‘The Wolves’ Is Great Theater

Madison Jones as #2 & Natalie Ottman as #8 in Renaissance Theaterworks’ production of THE WOLVES by Sarah DeLappe. Photo by Ross Zentner.

While other Milwaukee theater companies in this new year turn to classical texts such as Little Women to seek connections to contemporary morals and feelings, Renaissance Theaterworks has turned to the real contemporary thing through Feb. 14 at its new home in the Next Act Theatre, 255 S. Water St.

Time will tell, but we may never see another play as good as The Wolves from Sarah DeLappe. A young adult, she was struck by diverse conversations she overheard and memories of the warlike battle preparation of high school girls’ soccer teams. From that great ear and her own mental perceptions, plus a lot of reworking, she has fashioned a team called “The Wolves,” full of the taste and sound of teenage girls talking about everything while warming up.

First seen off-Broadway, the play is given a top-notch professional production here. Doug Dion has created a clever set with high walls at the back – half an indoor soccer field with nets that drop from the ceiling as needed, partly to protect the audience as the actors stretch their muscles and kick multiple soccer balls around. Once settled in the three-sided theater, it’s best to stay in your seats, since all the aisles are used by excited girls dashing at full tilt.

An actress herself, director Elyse Edelman has drilled and guided an accomplished group of area high school girls to attain a high skill of talking over each other. Most have been professionally trained and chosen for voice and physical ability by the First Stage Young Company, where they have freely interpreted Shakespeare and the classics. Their command of the stage is relaxed and formidable. As they physically drill and kick soccer balls, they talk about everything – politics, revolution, menstruation, injuries, eating disorders and who is sexually doing what to whom.

They are forced to talk over each other and whatever laughter or gasps the audience emits, and then isolate into moments of explanatory action that dissect their insides.

Toward the end, actress Marcella Kearns seizes the stage as a nonstop rambling soccer mom, trying to become a member of the group. Playwright DeLappe – in a dialogue excursion that makes me feel positive about her theater future — lets us discover that soccer mom is dealing with her own grief and that the teenage children who cussed and verbally cuffed each other at will are suddenly the adults in the room.

The Wolves is full of amusement and revelations, one of those productions easy to overlook if you bank on names or celebrity, but worth your 90 minutes on all levels of theatrical accomplishment. All the technical elements have been thought through carefully – sound, lights, costumes – and the pace is battle frantic and, when needed, reflective. The players are identified by their jersey numbers, not their names, but the circumstances constantly force us to think of the duality of games — how the pack behaves as a unit and how the individuals join and separate.

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Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blogs here and here.