TRENTON, Mich.–There are stories of elderly passengers on the Titanic giving up spots in the lifeboats for younger ones, a selfless act with death staring them in the face.

The underlying story of The Children, a play by Lucy Kirkwood presented now at Open Book Theatre here, is a nuclear accident at a reactor situated on the sea somewhere in the U.K. Rose (Tina Paraventi) , a scientist in her 60s who worked on the building of the reactor is forming a group of the retired scientists and engineers who built it to replace the young ones working on containment to spare their lives and futures.

It’s a post-apocalyptic story without, thank Goodness, zombies. Indeed, the world that Rose, Hazel (Wendy Katz Hiller) and her husband Robin (Lindel Salow) inhabit is very recognizable in their seaside cottage that Rose has come to visit. All three characters have been profoundly effected by the radiation emanating from the reactor both physically and emotionally.

There are several moral questions in the play. Hazel and Robin have four children, and they, especially Hazel, want to keep living to enjoy the next generation. Rose, childless, thinks they all owe the next generation of plant workers, strangers to the three, their sacrifice since it was the older generation who built the plant without all the redundant safety systems that may well have prevented the accident.

These three actors are fully dialed in to their characters and the moral decisions with which they are grappling. It’s been 38 years since the three have been together, and some of the moral discussion is about what happened between them when they were in the thirties. Despite the lapse of time, there is complex intimacy among the three, which facilitates their ability to pick up where they left off all those years ago. Paraventi’s Rose  is quite good at manipulating the energy in the room among the three, while Hiller’s Hazel is shrill, defensive and as resolute in her desire to live as Rose is to potentially give up what is left of her life. Salow’s Robin can’t help but quietly enjoy the affection of both women, while he descends physically into an uncertain future.

Directed by Sarah Hawkins Rusk, the story is intense and heated, and reflects much more than the legacy of nuclear power. Though the play is set in the U.K., and our actors adopt Brit accents, the story also seemingly confronts the broader friction in the U.K., as well as the U.S., between Generation Z and younger Millennials and Baby Boomers.

The dangers of nuclear energy has largely taken a backseat to global warming causing havoc on the planet. Those between high-school and 40 have a lot of scorn for the older Boomers who did little to mitigate global warming, created the enormous wealth gap, and feeds the extreme political divisions we have today.

The Children is not exactly a holiday-season Yule log of a play. But when we think of gifts we can give our children, maybe sacrifice, self-awareness and commitment to do better is a good start.

The Children runs through December 11.

Lighting Design: Harley Miah

Costumes and Props: Krista Schafer Ewbank

Set Designer: Sarah Hawkins Rusk

Sound Design: Sarah Hawkins Rusk, Jeremy Rusk