My Parents Are Here Tonight, a new play by Zoe Maltby

Or: Leary

It’s closing night of Aspects of Lear, spring show of the New Salem High School Drama program. Backstage, amid crumpled clothes and drifts of snack food, Lear #8 (Anna Clare Kerr) struts and frets before her minute on the stage. The last of a host of Lears, the freshman is anxious to carry out out her first brush with verse, and even more anxious to catch the eye of Kent (Joseph Huffman), a recent drama recruit who’s sweet on Goneril (Marcella Pereda), resident drama expert, who's hashing things out with her former friend, too-cool-for-school Edmund (Campbell Dunsmore). And all this unfolds under the eyes and eyebrows of Ensemble/France attendant/Officer/Cornwall Attendant/Old Man/Courtly Lady (Molly Dillon), who guards the snacks and sees all. Maltby’s play is a volatile mixture of youthful angst, theater fever, and a few crystals of Shakespearean parody, both painfully relatable and wonderfully wild.

Be warned. If you ever participated in a high school play, Shakespeare especially, this will be triggering. Even from the first moment of darkness, the memories will come flooding back, dopamine and cortisone and all. Be further warned. If you were ever so crushed by a crush you worked with in a high school production, this will be nigh on unbearable (see it anyway though). Maltby has an excellent ear for high school students, not just the slang and rollercoastering thoughts, but their fears, their hopes, the unspoken moments that can knit souls together and the moments of triumph of wisdom beyond their years. Besides, the brief snatches we here of the absurdity of Aspects of Lear (crafted and presented by Gabe Lozada through the static-y dressing room speaker) is worth getting in the room alone.

Dunsmore is the very cap of snark, showing us a girl who is struggling not just to portray a theatrical villain but master a social role that doesn’t quite suit her. Where she goes subtle, Pereda matches and compliments her with an infectious and touchingly earnest cheer, perfectly inhabiting the Drama Queen on her last night. She also has a lovely counterpoint in Huffman, each prompting and topping levels of sweetness and strength in each other. Kerr meanwhile thighs herself wholeheartedly into Lear’s madness, humming the energy of the anxious and the love lorn. Her explosions of limbs and occasional cut-string falls are endearing in the extreme; and if you’re inclined to be caustic because Lear has no idea how to run with Shakespeare, Kerr’s performance to the battle scene/Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” will sweep all your doubts aside. And then there’s the Ensemble. Mostly silent for the first half of the play, though perfectly eloquent with eyebrow semaphore, when she finally speaks, Dillon cuts the play like a red hot knife, taking the moment as much as if she’d kicked her way through the door. It is a sterling synthesis between playwright’s words and actor’s instincts. From thence forth, the Ensemble rules the show, (a Bogart coolness, guarding a pile of snackfoods, “I learned the hard way. They’ll kill you for a Cheezit.”) without losing the shadow of awkwardness that must haunt her in the world outside.