Holly Twyford and Kate Eastwood Norris Shine in ‘Bad Books’
A provocative library book sparks a town-wide culture war in Round House's blazing and timely world premiere, "Bad Books."
A concerned mom in Sharyn Rothstein’s Bad Books raises a hell of a ruckus over a library book she deems obscene, but, in truth, neither her ensuing crusade nor Rothstein’s juicily enjoyable play are about bad books, whatever those might be.
The book in question — bearing an amusingly suggestive title which won’t be spoiled here — seems only incidental to what’s really upsetting this Mother.
Still, that won’t stop her from raising a self-righteous army of fellow concerned moms in her campaign to have the supposedly offensive tome removed from the shelves of her town’s public library.
The battle over the bad book begins with a crackling one-on-one confrontation between the Mother and the head Librarian, brilliantly played, respectively, by Holly Twyford and Kate Eastwood Norris in Round House Theatre’s world-premiere production and part of the National Capital New Play Festival.
Twyford and Norris make excellent verbal sparring partners as their diametrically opposed debaters jab, feint, and weave via Rothstein’s snappy banter. The playwright, also a writer-producer on the TV series Suits LA, steadily shifts dynamics, rotating who’s on the defensive and who’s mounting the attack.
Director Ryan Rillette keeps the action revolving, literally, staging the production in the round, on Round House’s handy turntable stage, which remains in constant, gentle rotation throughout the evening.
The perpetual motion works more organically here than in Round House’s recent production of Ink, which packed half a dozen actors and rooms full of furniture on the platter. Norris and Twyford going toe-to-toe around Meghan Raham’s succinct, mostly circular set better seals the deal.
As visual perspectives of the players constantly change, so, too, are the audience’s perspectives on the characters’ arguments apt to change. Still, there’s no denying that one side in this fight comes with a much stronger argument than the other. Rothstein doesn’t offer the Mother (m)any really persuasive arguments for her cause beyond being a parent with certain rights and responsibilities in raising her child.
The mom says she’s acting out of concern for her troubled teen Jeremy — that name already a well-planted red flag for Pearl Jam fans. Mom doesn’t find Jeremy at home drawing pictures of mountaintops, but does discover this book, which she finds objectionable, triggering her to go give a piece of her mind to the Librarian who, apparently, recommended the book to her boy.
Twyford nails the mom’s calculated demeanor of sensible, suburban respectability while making wildly overreaching demands related to a book that, of course, as it turns out, she has not read. That part we will spoil here, because it’s not in the least bit surprising if you’ve ever paid attention to the people who want to censor books.
“It’s not censorship. It’s about parents’ rights,” the Mother argues. The Librarian — a 55-year old unmarried hipster in little red glasses (à la SNL) with no kids — rejects the notion that only parents know best for children, with Norris delivering a blistering, fabulously written speech contending no parent possesses all the knowledge their child will need in life.
That’s why we have teachers and librarians and experts who gain said knowledge, and devote their lives to sharing it with others, including other people’s kids. Such conscientious tutelage might include passing along a book that speaks directly to what’s troubling a young mind and could provide positive guidance, or some comfort.
But then, one woman’s idea of positive guidance can be another’s idea of unacceptable interference in a parent’s right to control what her child reads. These two opposing sides are bound to never agree. The Us vs. Them division is really the point here, not bad books. Can two sides so deeply ideologically divided learn to trust each other more, or at all?
Rothstein explores the question beyond the library, adding two unexpected characters, both well-played by Norris, for the Mother to contend with. In respective scenes — one hilarious, the other moving — the tables turn on mom, shifting her perspective on right and wrong ways to try and protect her son.
At the very least, simply talking to your kid about their problems is generally going to be more effective than trying to dictate what your entire community should be reading.
Bad Books (★★★★★) runs through May 4 at the Round House Theatre, 4545 East-West Highway, in Bethesda, Md. Tickets are $43 to $93, with discount options available. Call 240-644-1100, or visit www.roundhousetheatre.org.
For more information about the Bonnie Hammerschlag National Capital New Play Festival (at Round House through April 27), visit www.roundhousetheatre.org.
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