By Ernest Kearney — From the ’50s on, psychologists plunged into the rather questionable field of study involving John Gluck, John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth’s work on maternal deprivation, the “Little Albert” experiments of John Watson and Rosalie Rayner on conditioned responses in infants, and the tests of behaviorist pioneer B.F. Skinner. Young primates were usually the subjects of these trials, but prior to the establishment of overall ethical guidelines, sometimes human infants were the “guinea pigs.”
One hopes these undertakings did not result in anything near approaching Harry Harlow’s unwatchable clinical footage of small cringing monkeys.
Baby by Rachel Troy is a fascinating concoction which takes these early experiments as its starting point, proceeds as an indictment of such studies, unfolds into a dissertation of the likely ramifications for the test subjects, before gracefully pirouetting into a more personal tale of family history. All of this is contained in a performance of pearl-like perfection, which is all the more resonating due to the fact that, besides being a clown of deft artistry, Troy is also a certified therapist.
Baby was easily one of the best productions of the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024 (HFF24) and Troy was both entrancing and enlightening to watch; the first due to the sublimity displayed in her craft, the second due to its manifestation of the potential possibility for the new American school of rara avis clowning.
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