punkplay
Reviewed by Vanessa Cate
Circle X Theatre Co.
Through December 21
RECOMMENDED
For anyone who grew up as an outsider, Gregory S. Moss’s punkplay packs the sweetness of nostalgia into an energetic 90 minutes. Although each scene flows fluidly into the next, each scene is also inspired by a distinct punk rock song. The play is almost like a mixtape — even if you can’t hear all of the songs the writer was inspired by, the spirit of the music is intrinsically imbedded in the work. Moss’s piece, therefore, is a deeply personal gift to the audience.
Mickey (Zackarry Stone Gearing) and Duck (Dempsey Bryk) are adolescent boys growing up in the Reagan-era American suburbs. Duck has been thrown out of his house, so he asks to stay with Mickey. Over the course of the following year, the two find comfort and a sense of identity in the punk rock movement of the time — which serves both to cohere and to tear them apart.
Moss’s script is written with near-militant stage direction — an approach notably more structured than the violent sloppiness and ravaged messiness inherent in punk style. Co-directors Matt Bretz and Lisa Sanaye Dring follow the playwright’s vision admirably, and have cultivated performances and moments more human than lesser directors may have done amid sometimes stifling requirements and in such a stylized play.
Truthfully, the writer’s vision, when realized, is a brilliant glimpse back to what it was like growing up as an angst-ridden teenager, desperately searching for understanding and railing against conformity amid the “foodeaters and motherfuckers.” The script is buoyant, vivid, poetic, humorous, and painfully and sweetly real.
There is also something so very tender about punkplay’s portrayal of youthful masculinity, and its depiction of growing from a boy into a man. Essentially formative moments are portrayed with finesse, from cigarette burns to teenage ideology, sloppy kisses, unbearable heartbreak, and being unable to express yourself the way you most wish you could.
Circle X’s creative team executes a loving homage to adolescence with all-around skill. The design team makes something at once pristine and dangerous. Ann Closs-Farley’s costume and wig design is masterfully authentic and Sibyl Wickersheimer’s set is a blank canvas interspersed with punk artifacts and growing texture.
Performances from the ensemble are charming, but Gearing carries the show. His sincerity is so refreshing, an audience might be forgiven for considering going back in time to younger and simpler years and reliving the agony of youth all over again.
Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; through Dec. 21. https://buytickets.at/circlextheatrecompany/304274. Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission.
