Seventeen
Writer: Matthew Whittet
Director: Mary-Anne Gifford
Seymour Centre
October 1-19, 2024
Seventeen is interesting and compelling theatre as it directly involves its audience in bridging the gap between what they see, an ensemble of older actors, and what is voiced, a bunch of teenagers celebrating their last day at school. By evoking both youth and age simultaneously, this poignant and funny play prompts us to question the reality of statements often heard like “who I was then” or “I’m a different person now” as we are always who we were, are and will be at the same time.
The set (Paris Burrows) offers substantial looking swings – one broken – and a slide, the group’s place of choice for a celebratory all-nighter, and a useful metaphor as lighting (Grant Fraser) serves to make less or more inviting. Playgrounds – and school – teach the young to navigate an environment designed for them, with the hope they will manage when they are loosed into a less obliging world, and the teenagers we meet while elated by a new-found freedom, are also fearful. The more raucous, the more fearful. When they first erupt into the playground with plans for the night ahead, silver-haired and not fresh-faced, their school uniforms raise a laugh, but at the same time their avid anticipation of a memorable night is somehow a warning that it will turn out differently.
When they later return, their chosen clothes cleverly reveal them as extensions of their young selves. Mike (a strong performance by Peter Kowitz) in red shirt – misbuttoned – creased suit jacket and white trainers is very much the raucous boy in a school uniform as the pale blue and grey of Tom (a sensitive performance by Noel Hodda) is the future projection of his quiet, reticent friend. The adventurous Sue in a cheerful pink (performed with generous warmth by Di Adams), and best friend Edwina with burdensome backpack and bags (Katrina Foster who manages a painful gawkiness) are both in their different ways looking for assurance, and Mike’s annoying little sister, Lizzie, in a onesie (a teasing but loving Di Smith) is on a mission. On the outside of the group, is Ron (Colin Moody) whose desire for acceptance is distressing.
It is not long before things go awry and the evening they imagined as a happy occasion, memorable for the rest of their lives, turns out to be exactly that but for less foreseeable reasons. Alcohol is maybe an element but only because it gives a boost to confessions already waiting for release from the secret chambers of the teenage heart. Fully confessed, partly confessed and barely intimated, each revelation is full of import yet strangely felt as an overture to an unknown future. “What will we do?” repeats Sue to Tom, whose life at that moment is governed by his parent’s decision to move to another state. Rather than give an answer dawn breaks with a golden light and the playground recedes into shadow.
A lovely play, a balanced mixture of fun and longing, sadness and joy, and as much philosophising can be read into it, responsively directed by Mary-Anne Gifford with finely tuned light and shade.
