Overview
BABEL is a dark comedy set in the near future. Two couples are having trouble getting pregnant and the lengths they go to in order to have a baby raises the specter of eugenics, explores the societal value of a baby, and asks us what we are willing to risk for love.
If you like Booker’s “Black Mirror,” Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go,” or Haley’s “The Nether,” then this play is for you.
Casting & Production
Casting
Characters: 4
Our story takes place in a future society where racial, ethnic, and gender bias has been generally replaced in mainstream culture by genetic bias. We can now chart and judge the genetic code of every individual before birth. As such, the casting is very flexible.
In general, it should look something like this:
ANN, a female in her 20s/30s, Jamie’s wife, high strung, Race Flexible
JAMIE, a male in his 30s/40s, Ann’s husband, affable, Race Flexible
RENEE, a female in her 30s/40s, Dani’s wife, nurturer, Race Flexible
DANI, a female in her 40s, Renee’s wife, senior executive determination, Race Flexible
THE STORK MASCOT (played by Jamie), has the voice of a young Harvey Fierstein
Important: No one looks pregnant in this play.
Production Notes
Length:
90 Minutes, No Intermission
Time/Place:
The Future / A City near a Beach
Set:
Dealer’s Choice – you can do this play with four chairs and a coffee mug or mammoth sets. Whatever you choose, it should allow the play to move quickly; long set changes will ruin the comic timing.
Reviews
“Remarkable… Babel is a fascinating, at times funny, and at times terrifying vision of a future.”
-Broadway World
“Babel exposes the fault lines in the best-laid plans, a timeless message that applies even to our most innate impulse as a species—to survive, to reproduce.”
-Thinking Dance
“Bitingly clever, seriously funny, and intriguing from start to finish, Jacqueline Goldfinger’s dark comedy Babel is exactly the sort of well-executed science fiction theater that can change your perspective forever.”
-Talkin’ Broadway
“Quirky characters, quippy dialogue, and the startling collision between the goofy and the deadly serious.”
– The Philadelphia Inquirer
“Dynamic, Stirring, Humorous…Goldfinger weaves humor throughout her script—sometimes dark, sometimes almost slapsticky—breaking the tension of the play’s larger themes…Goldfinger clearly did her research with this script, which is part of what makes it so effective.”
-Broad Street Review
