The Play About The Baby
Arts
THEA 45
The Play About the Baby is a black comedy written by Edward Albee, produced by the Theatre Arts Department in fall of 2014. Albee uses Theatre of the Absurd to examine memories, ages, and perception of reality. First we meet Boy and Girl, a happy young couple with a new baby. They are soon joined by Man and Woman, a sinister couple who claim they've come to take the baby. The elder couple are puzzling at first, because they immediately address the audience directly. Man in particular, carries on at great length, telling the audience stories and musing about life and memories of the past. Man and Woman make many references to the fact that they are making everything up and nothing they say is true. They turn these questions of reality on Boy and girl and through a series of burlesque, circus like mind games, they convince the young couple that they, in fact, never had a baby to begin with. Although the story is about the loss of innocence, the performative aspect of he play asks an even deeper question of how theatre and it's devises allow us to examine our own perceptions of reality. Instead of using spectacle as a tool of entertainment, it is the lie that allows us to see a higher truth.
