![]() ![]() The play does something even more unexpected than introduce two new characters and switch into Spanish at the end. The violence that begins “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord” that almost sent me running out of the theater reaches a level of horror that had me clutching my head in shock at one point. ![]() (Sex is at the root of most of the play’s mysteries.) And to everyone’s shock, she reveals a hard-to-believe secret. She may seem the most innocent and impressionable of the group, but she has a spine. Miller’s performance, which includes a cathartic dance sequence she choreographed to give expression to the tragedy that befell her family, contains multitudes.īrooke’s Zoom is the wild card. Yet spend enough time in her dazzling presence and you’ll note the heartbroken child inside of her. Sharp as a tack, and with a social conscience beyond her years, she seems destined to be head of state one day. Miller’s Squeeze is in some ways the most surprising of the girls. She’s the only one who has to take an after-school job, but she never lets any of the clueless comments of her new friends crimp her dignity. Her strength, born out of circumstances Pipe has never had to face, leaves the others in awe. Peña’s Kit exerts an uncanny hold on Pipe. And she has a soft spot for outsiders with gumption, because down deep she recognizes that this is what it’s going to take for her to lead an authentic life. Rebelo’s Pipe is aggressively privileged, but her social brutality has cracks of empathy. ![]() As soon as you think they’re falling into types, they surprise you with their unpredictability. These characters are individuals first and foremost. The company of actors at the Douglas doesn’t disappoint in creating portraits that resist generalizations. The play’s overlapping conversation is a symphony of interruptions and resonant non sequiturs, adroitly conducted. Vibrantly directed by Lindsay Allbaugh, “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord” is a true ensemble piece. Traumatic events have left them in a state of unfinished grieving. There are missing pieces in their families. Haunting the girls are losses too painful to process. But rescue from disempowerment is only one motivation. What are these young women after? The illicit appeal of a drug lord’s lawlessness resonates strongly with their desire to break out of systems that treat them like subjects instead of queens. Harold Pinter’s 1959 play ‘A Slight Ache’ is presented at the Odyssey Theatre in a production featuring Susan Priver, Henry Olek and Shelly Kurtz. Plays such as Clare Barron’s “Dance Nation” and Sarah DeLappe’s “The Wolves” have been opening our understanding of the wild interior landscapes of young women crossing the threshold into sexual maturity under the shadow of punishing societal strictures and the threat of male abuse.Įntertainment & Arts Review: Necessary verbal ruthlessness is in short supply in this rare Harold Pinter revival “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord,” which premiered in New York in 2019 in a co-production between WP Theater and Second Stage Theater, is part of a wave of provocative dramas about the group dynamics of adolescent girls. But I found myself in an agonizing place in the early going - which is exactly where Scheer wanted me to be. I can’t morally justify why this depiction of animal slaughter affected me more than, say, the portrayal of human tragedy onstage. Zoom (Ashley Brooke), though usually game for anything, can’t help worrying that killing the animal will make them seem like “psychopaths.” ![]() But Pipe (Lilian Rebelo), the club’s president, demands that the ceremony be scrupulously observed. Squeeze (Samantha Wynette Miller), who’s highly allergic to cats, wants the offending creature eliminated as quickly as possible. The girls are intending to sacrifice the animal as part of a ritual to initiate Kit (Coral Peña), a new club member, who has to prove her murderous mettle. The horror of the opening scene involves a stray cat concealed in a box. (They originally tried the same premise with Adolf Hitler but didn’t like it when they got labeled a hate group for wearing swastikas to school.) Private school students in Miami, they’ve dedicated the school’s dead leaders club to a darker purpose: worshiping the ghost of Colombian narco-terrorist Pablo Escobar. The four young people who meet regularly in this abandoned aerie are members of a dangerous club. The play, which opened on Sunday at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in an electric Center Theatre Group production (a collaboration with IAMA Theatre Company), tested my nerves in a way that few plays have in recent memory. It’s not easy to make a hardened theater critic squirm in his seat, but I wasn’t sure I had the toughness to withstand the opening scene of “Our Dear Dead Drug Lord,” Alexis Scheer’s critically touted play about the savage secret lives of teenage girls.ĭon’t let the jovial tree house setting fool you. ![]()
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