"Emma's Child"

Emotion, Compassion take Center Stage in Thatcher’s Play

By Regina Torres

On March 11, 2011

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If a pin was dropped during one of the recent performances of Emma's Child, chances are an audience member would hear it. The play, written in the early 90's by playwright Kristine Thatcher, takes an emotionally stark look at the heaviness surrounding the adoption process. Thatcher ups the ante by not only showing the inner and relational strife and legal struggles a couple wishing to adopt a child may go through—matters are complicated even more so by the fact that the child is diagnosed with severe and terminal hydrocephalus, a debilitating disease where the brain swells from retaining fluid.

From the beginning, a premature baby named Robin lays immobile in a Chicago area hospital preemie room nestled in his tiny bed/pod called an "isolator." He is dependent on the round-the-clock care of a comic-relieving, attentive pair of nurses by the names of Laurence (played by Rand Ringgenberg) and his aid, Mary Jo (Caitlin Inman). What Mary Jo lacks in expertise and worldly smarts, she makes up for in compassion. A compelling performance was given by Laurence's character, who, while being confined by the beaurecratic principles that run a hospital setting, remained a faithful comrade in aiding the hurts of Robin's potential adoptive mother, Jean (Elisabeth Jackson).

Since the play is not in chronological order, we are shown the ongoing intimate unraveling of the adoptive couple's involvement in the life of Robin. At the heart of this play is the dichotomy in Jean's loving and accepting stance of adopting an ailing child, pitted against the unaccepting stance of her husband, Henry (Daniel Ochoa).

Henry is open to adoption (preferably of a white girl), since they are not able to have children of their own, though he is not opposed to a boy, even one with "minor" challenges. He is not open, however to involving himself in the bonding processes occurring between his wife and this hospitalized infant, which he is not ready to emotionally father.

Over the course of roughly a year, we see the instinctive mothering role and bonding process that Jean develops with Robin, visiting him often and becoming excited when the child showed physical improvement. Tender and moving performances were shown in such efforts as Jean's character wanting to learn how to properly hold an infant with a seriously debilitating illness, with tensions crescendoing between this couple on different emotional and philosophical adoption paths.

Ultimately, tensions build so much that a fuming Henry takes off on a "fishing trip" with his buddy to Michigan, leaving Jean alone in Chicago. The fishing trip culminates in a drinking-binge-psychotherapy-session between the two men, offering insight and humor, but most of all, it allows for Henry to finally turn a new leaf in his attitude toward Robin and Jean.

This is not a play that leaves you with feelings of bliss and visions of rainbows. Just as in real life, there are growing pains we must all go through in order to realize what is truly important to us.

In Emma's Child, the focus is on individual differences within a marriage, especially in relation to such serious matters as, adoption and terminal illness. How involved are we capable of becoming at being accepting and compassionate? On that note, it is through our learning experiences with others that we can truly grow as individuals who are able to love unconditionally. This is what Kristine Thatcher seems to be probing us to ponder.

Special mention should go to the fact that although Stage Center Theatre is small in dimension, they did a good job on stage setting and props, not to mention sound. Being that this play is in five acts, it is impressive that scenes were able to transition smoothly.

Overall, this is a play that makes one think about values. Emma's Child is an enlightening play for the human condition, even if one never sees himself or herself as a parent.