Puberty is a hard thing to make tolerable. Certainly not while
you’re experiencing it, nor when you’re remembering it. Nonetheless,
it’s an easy thing to make fun of. Most everyone has experienced or
heard of a horrible deflowering story, or some bad-diary memory of a
nocturnal emission, or an actual bad diary full of self-immolating
blank verse. Such things are the stuff of Impact Theatre’s ninth
collection of original ten-minute plays. Called Impact Briefs:
Puberty, it oscillates from the banal things that everyone
remembers (“the talk,” slutty dancing, chest hair) to bizarre
amplifications of teenage fantasies (vampires, puberty support groups,
chat rooms that invade the human psyche). It’s not a very good
first-date play unless you’re planning to go out for pizza afterward
and talk about menstruation. Then again, that seems to be the
point.
This year’s Briefs comprises seven plays — culled from
four hundred total submissions — that vary in quality, although
they’re all pretty imaginative. In between sketches the actors pick sex
questions out of a hat, supposedly contributed by students at local
middle and high schools. Some of them are mildly humorous (e.g., “Why
is my cock so huge?” and “What if I accidentally pee when I’m inside a
girl?”). Some are thought-provoking (e.g., “Is it possible to get
pregnant if you are sitting on a guy’s lap?” “Why do girls like anal
sex?”). Some are educational (e.g., “What is a hermaphrodite?”). Some
are obligatory “hairy penis” drawings wadded up to look like
questions.
Most of the plays are equally entertaining. Take Andrew Shemin’s
“The Cat Lee Show,” a humorous representation of what a snarly
thirteen-year-old girl would do if she got her own show. In fact, it’s
not so different from what any daytime talk-show host would do: She’d
interview an admiring friend, dance around, let slip some small but
incredibly lurid detail about her personal life, dance around,
interview the sensitive guy that we all see at recess, dance around.
This sketch introduces us to the show’s three most memorable actors:
Cindy Im (Cat’s friend), who seems to have the most range of anyone in
the production; Seth Thygesen, who makes a convincing teenage poet; and
Luisa Frasconi, who is wonderful as the peppy, hysterical Cat Lee
— until you realize she’s actually playing herself.
Shemin actually has two plays in Briefs, the second of which
is supposed to be a compendium of short “dialogues” written by students
at Willard Middle School. The Impact actors step forward, two-by-two,
and read their scripts from lined paper. Outside characters are implied
— for instance, Jarrett’s mom, who enters, “and lets out a loud
‘kweef.'” Shemin succeeds not by virtue of creativity, but because he’s
able to capture the eighth-grade vernacular well enough that an actual
eighth grader might approve. Story-wise, he’s eclipsed by other more
imaginative playwrights in this production. Diana Bertinelli’s “Binkie
My Binkie” is perhaps the most cutting-edge, since it shows how
teenagers lose their virginity in the digital age — using chat
rooms and computer avatars. Pete Caslavka’s “Puberty Support Group”
might be the most outlandish, but it doesn’t quite cohere as a
story.
The best plays in this year’s Briefs are “Suede” by Cheshire
Isaacs, and “The Talk” by David Kongstvedt, both of which offer
original takes on classic puberty stories (the wet dream one and the
birds-and-bees one, respectively).
“Suede” has a foolproof formula. A recently bar-mitzvahed teen
(Thygesen) is given his second test of manhood: He’s expected to spend
a night home alone and not mess up the suede couch. You can fill in the
other details. What makes the play great is Thygesen’s comic timing. He
goes to every length to stanch out the wet spot on the couch,
ultimately enlisting the help of a dry cleaner, a homeless window
washer, and at least six different bottles of noxious cleaning
solution.
Kongstvedt’s “The Talk,” meanwhile, is the slickest play in
Briefs, and the only one with a complete narrative arc: There’s
a problem at the outset, it gets complicated, and, after ten minutes,
it’s more or less resolved. “The Talk” begins with a bumbling,
officious father sitting his son down on the suede couch and making us
all brace for what’s coming. Then dad throws a curveball.
Impact Theatre directors Cheshire Isaacs and Melissa Hillman chose
the puberty theme to commemorate their thirteenth year as a company.
(They’re marketing 2008-’09 as Impact’s “Bar Mitzvah season.”) They
adorned the stage walls at LaVal’s Subterranean with pictures of
daisies: One has boobs, another has muttonchops, the one in the center
has a single chest hair and appears to be ejaculating (or sweating?).
So far, “puberty” has been a pretty hard sell. There were roughly a
dozen people in the audience on a recent Thursday, mostly middle-school
teachers. Not surprising, since few people want to relive the worst
parts of adolescence. But a shame nonetheless. Uncomfortable moments
make for terrific comedy, after all, and they’re often worth revisiting
— albeit briefly.
