| There's humor here, but, by and large, this is an exceedingly sad play. It's beautifully directed and acted, and DeLappe captures perfectly the inchoate, blank frustration of a pack of adolescent girls who have no words for what is happening to them. They move together but they don't get far because experience confounds them; they don't know how to mobilize their aggression to some purposeful end because it's largely imitative of masculine forms of the same. Adolescence is a special misery, of course. Girls and boys feel significant pressure to control what they can't--their bodies--and this tension usually manifests as a sort of defensive indifference. The girls in THE WOLVES affect toughness as an attempt to master their confusion and their fear; none knows what the world has in store for them. They're as casually, if gruffly, affectionate as they are cruel. But for all the vigorous, vociferous language they employ, they can't yet find or convey meaning; it's empty speech. This is a loud, relentless play. At this juncture in our history, it's nice, I suppose, that girls can be savages, too. |
