World premiere at Curious features powerhouse performances by Jada Suzanne Dixon and Lauren Dennis in Sharyn Rothstein’s topical comedy-drama.

Sharyn Rothstein’s new play Bad Books is the quintessential Curious Theatre production: a hot-button topic explored by hot-headed characters bent on enforcing their will on those around them. In this case, the issue is book banning, and the opposing forces are primarily a controlling, conservative mother (Jada Suzanne Dixon) and a snarky, progressive-leaning librarian played by Lauren Dennis.

A rolling world premiere sponsored by the National New Play Network, Curious — in a joint production with Boulder’s Local Theater Company — is the third of four theatres to host the Brooklyn playwright’s exploration of social-media excess, parental control and unintended consequences. Directed by Local’s Nick Chase, Bad Books works in the gray area outside the typical “book banners are bad” stereotype to look at the messy world of differing opinions in general.

It’s a treat to see Curious Artistic Director Dixon take the stage as the irascible, gun-toting Mother (no onstage characters have actual names). We soon learn that, beyond her concern about a book that deals with abortion in the hands of her teenage son Jeremy, she’s dealing with plenty of domestic strife as a single mother and harried pharmaceutical exec. Dixon tackles this complex character with brio, pinballing between manic outbursts and measured malevolence as she sizes up the foe she sees in The Librarian.

Dennis — who also plays the grasping manager at the pharmaceutical company and a book editor later in the show — matches The Mother’s obstreperousness zinger for zinger. In the opening scene, there’s just the slightest preamble of civility before the gloves come off and the two are questioning the other’s respective bona fides as Mother or Librarian.

Billed as a comedy, the play has plenty of laughs but still reads more as a drama — particularly given the stakes raised when The Mother releases the hounds of Instagram on The Librarian and unwittingly uncorks a shitstorm of grief. The irony compounds when she reveals having once written a book that caused her so much trouble that she set out to find and destroy every single copy — or so she thinks.

Jada Suzanne Dixon (foreground) and Lauren Dennis in ‘Bad Books.’ | Photo: RDGPhotography

More than book bans

Bad Books veers well off course from what one might expect from a play about book banning and digs into other meaty topics like how well we know our own children. Staged with a simple yet modernistic bookish backdrop thoughtfully designed by David J. Castellano, the action is laser-focused on these one-on-one exchanges.

Nick Chase directs the women with a keen eye for drawing out the deeper topics behind the initial conflict. What does a motherless woman have to say to a woman who’s been at it for 15 years? Why shouldn’t parents have some say over the media their children consume — even if the child is near adulthood? And does giving birth automatically convey ultimate wisdom for guiding every stage of a child’s life?

There’s no villain here — only a series of the bad mistakes we all make when we fly in uncharted territory. I couldn’t help but think of my own experience as a father of five, and the realization that by the time you’ve got it (maybe, mostly) figured out, the kids are out of the house. As the script suggests The Mother doesn’t know what she’s doing, we’re doubly sure The Librarian doesn’t, either.

Lauren Dennis in ‘Bad Books.’ | Photo: RDGPhotography

Au courant

Bad Books is also very much a product of our time, where a heated conversation between two people will only remain so for a short time. Once it’s trotted out into the court of public opinion via social media, the initial parties soon lose control. In one early scene where The Mother is frenziedly emptying her purse to find something, the fact that a handgun appears among the clutter is barely remarked upon (we later find The Librarian is also packing).

Banning books in the digital age is, on its face, a ludicrous proposition — something The Librarian takes pains to point out to The Mother. Rothstein jumps on this fact with a telling scene where, when challenged on this, The Mother struggles to articulate why a paper book is somehow more dangerous than whatever material cellphone-wielding kids can find online.

What we end up with are two damaged characters ending up in the same room once again. None of it was necessary. The Mother’s quest blows up in her face and the script steers them back to a place of almost mutual understanding. Even so, the ending doesn’t quite match the heat of the rest of the play and comes across as almost an afterthought. In a 90-minute play with no intermission, I couldn’t help but think it would have taken a full second act to get to where Rothstein eventually delivers us.

Even so, Dixon and Dennis light up the stage and do solid justice to the clever, thought-provoking script that leaves us asking what the big deal is about who sees or reads what anymore. The internet age and the smartphone have all but eroded any meaningful guardrails, leaving the ultimate question of not what Little Johnny should or shouldn’t see but, rather, how to prepare him for when he inevitably sees it.