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THEATRE NOTES The Early Teen Angst of “13”


Western Stage and Pac Rep Announce 2012 Seasons by Paul Myrvold


13 MOUNT MADONNA HIGH SCHOOL


T


he creators of the musical 13 (music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown with book by Dan


Elish and Robert Horn) would like us to believe that the action on stage repre- sents junior high school kids turning thirteen years old. The story centers on Evan (the capable Kabir Ahluwalia), a sophisticated young New York Jew who, by divorce, finds himself displaced from Manhattan to a small town in deepest, darkest Indiana just as he approaches his bar mitzvah, the great- est, most anticipated event of his young life. In order to make sure he has a big turn out for the celebration, he tries to curry favor with the cool kids, the jocks and cheerleaders, while spurning the one friend he really has, the sympathet- ic but uncool nerd Patrice (a compelling Lulu Morell-Haltom). The plot is predictable, the music


serviceable and the comedy provokes laughter ranging from snorts and chuckles to rollicking guffaws. A minor problem is that the show is really about high school kids and is played that way by the enormous cast comprising by tradition the entire student body of Mount Madonna High School. Stuck with the bar mitzvah, the ceremony in which a thirteen-year old Jewish boy becomes a man, the writers have made unrealistic the actions of characters that seem three big years older. (I expressed this opinion to Director Sampad Martin Kachuck and he very


32 January 2012 • Out & About


cogently and per- suasively respond- ed: “These are fast times… and while there remains a certain innocence in expressed values, friendships, sexuality and person- ality posturing that comes with that age, it seems we are also fac-


ARCHIE HAS A MOMENT: TOP L TO R)


RYAN ALFARO AS EDDIE, QUINCYMITCHELL AS ARCHIE, MCKENZIE CABORN AS KENDRA AND DAVID BROZ AS BRETT INMOUNTMADONNA HIGH SCHOOL’S “13.”


JOCK SQUAD: (LEFT, L TO R) JAKE GETZ, RYAN


ALFARO, BRYSON SMITH, WILLY BRYAN [IN BLUE], JOSEPH FREDIANI, AND DAVID BROZ INMOUNT MADONNA HIGH SCHOOL’S “13.”


PHOTO: ROSS BRYAN


ing a generation growing up very quickly. It is fascinating, that in dialoguing with my Middle School students, they found a lot of


the play’s issues relatable. We tried to honor the script, maintain the aura of the age of the characters and added our own spice to the pro- ceedings. Certainly our High School students bring their experience and interpretations. So, at some level, it became a play about adoles- cence (some of us are still in it, eh?), and we can categorize that specifically however we want.


“For cast and audience alike, if in the experi- ence of inhabiting the roles or viewing this


play from the seats allows for metaphorical light rays of understanding, empathy, reflec- tion and resulting conversation about the challenges of growing up, (even to say, that’s not my life or my children’s) then the endeav- or stands on its own, whether script or music perfect.” To which I reiterate, “A minor prob-


lem.”) The students of Dan Quayle Junior


High are divided, like all students in all schools everywhere, into social blocs: the Preppie Squad led by overachiever Darla (Blythe Collier), the Jock


~ continued on page 34


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