We realize they had a resilience in childhood - and that most of them no longer have it as adults. We see not just what they’ve become, but are led to see one or two casual incidents from the first half in a new light. The greater payoff is in the second half when the children have become adults. They’re in fact mostly vague, and, in retrospect, obvious…inevitable. I’m reluctant to give away any more details about the children’s situation, even though the revelations are not explosive. The reason why they’re by themselves is dribbled out in clues provided (cleverly) through their play-acting, and (not as cleverly) by the messages we overhear from adults on the answering machine, in real time because the children refuse to pick up the telephone. And young Carl does nothing but bark throughout the first 45 minutes of the play. They make five-year-old Carl (Harrison Fox) the dog. I’m the mommy!Ĭhris: Shut up or we’ll make you the dog. Seven-year-old Addie objects (Casey Hilton) when Chris assigns her to be the baby.Īddie: I don’t want to be the baby. In one, twelve-year-old Chris (Ryan Foust) plays the Daddy, 10-year-old Kate (Maren Heary) the Mommy. On the surface, the first half seems comprised only of games – make believe – that the siblings come up with to pass the time. “Make Believe” is slow moving, on purpose – slow to reveal what’s going on. It was often a challenge for the audience to figure out what the characters were communicating from moment to moment, but the overall effect was original, amusing and moving. In that earlier play, the characters were attending a silent retreat, and there was almost no dialogue. But theatrically, Bess Wohl’s play is about… ellipses – just like Wohl’s 2016 play “Small Mouth Sounds” was about silence. That, anyhow, is how a psychologist or a social worker might describe it. “Make Believe” is about childhood neglect - first the experience and then the long-term effect. In the second half, we meet four adult actors, returning to that same attic three decades later, and learn bit by bit the many ways that everything has not been amazing. “And then everything is going to be amazing.” “We just have to get through this and get to be grownups,” says Chris, the oldest at 12. This is how we meet the Conlee family children, portrayed by four child actors in the first half of the 80-minute play. “Make Believe” begins with a child on stage silently playing with a Cabbage Patch Doll in an attic playroom after a while her sister calls out “Mom?” a dozen times off-stage. Grown Up: Kim Fischer, Susanna Flood, Samantha Mathis and Brad Heberlee
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