The Arts

Speaking as a father who used to drive his sleepless baby son up and down I-5 at 2 a.m. to lull him into slumber, I understand the madness that accompanies more desperate moments of early parenthood.

New York City playwright David Goldfarb, whose credits include the book of the 2006 musical satire "Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me," clearly knows that surreal territory, too. Golfarb's insightful, emotionally provocative 2011 dramedy "Cradle and All," making its West Coast premiere at Theater Schmeater, is largely about a night of extremes for two Brooklyn parents half out of their minds from exhaustion.

Before that story, however, a short, intriguing first act, taking place on the same night and concerning the childless neighbors (Alyson Bedford and Matthew Middleton) of those parents, sets the tone for an unusual, perspicacious piece about relationship plateaus tied to the touchy subject of reproduction.

The main action, however, is with Annie and Nate (also played by Bedford and Middleton), challenged by their (offstage) 11-month-old daughter's inability to sleep through a night — any night. Resorting, despite all their instincts, to the controversial strategy of forcing a baby to cry herself to sleep, Nate and Annie make themselves embrace a counter-intuitive and harsh approach.

As hours pass and it's clear the wailing child (heard through sporadic checks of a baby monitor) is increasingly miserable, Nate and Annie alternate the role of enforcer. But everything about their ever-shifting arguments and forced distractions really speaks to this despondent couple's global (and familiar) sense of failure: as parents, as breadwinners, as lovers who no longer make love, etc.

Goldfarb ably peels away multiple layers of identity crises that accompany the huge transition from couplehood to parenthood. In Bedford and Middleton, and director J.D. Lloyd, this production has a strong, focused team navigating many, often tiny, shifts in the honest dynamics of a domestic furor.

If the show plays too broadly on occasion (Annie subdues Nate with martial arts at one point), it also invites the audience to wrestle frankly with a blunt mix of rage and compassion toward these people.

Certainly, I can't remember the last time I wanted to yell at a character: "Hey! Just go take care of the baby!"

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@gmail.com