Writer: Sarah DeLappe
Director: Ragan Keefer
Nine high school students constitute a women’s soccer team, The Wolves, in an unnamed North American city. They meet to warm up and play each Saturday and that provides the structure for the unfolding scenes in Sarah DeLappe’s appealing and quite original play. They sit chatting, often over each other, in a circle as they stretch, in a sort of visual chorus. Each girl has a number on her back. Her given name, if we ever learn it, is subsidiary. They are first and foremost a team who huddle together and chant “We are the Wolves” as a bonding exercise before each match.
The play showcases young female talent and there are some strong actors in this cast whose delivery is naturalistically convincing. There is also some very attentive active listening as they discuss the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, along with cancer, immigration and abortion among other things including, of course, their coach and the details of the forthcoming tour.
Inevitably there’s someone in the room with experience of each of every contentious topic so toes get trodden on. And this deepens as they pair, still talking, for dribbling practice, each two passing across the stage, configured in the round for this show, which is unusual for Tower Theatre.
Amongst a generally good cast, Thea Mayeux is outstanding as #13. She is the joker/leader, making silly faces and putting on voices and generally being the brittle, disruptive, often cruel, teenager no teacher wants in a class. But of course, she’s also vulnerable, which is why she shows off constantly, and Mayeux nails that perfectly.
Eventually – the play runs 90 minutes without interval – disaster strikes and one of the team dies so the action becomes more subdued as they talk about her and her funeral. The mood finally leaves changing room banter behind when Amanda Charalambous, as the dead girl’s mother, arrives to address them while they each sit in their usual circle but still, silent and gazing uncomfortably at the floor. Competent as Charalambous is, this overlong scene is the least successful thing in an otherwise well-paced piece.
Runs until 1 February 2025