The Wolves at BCT

Or: Smart Eyes

As a critic there are a few problems that keep me up at night, biting my lip over how to net the essence of a play and keep it fluttering in a jar after the moment has passed into eternity. One of the most troubling, for me is the idea of imprinting: that the first time you see a play ruins your experience of subsequent productions. The jokes are no longer unexpected, the twists familiar and unsurprising, and everything is colored by the fact that the production you saw originally gets it “right,” and the one you watch loses worth in comparison.

It’s one possible reason why I did not enjoy BCT’s production of The Wolves as much as I should have. I saw a sterling production last year, my first blush with the improbably play about a girls soccer team trying to leave fear and loss at the side lines and play a good game of indoor.

Sarah DeLappe’s script is a beautiful piece on its own: a slice of hyperrealism structured underneath with unspoken divots and dark portents of things to come. It captures the overplayed pater of teenage discussions from weekend plans to the Khmer Rouge, thoroughly engrossed in the language of soccer and keeping the weighty theatrical monsters of mental health, sexual assault, poverty, and gender identity flickering as shadows on its back wall. The trouble with slice of life is that it’s so difficulty hard to do. In plays like DeLappe’s or Annie Baker’s moments have to be delineated: like an 18th Century Landscape Garden, so much more effort has to go in to make it look natural.

There’s a lack of urgency in the production, even when things are dire and the girls are swept up in events like the rolling green wave of grass of Melpomene Katakalos’s* set. Lines that should shine with a knife like quality are buried, fears that ought to grip us are slack fingered. It is not helped by the curious design to have a tense, worrisome scene interrupted by an ASM (Tess Makena) picking up the scattered soccer balls. While it's always a good thing to honor stage managers of all stripes, the intrusion seemed an odd choice.

The play is well cast, and each actor filling her position with zest and zeal, from the put upon captain #25 (Marley Snow King*) who clings to catchphrases, to the talented but tormented goalie #00 (Celine McMonigal*). Particular notes go to #11 (Lex Gonzales) the much put upon scholar of the group, continuously tweaked by the fact that no one will take her seriously, and to #46 (Emily Verla). The newcomer to a close knit team, #46 is perpetually in the act of hovering, poised on tip toe, trying to find a place in the conversation where she can perch. Endearingly guileless, Verla throws herself into the play and makes her character a person apart, sniggldy laugh and wild dance and all.

The experience is not unenjoyable nor poorly done. When a vicious dig is scored its scored well and tragedy strikes the team it sits as a leaden weight on the chest. But laughter and tears are easy to make. Like the wolves themselves the ensemble has all the talent it needs but doesn't seem to listen to each other. It could be great, but they aren’t passing the lines or following through with their strikes.

But of course that’s no reason not to see it. I might just have imprinted on an earlier play that spoke to me. There might be something in Verla’s renaissancecian poise in tracking the flight of a bird in the astrodome or #02’s (Amela Karadza) anguished shame as she steals an orange slice. Plays improve over time, ensembles and teams knit together. I still think the ball collection was an odd choice, but up until that point the story flowed well onstage and off. I may be spoiled by a production that spoke to me as much as this might speak to you, dear reader. The play is sound, spectacularly so, and there’s something liberating and uplifting to see young women free of constraint, allowed by their author to be wise and foolish, cruel and elated, their bodies and lives dictated by no one but themselves. That treasure, in todays world and the theatrical cannon, alone ought to be worth the price of a ticket. And the Wolves delivers it, even if it doesn’t leave leave everything it has on the field.

*All contenders for the Aven Tavishell Nifty Name Award 2019