In the past Waterspout Productions have done many serious plays, but director John Zuill said, ?this is not one of them?. Baby with the Bathwater opens on Monday evening in Docksiders? function room and runs until December 8. Baby with the Bathwater was written by playwright Christopher Durang in the early 1980s.

?The play was initially done off-Broadway, but I don?t think that he ever got on Broadway,? said Mr. Zuill, ?But that is where a lot of the really exciting stuff happens.?

Baby with the Bathwater is a dark comedy about how difficult it is to be a parent, and how scary it is to be a baby and a child. It has been written in an absurdist, playful style and, for all its dark topic, has a hopeful ending.

The story unfolds with parents Helen (Jane Stark) and John (Andrew Bacon) who are very unprepared for parenthood ? so ill-equipped they cannot name the baby.

The husband is under the impression that the baby is a boy, but the wife says the doctors said they could decide later.

?So, the parents of Daisy Dingleberry forget to figure out what sex he is and they keep putting it off until he is actually an adult,? said Mr. Zuill as he laughed.

?You know parenthood can be very stressful and they?re poor and are running into a lot of trouble. They are not really fit as parents, you know nobody really knows how to be a parent.

?And so if you are a parent it is a fun play because it is so chaotic and you can?t possibly be as bad as these people. Also if you had a bit of a weird upbringing and it wasn?t so hot. This is sort of like revenge.?

Like many new parents, when the baby cries they cannot quite decide what to do either, but help is near and to their rescue comes Nanny ? who enters their apartment as if by magic. She is full of abrupt shifts of mood first cooing soothingly and then screaming at it.

?They really don?t have any money, so the nanny they hire is worth everything they pay for her ? nothing.

?Then there is a mysterious woman who drifts in and she thinks that she would be a better mommy ? so she steals the baby. And that is not good either, for Daisy.

?There are other scenes as well. There is a scene with Daisy?s teacher and the principal and they are trying to help, but by now Daisy is a very strange child.

?But finally, it has a happy ending and everything turns out alright for Daisy. It?s not really a play to send you out singing ? it?s just a funny play and that?s all. It is really outrageous and very clever.?

Jennifer Burrell acts in the parts of the Nanny and the Woman in the Park. Elizabeth Dunton plays three roles as Cynthia, Susan and Another Woman.

Barbara Jones is Mrs. Willoughby and Alison Evans is Miss Pringle. Douglas Jones is the adult Daisy. Thomas Moore is the Voice and the play is being produced by Jackie Aubrey.

Mr. Zuill said the Company have produced some serious plays in the not so distant past and they thought it was time for a change.

?Tempest was an intellectual as well as an emotional piece,? he said. ?And most comedies are based on Waiting for Godot, but it can be a real slog for some people. This is not like that, it just jumps all over you like a mad monkey. It is funny and it is simple. It just sort of charges along. When we decided to do it, nobody had heard of it ? they read it. It is kind of straight and it is a lot of fun.

?I did this one before. I did it in the States and we actually made money out of it. I did it at an arts centre in Rochester, New York, which for a moment had a capable management, and I thought that we would do a lot of plays there, but they got a new director and he stopped doing art as far as I could tell.

?It was one of those weird things where they were getting the money, getting paid and not doing anything. But we did get that play done and it kick started a little company that we had.

?In the States, things are a lot more difficult to get going. I don?t know why that is, but there is less flexibility. Here a lot of stuff can get done. There are fewer people and there aren?t so many to pick from, but those who are into it are really into it.

?While in the States, it maybe because they watch TV and they really don?t care; or that they have big cars to drive; they are different.?

Although the play is very silly in content ? it is very well written.

?That is what is nice about it,? he said. ?And it is written by Christopher Durang who has written a number of plays, which tend to be hilarity with a breakneck pace. It is a very particular kind of humour that I find very funny. It is dark, but is sort of light too ? it doesn?t smack you in the head.

?It is just for fun and I like it because it is well written and I don?t think that Waterspout has ever done a straight comedy. It is quite popular and people really like it. It is the kind of play that hits you from the side.

?It starts out strangely and then it doesn?t fall into any sort of normal trap. It?s quite funny and that is why we are putting it on at Docksiders because it is like a rough and tumbly kind of play ? you can sit down and have a drink and watch it. You are not going to get hit over the head with a message necessarily. This is very fun and it is sort of about a family as a worst-case scenario.?

The playwright also wrote a play called Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it All.

?It is about growing up Catholic and it stars this amazing nun, who is very problematic,? he said.

?Another book he wrote was on therapy and he was very popular in the 1980s and 90s. He was in the same class at Yale as actress Meryl Streep ? he is, like, a decent playwright and he never wrote anything particularly serious. They are really madcap comedies and are really about growing up.?

Waterspout Productions was started by a group of people who wanted to put on plays and they included Andra Simons, Alan Smith, Kim Dismont Robinson, Lisbeth Outerbridge.

?Andra put on a play by a friend of his and they wanted to do a Shakespeare workshop,? said Mr. Zuill. ?Andra and I were producing and directing and then he moved to England to improve his social life and it did improve. The Company it just sort of got going and it serves a need.

?Waterspout runs on nothing, we have did stuff at a dance studio, and people give us free places to do it. I guess it is just the time also and a lot of people are exposed to it. It was a society for John and Andra to do thins that they thought were really cool. That is what it was.?

Tickets $20 can be purchased at the door or by visiting www.boxoffice.bm.