From the lips of playwright-TV writer Tanya Barfield to our ears, via magazine writer Christopher Henley:
by Christopher Henley
The Call by Tanya Barfield is one of those rare plays that puts the most intimate of situations into a compelling global context. It’s the story of a white couple in the U.S. who decide to adopt a child from Africa. The intersection of the couple’s personal struggles and the international implications of the transaction makes for a play that engages its audience on several different and provocative levels. Theater J’s production of Barfield’s play runs through May 31st and is being presented not at the troupe’s home base at 16th Street’s DCJCC, but at Atlas Performing Arts Center in Northeast.
John Stoltenberg wrote about the production on DCMetroTheatreArts.com: “Tanya Barfield’s play The Call…tackles a topic with vast global consequence and humanizes it on stage such that we in our western comfort zone may take a hard look at it and not avert our eyes. In Theater J’s handsome new production…Barfield’s worthy ambition is well served. The Call comes through clearly with both gravitas and grace.” In The Washington Post, Nelson Pressley praised “Barfield’s hard-nosed realism” and ”tough-minded insights,” continuing, “The playwright plainly knows what she is talking about…you hear some honest and deeply unsettling things…There is heat on Barfield’s fastball.”
by Ken Levine