Review: GOOD KIDS Explores Serious Themes on Ohio State Stage

The thumping bass of Top 40 radio hits and the whoops and screams of revelers are not uncommon sounds for a Friday night on Ohio State's campus, but one would probably expect to encounter such a soundtrack at High Street bars and house parties, not inside an intimate theater.

Yet upon entering the Roy Bowen Theatre in Ohio State's Drake Performance and Event Center, where the OSU Department of Theatre's "Good Kids" is performed, the musical choices serve to transport audience members to a small town, which, with its lone MacDonald's, strip of motels and single high school, is meant to evoke images of many highway-side towns often passed on road trips across Ohio. The play's plot revolves around a party planned by high school students living in the town, but the reach of the play extends beyond this seemingly-frivolous event to comment on much larger, more serious themes.

"Good Kids," a play commissioned as part of the Big Ten Theatre Consortium's New Play Initiative and written by Naomi Iizuka, is based on 2012 Steubenville High School rape case, and anyone who recalls watchig as this Ohio town was thrust into the national spotlight will definitely see parallels to the events that unfold on stage in this production.

The play, presented on a minimalistic set that features a bright blue pickup truck, black ramps and a stage trimmed with shaggy, brown carpet, begins with an establishing look at the students who populate the local high school. Especially emphasized is Connor (Jack Kelliher), the school's star football player who has dreams of pursuing an athletic scholarship in college. He is surrounded by his teammates, Ty (Zak Bainazarov), Tanner (Dakota Drown) and Landon (Tom McKinney), whose often-lewd remarks about women bleakly foreshadow the events that occur later in the play.

More of the high school hierarchy is explored with the introduction of the female characters, whose personality traits are -- like most of the males', as well -- pretty stereotypical. Amber (Sara Lorraine Perry) leads a group of "popular" girls made up of Madison (Kahla Tisdale), Brianna (Katie Elizabeth Wenzel) and Kylie (Elizabeth Rogge), while Skyler (Jasmine Michelle Smith) stands out from the rest of her classmates with her purple-dyed hair and cynical commentary on the vapid nature of the high school experience.

The only character who seems to have no place on the high school social ladder is Deidre (Linnea Bond), a bespectacled, hoodie-wearing narrator who glides across the stage in her wheelchair while serving as an unlikely, omniscient guide for the audience. With fast-flying fingers that dance over the keys of her laptop, Deidre is the voice of the Internet and the digital era, a role that -- paired with imaginative visuals projected on a dynamic strip of video screens suspended above the stage -- chillingly exemplifies the far reach of social media and technological dissemination.

Fast-forward to the night of the party, where Kylie's cousin, Chloe (Alexandra Davis), and friend, Daphne (Myia Eren), show up uninvited at Amber's house. There, Chloe drinks excessively and loses control, and wakes up the next day with no recollection of what had happened the night before. It is only when she sees videos and photos of her limp body surrounded by a group of football players that she knows she had been raped.

"Good Kids" strives to address many topics prevalent in today's ever-changing society, and, for much of the show's 90-minute runtime, it succeeds. The dialogue between characters touches upon hot-button issues like consent and the "yes means yes" campaign that has been widely emphasized on many college campuses this year, cultural colloquialisms in the form of selfies and hashtags, as well as the technological advancements that allow cell phones to no longer be just devices for talking, but instead a tool of cyber weaponry.

While the characters are meant to represent general archetypes of students often found in high school social structures, moments of genuine interplay between some of the play's more complex characters charges the production with emotion, a necessary addition that saves it from becoming too preachy or PSA-like.

In the end, "Good Kids" provides the spark necessary to begin conversations regarding the choices one makes in his or her life and how those decisions impact the future, and leaves audience members with much to think about long after they leave the theater.

"Good Kids" is set to run from Oct. 21 through Nov. 1 at the Roy Bowen Theatre in the Drake Performance and Event Center, located on Ohio State's campus. Each performance is followed by a post-show discussion with staff members and advocates from the Sexual Assault Response Network of Central Ohio.

Because "Good Kids" deals with adult themes and includes strong language and depictions of sexual violence, the show is recommended for viewers 14 and older.

Tickets are available for purchase in person through the Ohio State Theatre Box Office or online via Ticketmaster.

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