Layla Rowley, Bennet Kreit, Ryker Sohmer, and Giselle Aagaard Photo by Mikki Schaffner

Make Believe is not an easy play to bring to life. Its first half is a collection of scenes depicting the four kids of the Conlee family sometime in the 1980s. They are hanging out in a steep-roofed attic playroom (designed by Samantha Reno and evocatively lit by Marly Wooster) littered with toys, soccer balls, a computer game console, strings of colored holiday lights, costumes, and a makeshift fort draped with sheets and a quilt (Drew Homan is the properties designer).

Leak has shaped believable performances with four age-appropriate young actors who spend some of their time role-playing a "make believe" family. Ryker Sohmer, with a mop of red hair, is Chris, the eldest at age 12. He has taken on the role of the ill-tempered dad. Layla Rowley is studious, responsible Kate, age 10, who is convinced she's not really part of the family. (She writes a letter to Princess Grace who Kate believes is her actual mother.) She sounds like a mom when she complains about the "infernal ruckus" created by the rambunctious others. Giselle Aagaard is Addie, age 7, obsessed with grooming her Cabbage Patch doll. Kate forces the unwanted role of the baby on her. Bennet Kreit is Carl, age 5, who is dubbed the family's dog; he mostly barks and eats imaginary food from a dog dish.

As the scenes unfold, several things become apparent. One is that the Conlee parents are AWOL, leaving the kids to their own unsupervised devices. They hear a series of messages on an answering machine that indicate that their mother has left town, and they know their father is away on another of his many business trips, which actually seem to have little to do with business. As the Conlee kids reenact family mealtimes, we see them modeling their parents' dysfunctional relationship.

The second half of Make Believe leapfrogs three decades into the future. Adult versions of the children have returned to the family home. They've retreated to their childhood attic escape room to avoid their father's unseen second family downstairs following a memorial service.

We witness just how their upbringing has produced people with their own serious behavioral problems. Kate (now played by Merritt Beischel) is a tightly wound gastroenterologist in a failing marriage. Addie (Tess Talbot) has become an actress on a low-budget TV show that endeavors to solve crimes. Carl (Nathan Tubbs) has a successful career in the tech field and prefers to distance himself as much as possible from the family. The fourth adult, someone named Chris (Leo Jenkins), is clearly not their absent brother. But he has known Chris Conlee and the path his life has taken, which is slowly if awkwardly revealed.

Make Believe proceeds from somewhat amusing nostalgia to abusive, neglectful parenting and then to wholly unhappy adults. Wohl's storytelling is swift, but as the story unfolds we are filled in on just how damaging neglectful parenting can be, resulting in offspring who carry the scars of their childhoods. They're even haunted by ghosts, initially seen as playful kids wearing sheets and cut-out eyeholes, but reappearing as reminders that the past can shape and warp subsequent lives.

It's a very painful vision, but the story has been made compelling, especially by Leak's deft handling of the child actors and their naturalistic performances. They are never precious or precocious, just kids behaving normally–if aggressively and without thoughtful modeling. We smile at the teasing, the banter, the random play, the efforts to be grown up. It's easy to be drawn into recollections of our own growing up, even if we did not crash and burn quite as painfully as the Conlees. Their fate provides a kind of admonition that hits home long after the final bows.

Make Believe runs through September 26, 2026, at Know Theatre of Cincinnati, David C. Herriman Center for the Performing Arts, 1120 Jackson Street, Cincinnati OH. For tickets and information, please visit knowtheatre.com or call 513-300-5669.