‘Water Children’ Plunges Into Abortion Controversy

Abortion is such a dramatic issue that it’s surprising so few plays have dealt with it. With the provocative “The Water Children,” at the Matrix Theatre, playwright Wendy MacLeod ventures bravely into the controversy, wielding a sharp comic sense and a willingness to understand both sides of the battle.

While the play’s resolution will probably satisfy abortion rights advocates more than their opponents, MacLeod also questions some of the arguments cited by vocal supporters of legal abortion.

The big group that’s somewhere in the middle, between the extremes, will identify strongly with the plight of Megan, a 36-year-old New York actress who’s hired to shoot a commercial for an anti-abortion organization, in which she’ll play a woman with second thoughts about her abortion.

Megan herself went through an abortion 20 years ago. She readily admits she has no idea when life begins. But she does know she needs the $15,000 for three days of work on the commercial. And when she starts seeing visions of the boy her fetus might have become, she hears the ticking of her biological clock.

That sound becomes deafening when she gets to know Randall, the suave and good-humored leader of the anti-abortion group that’s sponsoring her commercial. Randall and Megan begin an awkward romance, much to the disgust of Megan’s lesbian roommate Liz.

A couple of young anti-abortion volunteers complicate Randall’s wooing. Especially troublesome is Tony Dinardi, a gun-owning hairdresser’s assistant whose job and fantasies indicate that he was modeled on the late John C. Salvi III, who shot up a Boston Planned Parenthood clinic in 1994.

The inclusion of the zealous Tony is what finally tilts the balance of the play toward the abortion rights side, making the anti-abortion side easier to dismiss. Liz, the only clear-cut abortion rights advocate in the play, is no crazy. Nor is there a single scene that’s set in an abortion clinic--which is, of course, where the anti-abortionists believe the damage is done. However, playwrights who explore burning issues need not be impartial referees; they can take stands, as long as they start their audiences thinking and simultaneously captivate them by their stories.

MacLeod clearly does this. Pausing briefly for quick forays into Megan’s memories and fantasies on the subjects of her own abortion and motherhood, MacLeod moves her characters swiftly toward a climactic clash, which director Lisa James has staged in the short aisle between the two halves of the Matrix seating.

At one point the action is a bit too swift to be credible--when Megan and Randall fail to give a moment’s thought to birth control. But otherwise the play rings true.

If the plot sounds TV movie-like, MacLeod alters that impression soon after the big showdown, introducing a different, foreign view of abortion, apart from the polarizing American debate, and a new way of handling Megan’s crisis. It’s an intriguing perspective, made tangibly vivid by a surprising addition to the previously stark set design by Deborah Raymond and Dorian Vernacchio.

As with all Matrix Theatre Company productions, James’ lively staging is double cast. At the reviewed performance, Wendy Makkena, who also played Megan in New York, embodied this conflicted woman with superb timing, while Don McManus made us see what Megan saw in Randall. Their roles are also played by Pam Dawber and Gregg Henry.

Christopher Collet was quite moving as Chance, Megan’s might-have-been son. Sarah Zinsser steered Liz’s withering barbs away from sitcom-style mugging, while Billie Worley’s heedless manner made Tony funny as well as frightening.

* “The Water Children,” Matrix Theatre, 7657 Melrose Ave., in repertory with “The Yield of the Long Bond.” Beginning May 9: Saturdays, Mondays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 and 7 p.m. Ends July 13. $20. (213) 852-1445. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.