When did you last see a baby at a show? And when did you last see a baby in a show?
If you attended one of the early previews of Tracy Letts’ “Mary Page Marlowe” at the Steppenwolf Theatre in 2016, you likely saw a bona fide, real-life baby on the stage. The idea behind this wise and moving play — which begins previews for its New York premiere at the high-profile Second Stage Theatre on June 19 under the direction of Lila Neugebauer — was that seven different actresses would all play the titular character, an ordinary woman from Ohio, at different stages of her life.
Those stages included shortly after birth. Thus a baby was hired.
And then fired.
By the time I saw the show on opening night, the baby was a faker.
The publicity was changed to six actresses playing Mary Page Marlowe at different stages of her life.
As Steppenwolf artistic director Anna D. Shapiro explained to me at the time, the theater found that audiences were just too pained by the onstage presence of a real-life baby. Mary Page Marlowe’s parents were a troubled pair with a difficult marriage, and Letts had written a scene wherein the baby is left alone for a short while in the crib as her parents fight. There were baby wranglers aplenty to ensure that the small actor was doing fine — and the baby’s mom also was a matter of feet away — so the well-fed baby actress basically just lay there and gurgled happily. But audiences were so demonstrably worried on her behalf that Shapiro decided they were being pulled out of the scene, much to the detriment of the show. They weren’t worrying about the character, as Letts had intended, but about the performer.
“Detrimental empathy” is what dramatic theorists call that stuff.
I remember thinking all of that was understandable but that this also was kind of a shame. “Mary Page Marlowe” was a beautiful piece of writing and unique in its determination to show a character at all of her formative moments. Furthermore, it was fascinating to watch so many different actors play her on the same night, all with different qualities but also unified by the same single goal. Our babyhood is a crucial part of our lives; it felt like a real baby should have been a part of so human a story.
That story came flying back into my head this week as I watched “Cry It Out,” a moving and beautiful new play at the Northlight Theatre penned by Molly Smith Metzler. I’ve never seen a show that better captures the disruptive force of becoming a new parent.
Despite its title, “Cry It Out” did not offer an employment opportunity for a real baby at Northlight. That took some manipulation of plot, since the work is centered on the feelings and worries of mothers of newborns, and many such mothers have their babies with them at almost every moment. But Metzler made it work, partly by giving the mothers phones on which they could watch their babies, and partly by making sure that when a baby actually made an appearance in the backyard setting, she was asleep. Thankfully, we were all saved the need to hide a squawking wireless speaker in a doll, with all due respect to the miraculous powers of sound designers who can make inanimate objects cry.
“Cry It Out” is the kind of play that’s so warm, affirmative and truthful, you want to buy a ticket for every new mom and dad that you know. Which leads you to worry about what they would actually do with their own babies.
Some movie theaters have baby-friendly screenings, but you’re only getting a movie. And theaters like Chicago Children’s Theatre have very baby-friendly atmospheres (you could take one, for example, to “Last Stop on Market Street” and you’d be fine). But a children’s theater is mostly for children; “Cry It Out” at Northlight is for moms with babies.
So a modest proposal for a theater that does not normally let children under 7 into the theater. Let any and all babies into the theater for this show. Let them gurgle and cry all they like. Let the cranky subscribers be temporarily appalled. In this case, such distractions would not distract from the play, they’d only increase its emotional power.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.
cjones5@chicagotribune.com
