Summer camp can feel a little like a cult, with its songs, special language, lore, weird rituals, all set in deep woods that isolate campers from the outside world while promising back-to-nature idealism.
In “The Grown-Ups,” now in a Theatre Lunatico production, playwrights Skylar Fox and Simon Henriques evince an anthropologist’s understanding of these dynamics, but they communicate it with a keen ear for dialogue. One counselor calls the first day of camp “orientaysh.”
They also envision a news-cycle story, happening at the same time as camp, that’s so bonkers it feels like it could happen any minute. It’s involves a meme about Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson and a pineapple that politicians hijack as the latest front line in the culture wars. Campers’ parents form “truth squads” that threaten the camp idyll, all of which puts exogenous pressure on counselors — adolescents who are trying to delay real jobs as long as possible.
The question becomes whether they can preserve camp as a “safe, sacred space” or whether letting the outside world in will erode the trust that holds it together.