‘Sunday’ Is Arm’s-Length Look at a Mother’s Plight

When a young woman opts to put her baby up for adoption, the decision reverberates for a lifetime.

Herself a birth mother, Lara Naughton has firsthand experience with the subject matter of her first full-length play, “Sunday’s Children All Fall Down,” which concerns a pregnant young college student confronted with a painful choice.

Sunday (Kim Gillingham, alternating in the role with Alison Gale) has big plans for her life--and they don’t include having a baby right after graduation. Her boyfriend Patrick (Mark Brady, double-cast with Gibbs Tolsdorf) agrees, and sticks by her during her pregnancy and labor. Her path seems clear, but Sunday is unprepared for the “truckload of instincts” that comes painfully crashing down on her.

A pity we don’t feel her pain more viscerally. While often insightful, Naughton’s play is sometimes self-consciously highfalutin, with a too-stylized lyricism that puts us at an emotional distance from what should be a highly charged subject.

Incorporating live music and dance into her staging, Murphy Cross directs with poetic delicacy. Percussionist-composer John Lacques effectively underscores the action. Paulanna Cuccinello’s slightly surreal set, Robert Mellette’s lighting and John Zalewski’s sound design are vital in establishing the ever-shifting locales of Naughton’s nonlinear piece. Brady is appealing as a nice guy doing the right thing, but Gillingham is exceptional as a woman caught between her common sense and her yearning.

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* “Sunday’s Children All Fall Down,” McCadden Place Theatre, 1157 McCadden Place, Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends May 10. $10. (310) 298-3616. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.