Dance Nation
Clare Barron
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| The Cast of Dance Nation |
Thirteen. Oh, God,
when I remember thirteen, I get this strange knot in my stomach and a wave of
brief nausea. I was already six-foot,
two-inches, and stuck out like a sore thumb in the school hallway. I was awkward and stumbled over my
size-twelve feet; my voice squeaked; my thick glasses slipped too often down my
nose. And did I mention those first
pimples popping up overnight? Just
writing this, I feel a little sick.
But I was a boy.
After watching San Francisco Playhouse’s West Coast premiere of Clare
Barron’s Dance Nation about six,
thirteen-year-old girls who are experiencing the crossover from little girl to
womanhood, all I can say is that I had it easy as a pre-pubescent boy. The whiplashes of the emotional roller coaster
these girls ride in a normal day are enough to send anyone running to the
nearest bathroom (which happens several times for them in the course of the
play).
While there are certainly a lot of moments when the world
and its possibilities seem endless for a thirteen-year-old, Clare Barron
reminds us that growing pains are very much real and that they leave
scars. In a stroke of genius, the
playwright insists the six girls are played by actors in their thirties through
sixties, allowing us to experience the girls in the bodies they will someday
inhabit and for them periodically to transcend time’s boundaries to give us a
glimpse of their future, often painful memories of the girls they once were and
that we now see before us.
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| The Cast |
These girls are living the lives that many their age might
die to have: they are just three competition wins away from getting on a plane
and going as a dance troupe to compete for a national dance title in Tampa,
Florida. Dance Teacher Pat (yeah, that
is what they actually always call him) reminds them as they all stare at an
elevated row of past years’ trophies that no one knows today who were the girls
of 1996 – “It’s like they never existed” – but that everyone remembers those of
1997. That difference between losing and
winning is something these girls take in with looks both hungry for victory and
frightened what if they are someday forgotten.
Already, we see little girls who have grown-up ambitions for
their moment in the spotlight, fired up by the cliché-barking of their pacing,
arm-swinging teacher as he spits out phrases like “Show me you want it!” Liam Robertson is like the stereotype of an
army drill sergeant as he gets in the girls’ faces, belittles and praises in
the same breath, and warns “Don’t get lazy” even as they demonstrate tirelessly
for him a movement time and again.
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| Michelle Talgarow & Liam Robertson |
On the other end are the girls’ moms – stage moms who
sometimes have moments of being a demanding Momma Rose who are trying to live
out their missed chances through their daughters but who mostly are
compassionate and supportive, troubled and worried, frustrated that they cannot
make it better and even ready to go to battle when their daughter is not
getting a fair shake by their teacher.
Michelle Talgarow is all this and more as she plays all “The Moms.”
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| The Cast |
In the troupe of six, we meet a group of giggly,
horse-playing friends who are also often vying competitors for the starring
spots of the dances. In one hilarious
but telling scene, the girls line up on the stage’s edge with light splashed on
their faces (part of Wen-Ling Liao’s lighting prowess) to try out for the lead
role of Gandhi – Dance Teacher Pat’s creation as their ticket to
nationals. With a cute nod to Chorus Line, they all half-sing,
half-say “I hope I get it” as they begin to move just their heads, mouths, and
eyes in all sorts of exaggerated looks of shock, fear, hope, and desperation as
they are giving us only a glimpse of their try-out moves while their teacher
shouts his commands.
When not on the dance floor, the real lives of these girls
and their relationships unfold before us.
Today’s locker room topic might be how to masturbate and what it should
feel like, with descriptions of their nether regions given in graphic details
by those more knowledgeable while those still inexperienced and naïve listen in
wide-eyed, envious awe. The terrifying
onset of a first period (and its resulting blood) is met with knowing looks by
other girls and also by their sudden, supportive growls and cheers like those of
rugby players as they urge the tearful girl to get up and wear her new red
badge with girl pride. These are girls
who find strength together in their newly-erupting sexuality and onslaught of
womanhood.
But these girls are also still very young at times, as we
see in Connie (Mohanna Rajagopal) who prays in her bed while clasping her lucky,
toy horse in her hands, “Dear God ... Pleeeease give me Gandhi.” There is tall Maeve with her unruly hair who
collects pictures of wolves and whose little girl looks of wonder, impishness,
distraction, and stubborn determination are all the more funny since Maeve is
played by the oldest actor on the evening’s stage, an absolutely delightful
Julia Brothers. Like a kids’ club, several
of the girls swear by drinking coffee that is half sugar to be loyal to death to
each other, forming a secret group named Zamsac (using the letters of all their
first names).
These same little girls have big-girl pressures. Zuzu (Krystle Piamonte) is a good, solid
dancer but worries that people “don’t say they cry when they watch me dance”
like they do when they watch her friend Amina (Indiia Wilmont) dance. “I know because I cry when I watch Amina
dance.” Amina – in fact the star dancer
among the group – both is driven to be the best and to win (“When they get the
trophies out, I just get the taste of metal”) but also confesses that sometimes
she just wants to lose because “like I feel like I hurt people just by
existing.” Such is the price when you
automatically take over the star role when your friend Zuzu falls on stage,
yourself then winning a special crown as “most valued dancer.”
As much as the current lives of these teens is excruciating,
difficult, and yet intriguing to watch, the power of Clare Barron’s script and Becca
Wolff’s direction is when each girl reflectively time travels to a memory she
will someday have of this period of her life.
Maeve has a sense at times that she can fly but realizes with regret
that “one day I’ll forget I ever got to fly.”
The uber-talented Amina is sure “my entire life will be a victory” but
also realizes that one day she will understand that in that life “So I was alone.”
As the one boy in the troupe, Luke (Bryan Munar), is riding
home with his mom one night as she discusses her day. With head on her shoulder, he tells us that he
knows that someday he will be experiencing in a car the same feelings as now – that “delicious kind of sleepy” as the “world
is whirling by” with “raindrops on the window shield” – but that he will also be
listening for a mom that is no longer there.
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| Lauren Spencer |
One of the most powerful of portrayals is given by Lauren Spencer
as the already mature in body, Ashlee.
She proudly looks at herself in the mirror and brags about “my perfect
ass” as well as flaunting her face and tits in wonderful, self-generated
brouhaha. She is one moment aloof and
scowling among her friends, only to be in the next moment the first to lead a rousing
cheer for the team that is full of four-letter-filled words that would
embarrass most boys her age. Her Ashlee
is at other times the one most tender and most revealing with her friends,
sharing one of those foreseen, time-splicing moments with Connie as she tells
her how they will someday meet and discover that as girls and dance-team mates,
they both suffered silently and alone debilitating, near-disastrous depression.
As powerful as these and other future-remembered moments are
along with all the funny as well as painful-to-watch scenes of growing up that we
see these kids go through, I have to admit that at times Dance Nation just goes so over the top in its explicit, repeated
use of certain, locker-room words and foul-mouthed phrases that I lost interest
and just wanted the next scene to begin.
A final cheer and chant that turns into repeated shouting by the entire
cast came close to ruining the entire evening for me; anyone attending needs to
be prepared for some very raw language and word imagery. I also personally did not see the need for an
opening scene of locker-room nudity of what were supposed to be
thirteen-year-olds (even though these actors are of course much older and are all
adults). The scene, in my opinion, would
have been just as strong with a little more cover-up of these supposed early
teens.
But in the end, Dance
Nation is a powerful reminder of what all of us – women and men – went
through at a crucial and precarious juncture in our growing up years and what
pieces of that time for us still linger to this day as part of who we are. San Francisco Playhouse has once again pushed
its and our own boundaries of safety and security in order to cause in this case
long-dormant emotions and memories to awaken, to rumble uncomfortably about,
and to stimulate new awareness of what the teens around us are often experiencing.
Rating: 3 E
Dance Nation continues
through November 9, 2019 at San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post Street.
Tickets are available at http://sfplayhouse.org/ or by calling the box office at
415-677-9596.
Photos
by Jessica Palopoli
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