REVIEW: THE GROWN-UPS at Theater With A View

By Neal Newman

August 17, 2022

A visit to Theater with a View is always an unusual and memorable experience.  The setting, after a long, gorgeous drive in the country, is the back of a large house set on a huge and sylvan backyard landscape.  This time the maskless audience sits in a circle surrounding a campfire.  There is no stage, and one wonders where the play will be performed.  The fire is real and audience members roast marshmallows and make s’mores as the sun drops behind the trees.  The only lighting is a string of outdoor lights above and the fire.  The lighting is credited to Christopher Annas-Lee who may also have created a few excellent special and sound effects.

The play begins when the cast of five begins telling stories. The plot, as much as there is, tells of twenty-something camp counselors, (the costumes are camp t-shirts and shorts), gathering around the fire to drink beer and chat after the young campers are put to bed.

There is some humor as they deal with modern woke issues. The lodge has been around since they were campers and now all the historical names and activities are no longer PC.

As night falls, the play becomes more serious.  The program refers to THE GROWN-UPS as “an apocalypse around a campfire”.  Something very dangerous or catastrophic is coming, but in the tradition of Beckett, Stoppard, and Pinter we are never sure what that is.  It soon become obvious that these young counselors are the “grown-ups” of the title and like all parents are totally unsure what the right choices are.  Eventually, the confusing but intriguing play warns that some events are coming to get us, and we’d better learn to appreciate what good things we have now before we lose everything forever.

Wow!  That’s quite an evening.  A little history can deepen the appreciation.  Theater with a View has not produced the play, as they usually do, (the wonderful Nina Covalesky is especially missed), but imported this entire production from Brooklyn.  THE GROWN-UPS gained instant fame as the only theater production running during the pandemic.  It was located outside in a backyard, where the address was released to ticketholders only hours before the event.  It was originally limited to seven audience members and caused quite a sensation.  The play was written by Skylar Fox and Simon Henriques with the assistance of the cast who quarantined for the rehearsal period and developed the script through discussions and improvisations.  The theater group is Nightdrive which has a long history of productions in unusual places.  Fox, the excellent co-author/director who pulls this all together, is also the “Manager of Illusions” for the worldwide HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD.  Following the Pottstown run, the production will travel to Bloomington Indiana for a two-month engagement.  This unconventional play has been optioned by Concord Theatricals and may very well turn up in a backyard near you in the future.

The cast are the original creators, Chloe Joy Ivanson, Emily Elyse Everett, Abby Melick, Simon Henriques.  They are joined by newcomer Zack Segel, a veteran of many Nightdrive productions.  They are an endearing group and succeed admirably acting literally inches away from the audience.  The photos, by Julie Fox, presented here are from the Brooklyn setting.  As the night darkens, so do the performances even though we don’t know exactly what is going on.  These plays never offer characters with incredible depth, but the actors bring strong and memorable personalities to the roles.

It was a provocative 100 minutes and my friend, Ben, and I stayed rooted to our seats for an extra half hour trying to parse what we had just seen.  It turned out to be “about” quite a lot.

Running Time:  100 minutes without intermission.  No masks required.

Theater With A View, Sycamore Hill, 491 Abelhare Road, Pottstown, PA. www.theaterwithaview.com/484-925-1346.