SITE GUIDE
SEARCH
REVIEWS
REVIEW ARCHIVES
ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP
FEATURES
NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings
LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway
NYC Restaurants
BOOKS and CDs
OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Elsewhere
QUOTES
TKTS
PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS
LETTERS TO EDITOR
FILM
LINKS
MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
A CurtainUp Review
Jailbait
|
And you have to be confident. No pulling at your clothes or anything. No slouching. No crossing your arms over your boobs. You have to act like you dress like that every day. .— Emmy
|
left to right:Natalia Payne as Claire and Wrenn Schmidt as Emmy
(Photo: Carol Rosegg) |
Intelligently handled by the young author, this coming-of-age story presents us with a quartet of characters to searingly shows us what happens when teens get in over their head, and passion spins out of control. It also presents the night club scene as it really is, with special emphasis on its pseudo-sophistication and casual sex. Though one may be tempted to label the play as a staged sitcom, it soon proves itself to be a drama with layered characters and a tightly conceived plot. The contradictory currents in both teens are sustained by the moving complex performances of Wrenn Schmidt's Emmy and Natalia Payne's Claire. Equally interesting are Kelly AuCoin's sensitive Robert and Peter O'Connor's sleazy Mark.
The action begins with both teens primping for the dates they are to meet at the nightclub where Emmy met Mark the previous week. After Emmy instructs Claire on the finer points of seduction, the scene switches to the men at the nightclub waiting for the girls. Interest and mounts when the foursome meets and the scenes alternate between the men and the teens retreating, in turns, to the restrooms to discuss their impressions of the dates so far. These alternating scenes create a pungent sense of what's happening to whom, and how and why various bits of information are being relayed during the evening.
To be sure, neither of the teens can cope with the hard reality of getting picked up, getting laid (or not), and getting dumped all in one evening. In fact, one of the more powerful moments in the show is when Claire refers to the evening as "a date" and Robert instantly refutes her claim with a few disdaining remarks: "No. It's a pick-up. It's a dirty drunken night of f. . .ing followed by no phone call. No contact. No relationship. Nothing. You want to play grown-up? That's grown-up."
There are a lot of such shattering moments and grown-up revelations, but O'Connor doesn't make this play a catechism lesson on private or public morality. To be sure, the theme is sex, and how easily one gets bruised by it. While the men express some suspicions early on about the girls' looking young, it takes a while for them to Emmy's and Claire's ages, and call their game. It's a risky, frisky, and sobering situation. It ends up turning Emmy's careful scheming on its head with her pseudo-sophistication goes flat.
The language of the play is natural and convincing. It captures the patois of adolescents and the idiom of men who wear Brooks Brothers suits. The word "fun" — repeated time and again by the teens—-is a flippant reference to sex in the play, but, not surprisingly, the fun slowly disappears and sex takes on more nuanced meanings with each passing scene. What's more, the teens ultimately learn that sexual intimacy is no shortcut to growing up.
O'Connor has managed to successfully write a play about sex without staging any risqué sex scenes where the audience becomes more voyeurs than viewers. In short, one learns that a good play about sex is not so much about displaying one's privates but rather concerns one's psychological makeup and capacity for commitment.
The director at hand is Suzanne Agins, and a good hand she has. Two of her past forays in directing include Lucy and the Conquest and The Birds at the Williamstown Theater Festival, where she recently served as artistic associate director. She is one of the guiding forces behind the Cherry Lane Mentor Project, in which Jailbait was developed. Along with esteemed playwright Michael Weller, she has nurtured O'Connor's play from its earliest stages to this fully-staged production.
Unlike so many writers of coming-of-age plays, O'Connor has the maturity to portray the strengths and frailities of her characters. Her play has a center of gravity and never spins off its axis—even when the characters spin off theirs.
All in all, this promises to be a good year for O'Connor. Jailbait serves up an interesting theatrical medley of naiveness, experience, sexual fantasy, and reality. As the first tenant of the Cherry Pit, the new Cherry Lane company space in the West Village, it's a breath of fresh air in these stale economic times.
|
Jailbait Written by Deirdre O'Connor Directed by Suzanne Agins Cast: Kelly AuCoin (Robert), Peter O'Connor (Mark), Natalia Payne (Claire), Wrenn Schmidt (Emmy). Sets: Kina Park Costumes: Rebecca Bernstein Sound: Daniel Kluger &Brandon Wolcott Lighting: Pat Dignan Stage Manager: Libby Unsworth The Cherry Pit at 155 Bank Street From 3/19/09; opening 3/25/09/closing 4/25/09. Wednesdays and Thursdays @ 8pm; Fridays and Saturdays @ 7pm and 10pm. Tickets are $40. For reservations, call SmartTix at 212-868-4444 or visit www.smartix.com. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission Reviewed by Deirdre Donovan based on March 23rd press performance |
|
REVIEW FEEDBACK Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V): Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review. You can also contact us at Curtainup at Facebook or Curtainup at Twitter |
Try onlineseats.com for great seats to
Wicked
Jersey Boys
The Little Mermaid
Lion King
Shrek The Musical
South Pacific
In the Heights
Playbill 2007-08 Yearbook
Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide
Wicked
Jersey Boys
The Little Mermaid
Lion King
Shrek The Musical
South Pacific
In the Heights
Playbill 2007-08 Yearbook
Leonard Maltin's 2008 Movie Guide