BAD BOOKS IS GOOD NEWS
Nothing beats the thrill of watching great performers bring a playscript to life, moment to moment, right before your eyes, sharing their space as they breathe the same air you are breathing into their lines. The good news is that Bad Books at Round House Theatre in Bethesda, MD, is fueled by that kind of star power. Kate Eastwood Norris and Holly Twyford, stalwarts of Washington, DC theater, with plenty of experience elsewhere and plenty of accolades to show for it, are a theatre match made in heaven. This is their tenth show together, and here they really play opposite each other, engaged in a battle of wits that shifts their dynamic effectively through a comic drama on the uncomfortable theme of book bans and the relative powers of the domestic and public spheres.
Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian) and Holly Twyford (The Mother)
Does it seem as if every new play is a problem play these days? We’ve certainly got enough problems to keep every playwright alive busy. Bad Books is produced at Round House in under the auspices of the National New Plays Network’s Rolling World Premiere series—a practically heroic system operating backstage without fanfare, allowing theatres to share resources and support, and palpably enlarging opportunities for playwrights and new plays. It may be that the process of bringing new plays to regional theatres favors scripts that make good pitches—that announce their value, and their appeal to the prospective audience, by citing the social urgency of the conflict that animates the play. Playwrights and audiences alike now expect scenes that seem to illustrate headlines and, God help us, tweet wars.
Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian) and Holly Twyford (The Mother)
In Bad Books, it makes all the difference that two seasoned performers drive every line of the drama, comic or melodramatic, headlong into a confrontation between irresistible force and immovable object. The tight focus on the play’s topic does not leave a lot of room for character development—the two antagonists are simply called “The Librarian” and “The Mother” in the script, and the incidents that move the plot forward can appear more like hypotheticals in an argument over censorship and parents’ rights than inevitable projections of their individual psyches.
Holly Twyford (The Mother) and Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian)
Simply put, The Mother (Twyford) shows up at the Library without notice to complain about her son’s free access to a book she considers obscene. By her own lights, she tries to be reasonable, asking only for restrictions of access for minors, not outright banning. But the Librarian has had it with anything that looks like an attempt to suppress free thought. Her responses are flippant and close to dismissive; they make for very funny moments, as long you feel the acerbic wit favors your sympathies in the conflict. Things escalate, as it seems these days they always do, and before long, The Mother is calling the forces of outraged parenthood down upon the Librarian’s head. She imagines that the intransigence of this public servant leaves her no choice but to mark her for protest, but the controlled fury summoned by Twyford and Norris reveal that this is no political strategy; it’s an attack motivated by wounded pride. And it ends in (offstage) violence that The Mother knows is coming, even as she disclaims responsibility for it.
Holly Twyford (The Mother) and Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian)
I think it surprises no one in the audience that the removal of a book from the Library’s shelves does not make life better for the Mother’s family, or allow her more control over her son’s values and choices. The twists and turns in the plot from that point on are clever: things go from bad to worse, especially after it appears that the Mother is not the exemplar of family values she’s taken for. But these developments can also seem contrived for the sake of turning the debate of the first scene into a cautionary tale, illustrated with the worst outcomes that conflicts over values can bring about. And of course, constructing the play around two antagonists does not mean they’re evenly matched—though the actors are, superbly. It’s just not easy to make an argument for suppressing teenagers’ access to texts that depict life as it is—that is, setting aside egregious obscenity and violence—that holds its own against the knowledge that kids can’t be sheltered from the world effectively, and that to try to do so just leaves them unprepared. Because after all, the point of education is to learn about opportunities and dangers, not to be kept in the dark about them. Against that, the argument for “parents’ rights” sounds like a futile protest against the reality that kids are people, not extensions of oneself.
Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian) and Holly Twyford (The Mother)
From the beginning, the Librarian represents Reason, but also something more emotional and aspirational: the repeated insistence that the two sides in the struggle can find accommodation if only they will determine, whatever impediments may stand in the way, to trust each other. That requires accepting that maybe your adversary has good intentions, is trying to solve the same problems you see, but in a very different way. Maybe you can’t find a way forward that satisfies everyone, but you don’t have to resort to entrenched positions of antagonism and victimhood. We have come to believe that happy endings aren’t possible, but we can still hold out for an ending in which a common morality averts catastrophe.
Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian) and Holly Twyford (The Mother)
The trouble: our experience doesn’t seem to be confirming our hopes. In real-life social conflicts, people and interest groups are clashing over access to power, not mere misapprehensions. When they talk about rights and freedom, they often mean their own, and go on the attack when they feel they are restricted. An unpopular idea in theatre circles: Maybe dramatic form isn’t always the ideal forum for presentation of the most urgent social and political issues of the day. Bertolt Brecht said: “Theatre theatres everything,” and he didn’t mean that it makes life appear beautiful and enchanted. Theatre sometimes mesmerizes us into the comfortable position that social conflicts can be stated, elaborated, and resolved in the space of ninety minutes, and that ain’t, as lyrics in another well-known drama have it, necessarily so. (As if to drive home the point, the Supreme Court of the United States has just heard a case brought by parents who wanted their pre-K – 8th-grade kids excused on religious grounds from readings on themes of the queer community. They did not ask the books to be removed from the curriculum, but the school system held that the restriction would impose stigma on the topic for all the students. Mahmoud v. Taylor was brought against the public schools of Montgomery County Maryland, where Round House entertains and educates families every season. Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered the remark, “I guess I am a bit mystified, as a lifelong resident of the county, how it came to this.”
Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian)
The author of Bad Books, Sharyn Rothstein, boasts an impressive record of accomplishment and the National New Plays Network has certainly made the right choice in giving her play this national platform of rolling premieres. The high-power banter between the central characters (as well as others that Norris ably embodies) is priceless; if you’re going to give dramatic form to a social issue, as George Bernard Shaw did, it helps if you’re as witty as Shaw. (If I find oversimplification in the playscript, it may be because Rothstein’s done quite a lot of work in successful television shows—though these days there’s no room for anyone in theater to dismiss the artistry and energy of good television.)
Holly Twyford (The Mother) and Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian)
Bad Books is directed with insight and verve by Round House’s Artistic Director Ryan Rilette, who’s one of the great assets of Washington-area theatre and regional theatre generally; the sharpness of this production bears out his reputation for doing well by new plays and old. Round House’s record under Rillette makes a great argument for season subscription to the best companies in your region. Both he and the actors benefit crucially from Meghan Raham’s truly inspired set design, which sets the antagonists across a desk from each other on a rotating platform constantly in motion. (Yes, in the Library it’s a circulation desk.) I can’t imagine what it’s like for the actors to play on that lovely, minimalist, slowly revolving set, but the execution of the concept literally shifts the audience’s perspective on the characters, adding not only vivacity, but even another voice to a two-person show that might otherwise have seemed static and confined. In effect, the set does the work of a chorus, observing the conflict and reminding us to pay attention: something important to your own life and your country is happening here.
Kate Eastwood Norris (The Librarian) and Holly Twyford (The Mother)
photos by Margot Schulman Photography
Bad Books
Round House Theatre
part of a National New Plays Network Rolling World Premiere
4545 East-West Highway (one block from the Bethesda station on Metro’s Red Line)
90 minutes, no intermission
Tues-Thurs at 7:30; Fri & Sat at 8; Sat & Sun at 2
ends on May 4, 2025
for tickets, call 240.644.1100 or visit Round House
for more shows, visit Theatre in DC
