Suburbia, Hemlock barometers of youth
By MATT RADZ
Sex drugs and nihilism. The kids are not all right, if Suburbia and Hemlock, two upstart theatrical attractions that opened this week, can serve as a barometer to gauge the social and existential pressures on today's youth.
With crushed cans of Bud littering the parking-lot set and the most vile character an alcoholic US air force dropout, Persephone Productions' vigorous, well-defined reading of Eric Bogosian's Suburbia speaks its sad, no-hope truths with a heavy American accent.
Bogosian's already faded 1996 nightmare (a rock star returns home to give limo rides to the loser high-school buddies he left behind) is a good choice for the four-year-old independent company's sixth production.
Persephone's attempt last season to dramatize the great Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre left that admirable ambition mostly unfulfilled. A steep drop in literary class, Suburbia puts its young cast of nine in familiar territory. The result is a wellpaced, watchable show guaranteed to make any young audience hoot and titter at seeing lives uncomfortably much like their own compressed into sharply pointed drama.
Bogosian's smart-mouth script works as,a catalogue of 20-something longings-"Got any weed?" "I'm alienated - but at least there's Oreo cookies," and of course, variations on: "Wanna roll around in the van out back?"
Director Gabrielle Soskin receives uniformly excellent performances from an attractive cast led by Neil Napier as Tim, the sodden air force dropout and Erin Hicock, an aspiring rap/performance artist who is leaving the Massachusetts suburb of Burnfield, where the play is set, for New York City.
Suburbia is a melodrama of young people trapped in a messed-up present staggering into the ragedy of a dead future.
Reprinted from The Montreal Gazette September 26, 2004
Sex drugs and nihilism. The kids are not all right, if Suburbia and Hemlock, two upstart theatrical attractions that opened this week, can serve as a barometer to gauge the social and existential pressures on today's youth.
With crushed cans of Bud littering the parking-lot set and the most vile character an alcoholic US air force dropout, Persephone Productions' vigorous, well-defined reading of Eric Bogosian's Suburbia speaks its sad, no-hope truths with a heavy American accent.
Bogosian's already faded 1996 nightmare (a rock star returns home to give limo rides to the loser high-school buddies he left behind) is a good choice for the four-year-old independent company's sixth production.
Persephone's attempt last season to dramatize the great Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre left that admirable ambition mostly unfulfilled. A steep drop in literary class, Suburbia puts its young cast of nine in familiar territory. The result is a wellpaced, watchable show guaranteed to make any young audience hoot and titter at seeing lives uncomfortably much like their own compressed into sharply pointed drama.
Bogosian's smart-mouth script works as,a catalogue of 20-something longings-"Got any weed?" "I'm alienated - but at least there's Oreo cookies," and of course, variations on: "Wanna roll around in the van out back?"
Director Gabrielle Soskin receives uniformly excellent performances from an attractive cast led by Neil Napier as Tim, the sodden air force dropout and Erin Hicock, an aspiring rap/performance artist who is leaving the Massachusetts suburb of Burnfield, where the play is set, for New York City.
Suburbia is a melodrama of young people trapped in a messed-up present staggering into the ragedy of a dead future.
Reprinted from The Montreal Gazette September 26, 2004