Parents who assume they know what goes on in high school might get an unnerving reality check by watching Ignition Theatre’s season opening play Speech & Debate.
Stephen Karam’s dark, savvy comedy about three teen outcasts who are grappling with sexual secrets could well depict every parent’s worst nightmare, admitted director Matt Grue, with a chuckle.
Teenagers in the play text each other constantly, often spreading wildly inaccurate rumours about classmates. They judge other kids on their Facebook or MySpace pages before even meeting them face to face. And they use blogs to exact revenge.
“Some parents will look (at this comedy) and not believe it. Parents who do believe it and know it’s true, will find it a little horrific,” added Grue, with another laugh.
But he maintains Speech & Debate offers a realistic window into the 21st-Century world of high school as another form of cyber space. “After reading this play, I thought I have to check this out with high school kids — and they tell me it’s really accurate.”
Like the John Hughes movie The Breakfast Club, Speech & Debate is about adolescents who don’t fit in, or who are more cruelly labeled “losers.”
Diwata is a short, frumpy theatre geek, who longs to play the lead in the high school musical but is always relegated to the back row, chorus.
Howie unintentionally alienates himself with his oddball, self-absorbed behaviour, but blames his lack of social success on the fact he’s gay.
Solomon is an over-eager school reporter who can’t seem to wow anyone with his articles — much less get them published.
It dawns on all three high-schoolers that they share a sexual secret after Diwata “outs” the person who got her pregnant on her blog. Howie leaves his phone number on Diwata’s site, insinuating he knows something more about the sexual scandal, and Solomon contacts them both in an attempt to get the scoop.
Grue said both the scandal plot point and the speech and debate club the teens later start, are devices the playwright uses to get to the heart of the play’s message — about everyone’s need to find a personal identity and an authentic connection to others.
“None of these three know anything about relationships in high school — friendships even,” said Grue. But through their new-found ties to each other, “they finally have an outlet to express themselves and communicate who they are.”
When Speech & Debate premiered three years ago, it earned the “one of the 10 best plays of the year” distinction from Entertainment Weekly and a triumphant review from The New York Times.
Grue considered the script funny and entertaining upon first reading — “I thought it was something people would get a kick out of.” But he later found it deeper and more profound, based on its empathetic, cliché-free depiction of the three high-school misfits.
One of the most unsettling things the play reveals, said Grue, is how quick young people are to form judgments about others — judgments that are essentially meaningless, considering they are often based on the false identities people create for themselves on-line.
lmichelin@www.reddeeradvocate.com
WHAT: Ignition Theatre presents the dark comedy Speech & Debate, by Stephen Karam
WHEN: 7:30 p.m., Sept. 16-18, 21-25
WHERE: The Matchbox, Red Deer
TICKETS: $22 ($18 students/seniors) from The Matchbox box office, (403-341-6500)