- Photo courtesy of Burning Coal Theatre
- "Jailbait"
In Jailbait, a spiky drama playing at the Murphey School Auditorium as part of Burning Coal's Second Stage series, high school sophomores Claire and Emmy decide to play dress-up and sneak into a 21-and-over dance club. Their plan—barely thought through—is to get drunk, flirt with some guys and maybe orbit the adult world for a while.
Things get complicated, naturally. Also at the club that night are Robert and Mark, 30-something guys with their own dubious reasons for making the singles scene. Mark, coming off a breakup, is less predatory than his friend, but he's happy to take Claire's word for it when she says she's a junior at Harvard.
In director Christine Zagrobelny's minimalist staging, playwright Deirdre O'Connor's story is stripped to its essentials. Navigating a few multipurpose set pieces, the characters pair off in scenes designed to explore the dynamics beneath each relationship. As the reluctant Claire, Burning Coal company member Tara Polhemus (also a senior at Millbrook High School) gives a startlingly sophisticated performance. Anna Vargas brings a sadness to her portrayal of Emmy, a girl pretending to a cynicism she doesn't even understand.
The fellas don't quite hold up their end, so this story belongs to the young women. The scenes between Claire and Emmy get richer and more treacherous as plans go awry and motives are revealed—teenage motives, cruelest in the cosmos.
The presentation has its interesting observations—for instance, how people in clubs tend to hold onto their drinks like talismans. But Jailbait is most compelling simply in its choice of subject matter.
As a culture, we don't talk much in public about sex and adolescence. When we do, we tend to bury it in soft-focus mush or blunt and anxious comedy. The teenage sex in Jailbait (always offstage or hypothetical) is more honestly presented—as enticing, powerful and scary as hell.
This article appeared in print with the headline "Young meets old."
Related Locations
-
Burning Coal Theatre at the Murphey School
- 224 Polk St, Raleigh Wake County NC 27604
-
919-834-4001
- www.burningcoal.org
- (based on 2 user reviews)
- To create paragraphs in your comment, type <p> at the start of a paragraph and </p> at the end of each paragraph.
- To create bold text, type <b>bolded text</b> (please note the closing tag, </b>).
- To create italicized text, type <i>italicized text</i> (please note the closing tag, </i>).
- Proper web addresses will automatically become links.
Latest in Theater
-
Two arms negotiators try to end the nightmare in Burning Coal's A Walk in the Woods
In this psychological two-person drama, long-term stressors slowly take their toll after a new American nuclear arms negotiator takes a seat across from his Soviet counterpart.
- May 15, 2013
-
A decade among gay friends in Manbites Dog's The Homosexuals
Manbites Dog's season closer fully qualifies as a work of both courage and conscience.
- May 8, 2013
-
Little Green Pig's audacious take on Anne Frank
Through May 18 at The Shadowbox
- May 8, 2013
- More »
More by Glenn McDonald
-
Earth, interrupted: Oblivion delivers high-grade science fiction spectacle
Tom Cruise fights aliens, conspiracies and military drone anxiety.
- Apr 19, 2013
-
Them Iowa boys mean business in At Any Price
Opens Friday at the Chelsea
- May 22, 2013
- More »
