Baby With the Bathwater at NJSDA Theater

The New Jersey School of Dramatic Arts (NJSDA) announces they will be producing Christopher Durang's Baby With the Bathwater..  The show will be on Friday and Saturday March 18 and 19 at 8:00pm and Sunday, March 20 at 2pm and 7pm at the NJSDA Theatre located at 593 Bloomfield Avenue, Bloomfield, NJ 07003.  Tickets are $10.00

The story is about Helen and John, two parents who are very unprepared for parenthood.  They can’t seem to name the baby.  John thinks it’s a boy, but Helen says the doctors said they could decide later.  When the baby cries, they can’t quite decide what to do.  To their rescue comes Nanny – who enters their apartment as if by magic, and is full of abrupt shifts of mood, first cooing at the baby soothingly, then screaming at it. In subsequent scenes, John and Nanny have an affair, Helen takes baby and leaves, only to come back a moment later rain-soaked and unhappy.  (“Well if it isn’t Nora five minutes after the end of A Doll’s House,” says Nanny.)   At some point they finally name the baby Daisy, and as a toddler, Daisy has a penchant for running in front of buses; or for lying, depressed, in piles of laundry.  We hear an alarming essay Daisy has written in school, and the principal, the terrifying Miss Willoughby, is oblivious to the essay’s cry for help, and instead gleefully awards it an A for style.  Finally, we meet Daisy – dressed as a girl, but otherwise a polite, confused young man.  In a “jump cut” sort of scene, we follow his years and years of therapy, where he alternates feeling depressed and angry, and is unable to complete his Freshman essay on Gulliver’s Travels for over 5 years.  In the end the play comes full circle as the former Daisy and his young bride fondly regard their own baby—forgiving of the past but determined not to repeat its calamitous mistakes.

Sylviane Gold of the Wall Street Journal has called Mr. Durang "one of our theater’s brightest hopes – he knows how to write funny plays, which makes him a rarity. In Baby With the Bathwater, he manages to combine all three modes [farce, satire, good-humored wackiness]… Durang keeps laughter bubbling...  We laugh and gasp at the same time".

The cast is directed by actor Gary Lynch, who is a two time National Broadway Award nominee for his performance in Mamma Mia!  He originated the role of Sam Carmichael for the North American Premiere of Mamma Mia! in Toronto, the U.S. Premiere in San Francisco and the 1st National Company. On Broadway, Gary performed the role of Inspector Javert in Les Miserables.  The cast includes Jennifer Chaky of Montclair, Stephanie D'Aloia of Caldwell, Deirdre Davies of West Orange, Cris Fabian of Glen Ridge, Einar Gunn of Clifton, Kenneth Hesse of Hasbrouck Heights, June Mandeville of Teaneck and Cathie Studwell of Nutley.

 Tickets are $10.00 and reservations are strongly suggested.  Call NJSDA at (973) 566-9700 or go to www.njactors.org  for further information.