Berkshire on Stage

We first see Daniel (Andy Lucien), a 30-something event planner for a major bookstore chain, as he bursts into the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) of a leading hospital. In the center of the stage is an isolette (a plastic-encased crib equipped to maintain temperature control and a sterile environment) attended by an overworked night nurse, Caroline (Jennifer Ikeda). Daniel, panicked, shouting questions and expletives as he attempts to make sense of a complicated chain of events, makes it difficult for Caroline to attend to the premature infant in the isolette, but she’s even-tempered and professional as she balances the monitoring of the infant with explaining what’s going on to the agitated father.

What’s going on is the baby has arrived very prematurely at 26 weeks. Daniel doesn’t know the mother well. They’d been friends with benefits, with the emphasis on benefits, and Daniel wasn’t around for most of the pregnancy. The child’s mother was, they’d agreed, to be sole custodian. Unexpected events have now placed the sole parental responsibility on Daniel.

It’s no wonder Daniel is highly distressed. Lucien, who like his co-star has a varied and impressive resume, initially aims to be comical, mugging and shouting. (In what hospital would a person not even once be reprimanded for bellowing in an NICU?) His declarations about the preemie’s tubes and gauze do not appear to arise from fear or confusion; rather, they sound adolescent at best: “She looks fuckkkked uppppp. I’m sorry for cursing….I don’t mean she’s fucked up. But like her condition is… I mean look at her Caroline, does this look like a normal baby to you?”

Had Lucien played Daniel with more depth, more barely controlled anxiety, I’d believe the torrent of words because they’d have come from a man who was unexpectedly thrust into chaos. But the loud, comic delivery makes him seem shallow, unreal. His concern about the baby registers as false. When he lowers his head and Ikeda asks him if he is crying, I wondered why in the world she would think that. But yes, it’s in the script, and the dialogue that follows indicates that Daniel is indeed crying. Unfortunately, the dialogue is at odds with the action.

Ikeda is effective and steady as the neonatal nurse who, between her long night shifts and her two small children at home, feels stretched beyond her limits. I believe the relationship between father and nurse would have been really touching had Lucien reined himself in from the top of the play. I wish director von Stuelpnagel had done some fine-tuning, because Lew’s script has so much promise. I gather the playwright named the show tiny father because he intended to connect the baby’s growth and ultimate survival with that of her father. Indeed, much later in the play, Lucien evolves into a genuinely sensitive, loving father, but the transformation lacks the vitality and heart it could have had if Lucien had created a multifaceted character from the beginning.

It’s with no little irony that I must say that this production of tiny father feels nascent as well. The script holds much promise, and I hope that the two-hander continues to develop as its run continues from Barrington Stage to Chautauqua to the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.

tiny father by Michael Lew, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel at Barrington Stage Company’s St. Germain Stage in the Sydelle and Lee Blatt Performing Arts Center in Pittsfield, MA, June – July 22, 2023. This is a world premiere co-production with the Chautaqua Theater Festival, where it will run August 4-17, 2023. CAST: Andy Lucien as Daniel and Jennifer Ikeda as Caroline. Scenic Designer Wilson Chin, Costume Designer Tilly Grimes; Lighting Designer Alan C. Edwards, Sound Design and Original Music Daniela Hart, Production Stage Manager Andrew Petrick,

Please call the Box Office for more information at 413-236-8888 or visit www.BarringtonStageCo.org/Tickets.