FRINGE: 2 SPOOKY TEEN plays
These kids today – with their “fire” and their “wheel.” There’s going to be trouble, mark my words. Mark them, I say!
Many uniformed opinions have been offered about modern teenagers, but few people (some parents included) have taken the time and effort to truly understand what it means to be a kid today.
Some have: For one, Edmonton’s “10 out of 12 Productions,” creators of the creepy drama Concord Floral (Stage 4). Along with being a frightening thriller, the 90-minute play is starkly realistic – and an often ugly, awkward and tragic glimpse into the modern teenage mindset.
The artfully-staged story is set in a backwater suburb of Ontario: The “Concord” neighbourhood, which backs onto an abandoned field popular with teens for holding bush parties, along with an abandoned greenhouse that’s the title of the play. With no props or sets except their everpresent cellphones, 10 young actors play a horde of wild and crazy 14-year-olds looking for a good time – sex, booze, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll – along with other characters both animate and inanimate. When they’re not acting, they form the background scenery. Very clever. Even the decrepit building itself gets to be a narrator. There are no grown-ups in the story at all.
The drama begins when two girls stumble into the greenhouse (littered with beer cans, cigarette butts and used condoms), and one of them drops her iPhone into a pit. Looking in, they see a body – and of course scream their brains out and flee. They wonder who it is, and why nobody has been reported missing, but they don’t tell anybody – except a blabbermouth sister. So in as long as it takes to text a friend, the news is all over the school. The secret eats away at the teenagers, and friendships are strained to the breaking point.
And … cue the ghost.
There are elements of both I Know What You Did Last Summer and Stephen King’s Carrie, in which guilty parties are targeted by supernatural forces; it’s been a horror movie trope for decades. But there is far more to Concord Floral than a vengeful spirit. Many of the characters take turns on riveting personal monologues, digging deeply into their emotions and thoughts, and delving into real issues that affect teenagers: all the stress of school, sex, of being accepted, and bullying, online and IRL – “in real life.” Real life, says one character, “is unbearable without beauty.”
The tale is enhanced with spooky lighting that includes 10 actors often staring into the eerie glow of their cellphones, and a sinister soundtrack. The overall effect is chilling, engaging and thought-provoking all at the same time, topped with a touching message about the virtues of empathy and human kindness – especially towards those wild and crazy teenagers.
5 out of 5
***
Most of us understand how an innocent game of “Truth or Dare” can go wrong. It all depends on how badly you want to “play the game.”
Now get one going between three bored and repressed teenage girls at a strict boarding school – complete with the cruel headmistress – and watch the sparks fly in Don Nigro’s Barefoot in Nightgown by Candlelight (Stage 1). They make the “double dog dares” of the schoolyard look tame.
Cath, Alicia and Belle (Victoria Skorobohach, Sadie Dufour and Liora Friedland, respectively) have made a pact to gather at midnight every full moon to play their special game. Three cards are dealt: Whoever gets the Queen of Spaces is the “mistress,” the Queen of Hearts “the slave.” The third is the “witness.” The slave must do anything the mistress asks. ANYTHING. As the game and months go on, tensions – sexual and otherwise – escalate.
Aside from the fact that they say the title of the play a bit too often – while they are literally barefoot in nightgowns by (electric simulated) candlelight – these actors are convincing, and manage to create a creepy atmosphere of gripping suspense that increases with every disturbing scene.
This is one of the best true horror shows at the Fringe this year, a rarity since many productions billed as horror are just disguised comedies – and there’s nothing funny about this.
4 out of 5
