You know you’re going to be in for a night when the characters in the program don’t actually have names. Buckle up, bicycle kick, and get ready to go for— goal— with The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe now officially open at Spotlighters Theatre as the last main-stage show of their 61st season. Directed by Lanoree Blake, this 90-minute, no-intermission, theatrical exploration gives you glimpses into the lives of teenage girls and their indoor-soccer-dominated world.
If you’re going in looking for lucid, connected, linearity or a straight-forward plot, think again. Playwright Sarah DeLappe is almost taking that ‘experimental devised’ approach that anyone who’s ever taken an acting workshop or theatre class from college will recognize and remember. It’s less of a play and more of a series of disjointed moments that’s attempting to portray what life is like for teenage girls whose sole bond seems to be the fact that they’re all on one team. It’s a tremendous ask— for both cast and director (not to mention audience)— to readily absorb the heavy subject material, the anonymity, and the frenetic bombacity with which these loosely-connected scenes come together. The performers are brilliant in their respective roles and group interactions, though the play itself almost reads as unfinished. And maybe that’s DeLappe’s intention— to just be this ‘every-girl’ story where there’s a little nugget of something you can relate to, a little moment that you recognize, a little glimpse of something. It’s a dizzying amalgamation of unfettered caricatures that look like the idea of an interpretation of the notion of a girls’ soccer team.
DeLappe doesn’t name the characters (except at the very end of the script where the Soccer Mom character comes in and starts mentioning a few of the girls by name, which completely unbalances the ‘every-girl’/anonymity notion that she spends the first 84 minutes of the show building up) which feels depersonalized but also opens up the notion that these nameless players could be any teenage girl. Which would be fine if all of the incredibly heavy subject material, which is dropped like pathos-bombs on the audience without warning, wasn’t quite so heavy or was executed in a different way. You don’t ever get the chance to truly connect to these characters, partially because what little you’re learning about them flies at you faster than a speedball into the goalie’s net and partially because they don’t establish themselves as individuals beyond heightened, highly-stylized character-traits. It creates a struggle to generate empathy. And there’s some pretty serious stuff, some of which is more blatantly explained— like a character having an abortion or another character having severe anxiety disorder— while other issues are much more subtle, sometimes too subtle and oddly implied— like the character with the potential eating disorder or the fact that one of the sketchier coaches might be sexually abusing one of the characters.
The one thing that DeLappe seems to capture effortlessly in her script is the vernacular and utter nonsensical round-robin nature of the way teenage girls not only talk but interact with one another. The bullying, the sniping, the joking, the disjointed camaraderie— that all comes across exceedingly well (don’t actually try to follow along with some of the earlier conversations or your head will spin.) This is where the challenge for Director Lanoree Blake comes into play. And it’s a challenge that she rises to and excels at with flying soccer balls. (And she does an excellent job of keeping the actual soccer balls out of the audience banks, which is no small feat considering the spatial constraints of the Spotlighters’ stage.) Blake really works the group dynamic of her nine performers (it’s a cast of ten but as the ‘Soccer Mom, played by Margaret Condon, only appears in the final moments of the play…) giving the audience a sense of team, even when they’re at odds with one another. She masterfully choreographs real soccer drills on that postage-stamp stage and effectively conveys the message that these are teenage girls who have bonded or separated from their bonds over the unity of being a mostly undefeated indoor-soccer team.
Blake should also be commended on her vocal work with the cast. It has been an ongoing struggle at Spotlighters Theatre since the return of theatre from the pandemic for voices to be heard no matter where they are on the stage (the stage at Spots, for those unfamiliar, is theatre in the square with load-bearing support columns creating obstructions at all four corners.) Blake has succeeded fantastically in making sure that even when the group of performers were facing full-circle inward with all backs to the audience or when the various clusters of characters were scattered to the angled-tabs that project out from center, you could hear them. And not just in moments of shouting. Conversation tone, whispers, and casual dialogue exchange could be heard with tremendous consistency throughout the entire production and that seems like such a small thing to praise, but as this play is scattered to the four corners of the earth with its dialogue and the bigger issue at hand is that nobody has been completely successful with that volume-balancing task since before the pandemic, it is definitely worth praising.
A lot of the character choices feel like the come out of left field (I know, that’s baseball and softball, but you get the picture) which isn’t to slap down any of the performers or Lanoree Blake— because they are strong choices and definitely read with bombastic levels of emotion— but again, falling back into Sarah DeLappe’s dysconnectivity in her script, it does leave the audience with moments of feeling totally blind-sided, if not confused. One of the more perfect examples of this is with #8 (Jess McGowan.) Multiple times throughout the performance McGowan’s character delivers these life-ending shriek-meltdown-outbursts. And more often than not, it’s over something ridiculously simple…like nationals being in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and not Miami, Florida. But there’s no clear indicator if it’s because the character is just way over the top and melodramatic or if she has non-neurotypical behaviors that would fall in-line with conditions like ADHD or sensory overload, or if she’s just a little unhinged from undisclosed and unchecked trauma.
#00 (Adanya Koger-Hobson) is the team goalie; the character says almost no words until the final few moments of the show but you won’t readily forget this character as you see #00 constantly flying off the stage in a huge hurry. To go vomit. It gets explained bluntly, a rarity in this script, that the character has social anxiety disorder, which presents itself as vomiting before every game. Koger-Hobson does a superb job with their physicality, particularly when making mad-dashes off the stage. There’s a horrifyingly striking moment towards the end where Koger-Hobson has the stage to themselves (another extreme rarity in this production) that even though it’s contextually unclear in that moment what exactly it’s for and what’s happening, you feel their pain on a visceral level, even if you don’t know what it’s from.
And there are moments like that all throughout the production. In true disjointed fashion, maybe as a nod to the vagueness that dominates DeLappe’s script, I should take a moment here to talk about the amazing set that Technical Director and Scenographer Justin Nepomuceno has put together for this production. The painting on the wall— for the interior soccer-dome goal net is done in striking detail. The plexiglass gate guard to give you that sense of being enclosed in the indoor arena is strikingly authentic. There’s a soccer-field green center blazed onto the stage floor itself and the columns are referee-style black and white. Nepomuceno has done a fantastic job with working the visuals of this production. He’s aided by Director Lanoree Blake (who serves as the show’s costume, lighting, and sound designer) and together their technical approach to the production is impressive.
Back to the group dynamic. #7 (Gabe Duque) and #14 (Blake Martin) have a ‘clique-ish besties’ vibe that is its own intrapersonal rollercoaster amid the dynamic of the group. Duque is often the one clapping back loudly at #25 (Sarah Ford), who serves as the team captain, and often furiously on edge. Ford, as the no-nonsense team captain, has her own gentler side to struggle with, though anyone who has ever been a part of any type of team will recognize multiple qualities of leadership in her portrayal— the good, the bad, and the ugly. Ford and Duque face off a bit throughout the performance and their exchanges always feel heightened.
The aforementioned #8 (Jess McGowan) has— for lack of a better word— a stereotypical blondeness about her character. There is something less than academic at work in the way she addresses situations, particularly when she’s chiming in with her complaints about doing poorly in certain school subjects. You get a grody grittiness from #13 (Louisa Davis) whose plucky, obnoxious behaviors read almost like a hardened external defense mechanism. Davis’ character is constantly agitating others and we’ve all seen that one girl in action— “the agitator” in the group. There’s a moment— somewhere near the middle of the show— where McGowan goes off the rails at Davis when Davis’ character is taunting her over an inappropriate subject matter and it’s unhinged on a deeply unsettling level.
There is a naivete to #2 (Zoe Prue), perceived to be the good-little-Christian-girl, though she might also be the character with the potential eating disorder as the others continually refer to her eating habits. There’s also a striking moment where Prue is alone on stage shoveling orange slices into her mouth alone, making a huge mess in doing so, but it reads as such a tragically beautiful moment it’s hard to know how to feel about it or what to think. #11 (Benni Rose) gets slotted into the super-nerd category, gassing on about documentaries and things of the like. There’s also a snootiness to Rose’s portrayal but again that sort of reads like a defense mechanism. As we only ever get— not even glimpses but rather— blinks into the lives of these nameless girls, it’s difficult to fully understand where these riled-up emotions and behavioral ticks come from. It’s an intriguing affair to watch as it feels like you’re watching an incomplete character study where pieces have yet to be developed by DeLappe.
#46 (Sydney Lee) is perceived as an outsider. ‘The other.’ Different. There are strong vibes of Cady-Heron a la the very beginning of Mean Girls with Lee’s portrayal once you get to understand a little bit more. The #46 character might be the character with the most backstory fully and blatantly exposed and explained. There is something truly striking about Lee’s stage presence as well and her genuine kindness. While the other girls are busy sniping at one another, #46 even when she’s trying to gently joke with them to fit in, feels as though she comes from place of authentic niceness and caring. And Lee delivers that unwaveringly. She also doesn’t pull punches when it comes to demonstrating that her feelings have been hurt. And her soccer-ball skills during the “Yogurt-Rhyme” moment are on point.
It’s definitely a unique piece of theatre, certainly not something you’re likely to see anywhere else anytime soon and the cast of ten are definitely putting it all out there, chock-a-block with volatile emotional explosions. Check out this 90-minute character-emotion-study intensive and see if you can relate to any of the archetypical stereotypes held within Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves.
Running Time: 95 minutes with no intermission
The Wolves plays through July 28th 2024 at The Audrey Herman Spotlighters Theatre— 817 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD. For tickets call the box office at (410) 752-1225 or purchase them online.
