Tim Etchells & Theatre Replacement's That Night Follows Day

That Night Follows Day is a theater piece created by Tim Etchells, exploring the ways adults shape children by the things we say to them.

Etchells originally created this piece for a Flemish theater company, and this is the first time he has allowed an outside artistic company to remount his work. It was the US premiere.

That Night Follows Day has a large cast consisting only of children, and this production was directed by Vancouver's Theatre Replacement.

The set was simple and basic, a large piece of playground equipment. Most of the piece had some or all of the kids standing up at the front of the stage saying lots of various phrases that "You tell us..."

While this concept could have easily had a cutesy and contrived result, the kids, the script, and direction pulled it off in a way that ended up being quite powerful and thought provoking. While there were a few unavoidable "aww, cute" moments, by and large the experience was more of the sober "out of the mouths of babes" variety. Very few of the things said were things that kids would not have naturally said, leading me to wonder about the script creation process. Did Etchell sit down with kids and get their input in creating the script? Maybe by asking them a few questions, and then writing down what they said? Whatever the true source, the script certainly rang as genuine observations of kids on adult behavior and teachings, with blunt and often very funny honesty.

Chad said afterwards that he found himself throughout the show flipping back and forth from feeling like these kids' parent or uncle, to identifying directly with the kids themselves, depending on the particular subject matter. I had a very similar reaction, especially during the moments when they braved into the hurtful and identity-crushing sorts of statements that most of us have heard on numerous occasions by thoughtless or badly behaving adults who were supposed to be guiding us through our childhoods.

But ultimately the overall result of the piece was sweet, powerful and thoughtful, leaving the mostly adult audience with meaty food for thought about the significant impact our offhand words and actions can have on the malleable young people around us, whether those might be our own children, or just a young future citizen passing us by on the street.