Review: Red Line Production's THE WOLVES Returns For An Encore Season At Belvoir St Theatre

Wednesday 6th February 2019, 7:30pm, Belvoir St Theatre

Following on from a successful 2018 premiere season at Old Fitz Theatre, Jessica Arthur's (Director) production of Sarah DeLappe's THE WOLVES expands to the larger Belvoir St Theatre stage. Whilst this encore season primarily allows more audiences the opportunity to see the work, for those that saw the Old Fitz staging, viewing the work in a larger space brings out different aspects of the work making a revisit to the soccer court worthwhile.

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For those unfamiliar with the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama finalist and Obie Award and American Playwriting Foundation Relentless Award winner, THE WOLVES is A Contemporary Theatre work that gives a 'fly on the wall' view of an all-girls indoor soccer team somewhere in middle America. The team of 9 deal with a range of concerns common to high school girls from menstruation, boys, and schoolwork to weightier concerns of college scholarships, world politics, abortion and sexual assault. As with real life which doesn't always have clear cut resolutions of matters, DeLappe leaves most of the issues that the girls raise, from possible assault, eating disorders, and worse, largely unaddressed within the 80 minutes of the show. This different style of storytelling that seeks to trigger the audience to consider their own reactions rather than trying everything up neatly in a conventional play package, asking them to consider the issues the young women in their world may be facing and how they can assist them in navigating the grown up problems.

There is a truth and realism in the work, from the styles of intersecting conversations and the tangents that the girls go off on, to the range from banal to cerebral that can be bounced around like the soccer balls they are practicing with. This is all layered over the perpetual motion of the soccer warm ups that take place on the netted, astro turf lined stage. The netting, whilst protecting the audience from stray balls, also provides a physical barrier to match the mental barrier that leaves the observer merely peering in but not getting involved. For this season, the physicality of the work has been adapted for the broader Belvoir stage and its two entrances leading to better representations of the space where the team would be practicing. The downfall of the size of the space is the immediacy of the work, particularly if seated further back from the stage, and the ability to follow and hear the details of the multiple conversations.

Whilst Brenna Harding (#25), Emma Harvie (#11), Sarah Meacham (#13), Sophia Nolan (#8), Michelle Ny (#14), Cece Peters (#7), Nikita Waldron (#46) and Nadia Zwecker (#2) are reprising their roles, Chika Ikogwe joins the ensemble as goalkeeper #00 and Renee Lim steps into the role of #14's mother, previously doubled by Ny. Ikogwe adds a gravitas to the over anxious, often silent goalkeeper who generally warms up at the edges of the group, too wracked with nerves despite her skills to enter into the conversations. Lim's soccer mum appearance captures the requisite level of dissociated confusion of a woman still struggling to make sense of the events that unfold but wanting to put on a brave face for the girls. Of the returning cast, Harding, Meacham and Zwecker deliver the stronger representations of their characters whilst Waldron appears somewhat ill-at-ease with #46's outsider character which may come down to gaps in direction.

Realistic and intriguing, THE WOLVES is a fast paced peek into the lives of teenage girls through the narrow lens of their weekly soccer practice. Whilst personalities aren't explicitly mined, names are barely even given, the overall intent to present a staged version a reality TV exposé without the traditional interviews or explanations so that the audience are in control of what they take away from the work does make for a refreshing work that doesn't seek to force ideas onto people.

https://belvoir.com.au/productions/the-wolves/

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