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It’s 2am in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit when we meet Daniel, the new father of a very sick baby, born prematurely at 24 weeks, just as he meets Caroline, the no-nonsense nurse who is about to school him on all things preemie care in the next 24 hours and what turns out to be three months. The twist here is that Daniel answered the midnight call for help from the baby’s mother, a friend who we find out he merely has a “friends with benefits” relationship with, and now finds himself with the overwhelming prospect of not only fatherhood but fatherhood with life threatening and life-altering complications. And things only get more complicated from there.
Mike Lew’s thoughtful and penetrating new play tackles a myriad of dilemmas within the walls of a NICU over the course of this baby’s first three months of life. There is a high level of intensity that occurs when life hangs in the balance and strangers become team members and trusted confidants. As we watch Daniel and Caroline do this dance of figuring out how to work together and learn from one another, underlying biases and mistrust rear their heads. Daniel’s anxieties and suspicions come from a general mistrust of hospitals and institutions based on both historical and personal history of mistreatment and neglect. In Caroline we see the situation through the lens of the gender bias that has her being passed over and even punished with the graveyard shift most likely because she was pregnant and is now a young mother. Both are justified yet we see them work together through their differences to save baby Sophia.
It’s a quiet, human piece that somehow keeps you on the edge of your seat. Will Daniel stay? Will he actually commit to being this child’s father? Will Sophia survive? Moritz Von Stuelpnagel’s direction is incisive and crisp while allowing space for the actors to recognize each other’s humanity. Production design elements are gorgeous, a pretty spectacular feat when you consider it’s a hospital. But David Meyer’s sleek rotating set with haunting Pablo Santiago lighting and precision sound design by Uptownworks creates a beauty and stillness of a world unto itself.
Tiffany Villarin gives a fascinating, layered performance as Caroline, a woman who is clearly good at her job and knows it. She is acerbic at times, even harsh, but you get the sense it is all in service to the protocol and safety of the babies in her care. Villarin is pointed and clear-cut in her determination while giving a window into Caroline’s tenderhearted vulnerability towards her own children and the NICU babies. And she’s feisty as hell in her frustrations with the hierarchy and patriarchy she deals with at the hospital.
Maurice Williams does a beautiful job at Daniel’s arc, beginning as a seemingly clueless kind of young man just floating through life, freelancing at a job he can’t even define until Caroline does it for him, and slowly morphing into the father of a new baby girl. Williams is captivating when Daniel’s fears turn into resentments as the days turn into weeks and his paranoia grows.
There’s a moment when Daniel catches Caroline forgetting the name of one of the preemies that was discharged a couple of weeks prior. He mentions it later as he begins to doubt her motivations for keeping Sophia extra days. What Lew does beautifully here is to show the balancing act a medical professional has to do when caring for a patient and keeping enough distance to be able to clearly do their job. As is the case in real life scenarios such as this one, politics and all that divides us, falls away, or at least becomes distant, as we struggle to do what we think is right for the people we love, or in this case, are learning to love. Watching the genesis of that kind of love and all that it takes to give yourself over to it, is a compellingly worthy endeavor.
TINY FATHER plays through July 14, 2024 at the Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse located at
10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Tickets currently priced at $30.00 – $129.00. Available by phone at 310.208.2028 or online at www.geffenplayhouse.org.
All Geffen Playhouse productions are intended for an adult audience; children under 10 years of age will not be admitted.
