If “Cheaper by the Dozen” was not already a well-known American play, it might seem pretty confusing to modern audiences. In a local staging by the McLean Community Players, which opened last weekend, Frank Gilbreth Sr., (played by Bill Mullins) is a man who appears to have signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and tells his wife, collaborator and balancing-force Lillian (played by Roberta Chaves) on their wedding day that she is going to give him a large number of children and that he is going to apply the same principles of industrial efficiency that he sells to factories. Raising their children at home in this manner allows them to have them excel at skipping grades, running into a living room quickly and learning foreign languages in the bathroom.
