"School Dance" Is A Surreal Look At The Teenage Experience

The play is fully of campy nonsense and weirdly touching displays of acceptance.

(courtesy of Facebook.com)
By Shannon Gormley

School Dance sounds like a play that's wholly uninterested in emotional substance: Depicting the surreal adventures of three awkward teen boys trying to make it to the high school dance, it's full of campy nonsense like a bike-riding montage set to "I Need a Hero," adult men playing teens, and a parallel universe called the "Land of Invisible Teens" that's haunted by Gizmo from Gremlins.

But Australian playwright Matthew Whittet's script, making its U.S. debut, balances unhinged camp with genuine emotion. Plus, it's part of comedic and camp-inclined Action/Adventure Theatre's new effort to produce plays that appeal to adults but target teenagers, a demographic whose cultural tastes are normally discredited. That dismissal is built into the plot: Before the dance, socially inept protagonist Matt (Pat Moran) becomes invisible, and his two best friends, Jonathan (Samson Syharath) and Luke (Jon Gennari), embark on a mission to make Matt visible again and teach him how to dance before the night is over.

The narrator (Christy Bigelow) is the only non-teen character. With deadpan delivery, she pokes loving fun at the three boys, but she also throws some jabs at their self-esteem: She starts the play by introducing the three main characters as if they're subjects in a nature documentary about losers.

The boys begin to revolt against her control of the story. In one scene, Luke's voice inexplicably becomes booming and dramatic, as if he's doing the voice-over for a movie trailer (Gennari lip-synchs a track played over the theater's sound system). The narrator accuses Luke of being "freaky," but Matt and Jonathan are totally unfazed by their friend's tendency to become somewhat possessed. In a weirdly touching display of supportive friendship and acceptance, they defend Luke against the narrator and encourage him to keep talking.

Humor takes precedent in Action/Adventure's production, occasionally at the expense of character depth. But the play is likable enough that you're still willing to follow along: School Dance pokes fun at the teenage experience without making it seem trivial.

SEE IT: School Dance plays at Action/Adventure Theatre, 1050 SE Clinton St., actionadventure.org. 8 pm Thursday-Sunday, through April 9. $10-$15.

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