The Wolves at Salt Lake Acting Company Scores a Goal with Audiences

By Jason Hagey and Alisha Hagey

Salt Lake Acting Company’s production of The Wolves in Salt Lake City is a brilliant piece filled with personalities, perspectives, and a whole lotta girl power. Wolves doesn’t just gloss over and give you stereotypes, but young women filled with their own personal mysteries that will keep you curious about each character throughout the runtime and beyond. This is not a production about the superficial, but digs deep into the psyche (individual and collective) of an indoor girls soccer team, and leaves you different at the end. This, at first, appears to be the typical ‘coming of age’ story but soon reveals itself as an authentic view into what it means to be female.

 

Playwright Sarah DeLappe begins the play with the unique interplayed chorus of girl-talk that is immediately dizzying and involving. Much like getting used to the cadence of a Shakespeare play, DeLappe throws us into the deep waters of the team’s overlapping conversations and gives us time to hear all of the nuances and bantered dialogue until we get use to the social ping-pong. By the end of the first scene, you’re fully immersed into these players’ discussions and lives as if you had been a part of their team warm-up before a big game (because you have).

Director Alexandra Harbold is the quintessential guide through her deft direction and witty understanding of intelligent writing and necessary acting subtext. The play is about what happens in-between and the meanings we make in the middle. Harbold embraces the beauty of realistic female discussion giving the audience a voyeuristic view into the lives of young women.

Each scene is a mystery played out to reveal a new clue. Harbold’s timing plays out like watching an Agatha Christie play or movie adaptation, each exchange exposing something new. I found myself sitting in enraptured attention, waiting for the next revelation – who are these young women, where do they come from, and what are they all about? Not only does each scene play out like a mystery, the play itself is a series of puzzle pieces to interlink, much like DeLappe’s overlapping conversations and intersecting thoughts coming together to give us a new picture of what it means to be a woman in this modern era.

To single out one actor out of the pack would be deleterious to the whole. Together they were unified, together they were one, together they were more than a team. Madi Cooper (#25) leads the team. Her character comes across as level-headed and fair. Hers is the voice of reason. As an actress, she brings more than the stereotypically focused female athlete. We see the conflict when she watches the typical pettiness of those around her. We see her give trust and offer support (her active listening skills are acute).

Alison Jo Stroud (#46) is the perfect new girl and plays off the experiences we all have when desperately trying to fit in while always being a beat behind. She is painful, relatable, and raw. Perhaps it is my own insecurities, but I saw myself in her social awkwardness, which she so brilliantly portrayed.

Mary Neville (#7) started out as your typical ‘mean girl’ with her side-kick Louise Dapper (#14). Like everything else in this play, their characters and the portrayal of them is real and relatable. They aren’t reduced to stereotypes or just simple antagonists. Neville and Dapper bring them to life and give them heart and purpose. We understand them, are equally angry at their actions and in the same measure see ourselves in them and their choices.

Fina Posselli (#2) is the girl who comes from the sheltered background, who always tries her best. Posselli plays this character as someone who is a part of all things but just on the outskirts. She gets the joke, or that there is a joke being told, and laughs with the rest. Posselli isn’t just the butt of a joke but a living and breathing young woman traversing the world with her pack, trusting in them, and believing they will catch her, support her, and stand strong with her even when teasing her about tampons.

Ireland Nichols (#00) is the illustrious goalie. Her character is quiet, focused, and funny. She doesn’t talk much but she feels deeply. Because she isn’t as vocal as the others, you don’t know what her real feelings are on the many issues discussed. She isn’t an outsider. She lives with the group as a quiet strength to be relied upon. Nichols plays this, like the others, with great authenticity. There are no gimmicks to her performance, no blanket routines to the movement. She is #00. She inhabits her world deftly and is completely believable.

McKenzie Steele Foster* (#11), Hailee Olenberger* (#13), and Cezanne Smith (#8) round out the rest of the team. These three all give us individual characters who are grateful to be connected to something larger but all with unique characteristics. Whether you have the politically minded, the boy-crazy, or the ‘not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed,’ they have their roles. These descriptions seem to denigrate them to just that, but like the rest of the cast, they bring life into the mundane. There is roundedness to their personality quirks. The quirks are just pieces of the whole and not the entire whole. And I’ll never think of Tulsa, Oklahoma the same again.

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Up to now I haven’t mentioned the last member of the cast, Tracie Merrill* (Soccer Mom). Know that when she takes the stage you will be completely engrossed into her character and into her frenetic pace. Again, she is completely relatable and strong. Merrill brings a grounded nature that is somewhat lacking. It is only lacking because we are dealing with teenage girls who are all in transition. Merrill’s character has already survived the teenage years and come out the other side. Her contrast adds a gravity to the stage from a totally new perspective. Her inclusion is jarring – in the right way.

I have to say this for the entire cast: These roles and these women would be easy to marginalize. They would be easy to play for laughs and for stereotypes. You have the typical tropes: dumb, new, clueless, mean, strong, sexy, power hungry, driven, and hopeful. There are many others and multiple layers. What makes this piece and these women something more than other female coming of age stories is that these young girls are not just the trope. They are all multi-layered. They all have moments of each of these characters. People are not made up of just one idea and emotion. We are many-layered animals. So too are these characters and so are the women shared on stage. The entire cast is a whole, is a pack, is deftly funny, and heartbreakingly real.

Just like the actors, the design of the show brings a strong cohesion of story and character. Set Designer Erik Reichert creates a simple yet versatile stage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen astroturf used as a set piece before. This choice again grounds the audience in the realism and not the cartoon. Light Designer William Peterson gives just what is needed and nothing more. Like all good design, Peterson does not draw attention to himself but to the stage and to those beautiful moments.  Costume Designer Kerstin Davis has the job of creating individuality while the characters all wear a uniform. She does this well. Most of the girls have the red jersey top and shorts on without any other accoutrement and yet, simple choices (hair) sets these characters apart and gives us insight into who they are. Jennifer Jackson (Composer/Sound Design) puts us in the world of an indoor arena. She gives us moments to remind us where we are that fit well within the transitions of the text and the blocking.

All elements combine to create a story that is at once honest and relatable. Like life, there is humor. Like life, there is tension and release. These women do a remarkable job of creating an environment that is remarkable and memorable. As characters referred to as just numbers and as characters who are only seen in athletic wear, no one is lost. There is a unique quality to the everyday mundane. There is a beauty to watching conversation take place amidst warm up routines. Everything reminds you of moments, of the simple times and conversations that make up our lives.

The Wolves is about that spaces in-between. As human beings, we often put so much stock into what happens – the events or ‘games’ we play – but the real meaning in life is made in-between those events and games. When we have conversation, we reveal so much of who we really are and The Wolves capitalizes on this. DeLappe, Harbold, the designers and, most especially, the actors, show us that none of the games matter without the before- and after-game conversations. Also, none of us is ever truly alone. Each player is their own individual but in the end they are part of something larger than themselves. Go see this show and relish in the reality of human interconnectedness and interdependence. The Wolves is worth every moment.

Salt Lake Acting Company presents The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe
168 W 500 N, Salt Lake City, UT 84103
7:30 PM Wednesday – Saturday, 2:00 PM Saturday, 1:00 PM, 6:00 PM Sunday
Tickets: $25 – $44, depending on the performance.  Student, Senior, and 30 and under discounts are available. Discounts are also available for groups of 10 or more.
Contact: 801-363-7522
Salt Lake Acting Company Facebook Page
The Wolves Facebook Event
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
CONTENT ADVISORY: This play contains strong language.