed overnight. The husband is
an example of the rational, with -it
generation who doesn't want a family
because it would interfere with his plans to
have an interesting, trouble-free life. His
wife, however isn't so sure. She went along
with her husband a couple of years earlier
when she became pregnant and he insisted
she have an abortion so their lives wouldn't
be ruined. This time she wants to keep the
baby but he's strongly against it.
So under one, roof we have one man
whose missing son meant everything to
him particularly after his career went sour
and another who can have a child but wants
no part of it.
Nichol is a family man himself and
there's no doubt that he has captured the
feelings of anxiety, tenderness, warmth,
beauty and ugliness involved in family
relationships. All the emotions of the four
characters ring true.
There is no doubt either where Nichol
stands. Many of the laughs in the play