“Adolescent Salvation” reviewed by Paul Lisnek (Curtain Call Chicago)

****/4  Stepping into the theater space for Adolescent Salvation is like walking into a familiar teenager’s bedroom adorned with posters, pillows and the typical mess one might expect to find in such a bedroom; what one doesn’t see is what is about to unfold in Tim Venable’s Adolescent Salvation’s surprising, disturbing and captivating play.

The story begins in the world of boredom, gossip, mom’s contraband tequila, an argument about Taylor Swift and the risky game of Truth or Dare; the play ends somewhere you genuinely (and by design) do not see coming. What this production captures is the whiplash: the way teens can be hilarious, cruel, needy, performative, and terrifyingly sincere all in the same breath.

The whole play lives in a long, alarming arc from a sleepover no one really wants to be at, to a space charged with bad decisions and real harm. It has the tension of a pressure cooker to be sure. Directed by Guillermo Cienfuegos (the stage name of L.A. actor Alex Fernandez) for its Chicago premiere at Theater Wit, this 90-minute (no intermission) work is like a high-wire act — wildly funny, wonderfully unhinged, and then close to terrifying. Venable’s triumph is that the shifts never feel unwarranted or like a theatrical trick. They are more exposure, disclosure, and a reality that springs seemingly out of nowhere.

Director Cienfuegos staged the world premiere in Los Angeles last year and he clearly knows where every laugh lies and exactly how long to let a silence be before it becomes a threat. He does not soften the play’s deliberately challenging material even with a young cast having to live through and perform this story performance after performance. He gives it shape, rhythm, and a steadily carefully, rising temperature. By the time the banter stops being funny, you realize it never really was.

That tonal arc is, in effect, the play’s argument about adolescence itself. Playwright Venable takes the inner world of teenagers seriously; he does not soften it. His three young people swing from teenage bravado and vulnerability, to cruelty and fear. This is a setting where a joke can wound in the time it takes to send a text. In fact, the play’s title could equally be seen as a joke, or not one at all. Salvation, in this setting, is less a promise and more of a dare, literally.

The ensemble strongly and impressively carries the production’s most difficult balance. Piper Jean Bailey’s Natasha is quick and innocent, until she is not. She has a clear comic instinct but we also see her manage in word, act and expression, every disclosure that gets made.

Jordan Levene finds the real texture in Taylor (the female one, as there are two Taylors in this show…perhaps an underlying homage to Ms. Swift?).  There is a push and pull between being cool and hurtful, spurred on by some rising jealousy in a growing friendship between Natasha and Taylor’s bestie (the other) Taylor (a male one) played with great volatility by Brandon Acosta. He is at moments awkward, very funny, and serves to reset the group’s temperature as the plot proceeds.

The arrival of Natasha’s Mom Victoria (played strongly by Maura Kidwell) supplies the gravity and reality that keeps the play from rolling into pure shock and discomfort. The truth is these young people are carrying pain they do not yet have the language or awareness to name.

Upon departing the theater, you may wonder whether this production will linger in your mind. The answer is a resounding, Ye,s and with the caveat: uncomfortably so. Adolescent Salvation is the rare play that earns its final impact not by explaining itself but by refusing to do so. Then again, the years of adolescence rarely resolve cleanly, do they?  These teens remain contradictory, unfinished, and yes, dangerous — which is exactly why they and this play are hard to forget.

To be sure, Adolescent Salvation is not an easy night at the theater, nor should it be. It is a challenging, messy, startling, very funny and a deeply human piece which demonstrates adolescence as a place where innocence, danger, fear and the desire to be seen and loved all collide over the course of 90 minutes.

** NOTE: This play contains challenging uncomfortable material; this review avoids revealing spoilers both by request of the production and because candidly, it would diminish the power of the experience.

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Adolescent Salvation runs through Oct. 3 at Theater Wit, 1229 W. Belmont Ave., Chicago. Ninety minutes, no intermission.

for tickets visit www.theaterwit.org

or call box office at 773-975-8150

Paul M. Lisnek, J.D., Ph.D.

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click on “Adolescent Salvation”