Barton Community College’s BCC Theater will present its spring production, Christopher Durang’s "Baby with the Bathwater," Friday and Saturday on the stage of Barton’s Fine Arts Auditorium. The production starts at 7:30 p.m. both nights. Tickets will be available to the general public for $5 at the door. Students will be admitted free.

Recommended only for mature audiences, the show 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. The play is written in an absurdist, playful style, and for such a dark topic, it has a hopeful ending, said Barton’s theater instructor Erin Renard.

Sylviane Gold of the Wall Street Journal writes that Durang is one of the theater’s brightest hopes. "He knows how to write funny plays and that makes him a rarity," the columnist wrote. "In ‘Baby with the Bathwater’ he manages to combine all three modes (farce, satire and good-natured wackiness). He keeps laughter bubbling. … We laugh and gasp at the same time."

The cast includes community members, high school seniors and Barton students. Cast members are Colby Barton, Grady Bolding, Drew Bosack, Carmen Burrow and Alicia Monceaux, all of Great Bend; Corrie Henderson, Nickerson; David Burdett, Larned; John Radenberg, Ellinwood; and Alexa Shoaff, Hays. Stage manager is Kristina Wagner, Bushton, and the technical crew includes Leon Sobba and J.W. Feemster, both of Ellinwood.

Renard emphasizes that because of its dark nature, the play is recommended only for mature audiences.