The Metal Children, by Adam Rapp, is a page-turner. It is hilarious and heartbreaking and offensive and confusing and unresolved and spellbinding--it pulls you in and doesn't let you back out till the final curtain. It's the story of a community reacting to a controversial work of art. Tobin Falmouth, the author of a graphic young adult novel that depicts, travels to a small town called Midlothia, where copies of his book have been pulled off of shelves and out of hands and stored in a giant underground vault. The young people of Midlothia are furious, and their backlash creates a huge and ultimately very violent rift in the community. The absurdity of the actions taken by both sides is such that often the audience does not know whether to be horrified or to laugh, and often they feel an uncomfortable, moving combination of the two. See for yourself:
STACEY: The best thing to do is stand your ground. Even if the pork patrol starts pressing in on you.
TOBIN: What’s the pork patrol?
STACEY: Just some boys from school who harass people. They’re small-minded bullies, but they think of themselves as community regulators. They believe community “pork” is bad for community “health.” They wear Porky Pig masks and metal baseball cleats.
TOBIN: Jesus. Where the hell am I?
It’s hilarious when you hear it, and even funnier the first time we see a menacing figure appear wearing a pig mask. It’s not so funny when he beats Tobin to a pulp.
The ridiculousness of such events, in combination with their harsh level of plausibility and reality, makes the play very grounded. There is a great deal of self-evident truth in the story Rapp spins, and so the audience becomes very invested in and conflicted about the lives of these characters.
Mr. Herbert has said that in the best theatre scenes, two characters are vehemently arguing against each other and are both right. The Metal Children is filled with such conflicts. It is complex and challenging and denies simplistic arguments like "freedom of speech" or "protect the children." It demands that the audience face the fact that truth is chaotic and right and wrong are not black and white. It asks more questions than it answers and leaves us to figure it out for ourselves. It’s great. Read it.
