Playwright: Rebecca Gilman. At: 16th Street Theater, 6420 16th Street, Berwyn. Tickets: 708-795-6704; www.16thstreettheater.org; $18. Runs through: Aug. 13
Thirtysomething Melinda and Jasper have been shooting for pregnancy for six months as best buds Windsong and Dan are near-term with their first child, a daughter. Melinda believes a baby will bring personal and marital fulfillment but Jasper isn't so sure. At a disastrous July Fourth barbeque, the very pregnant Windsong and Dan are pitted against sixty-ish Tom and Karen, who made a conscious decision not to have children. The older couple are Melinda and Jasper's liberal and smart upstairs neighbors and landlords. Hey, it's Lucy and Ricky and Ethel and Fred. Not! Tom and Karen make witty intellectual hash of Windsong and Dan and slacker buddy Dwight (Dan and Jasper's garage bandmate), while Jasper emerges as the torn and conflicted central figure, momentarily convinced by Melinda's desire to make another Jasper.
However, author Rebecca Gilman has bigger fish to fry than parenthood alone. She's out to dissect societal expectations (of marriage and family), inculcated patterns of behavior and the very nature of marital devotion. Is having a child the completion of ideal love? Or does it destroy ideal love? Can a child bridge the gaps in a marriage that may be less than ideal? Gilman does not attempt to answer these probably-unanswerable questions, but she certainly knows how to set the ducks in a row.
Her play very much is a thesis play, a work of ideas rather than of story or character. At 75 minutes, there's very little time for the characters to stake out much territory beyond their position statements. This could be deadly in the hands of a less-witty author, but Gilman is skilled in the use of comedy and pointed social satire. "Of course you're scared (of parenthood)," acerbic Karen says to Windsong. "The world's probably going to end within your baby's lifetime."
Working in a very intimate space, director Anish Jethmalani downplays speechmaking in favor of an easy and loose naturalism in a script which could pass as a well-written, deeper-than-most teleplay. There are a few inert moments when all seven actors crowd the stage, but they probably are unavoidable given the small dimensions, nicely rendered by scenic designer Roger Wikes as the neat-as-a-pin backyard of a Chicago-style brick two-flat.
The acting ensemble is ingratiating and convincing in drawing Gilman's oh-so-familiar types. I recognized a bit too much of myself in Tom (Steve Ratcliff) and Karen (Joan Kohn), the older couple leftover from the activist 1960's and 1970's, and more happily noted how Gilman captures the self-centered attitudes of the Me Generation of the younger couples, nicely played by Sorin Brouwers (Jasper), Michelle Courvais (Melinda), Brad Harbaugh (Dan) and Skyler Schrempp (Windsong). Andy Slade completes the cast as amiable, nearly-invisible band buddy Dwight.