Come out and support your fellow students as they perform the award winning play “The Wolves.” The all women cast does an excellent job of captivating the audience and bring us into the world of a high school women’s indoor soccer team. With no intermission, the ninety minute play is an intense ride, start to finish. This show was a 2017 Pulitzer Prize Finalist, 2016 New York Times Critics Pick, and 2015 winner of the Relentless Award for Playwriting. Not only is the writing great, the actors make it their own in an incredible fashion, making you truly believe that they have known each other their whole lives.
It only takes about 15 minutes into the play for the audience to care about each and every player, and be able to tell them apart without their numbers. At the climax of the play, the audience is drawn in to the realness of the event and in the aftermath, how the girls react makes it feel very real. The show starts out with a circle of girls stretching in unison while talking over each other. The girls have no names, and just call each other by their numbers on their jerseys. They truly encapsulate the feeling of being on a team while they discuss period products and a Cambodian leader who is being convicted of genicide side by side. Every scene takes them through their warm up and stretching before a game. You can feel the pressure they feel about being on the cusp of their college careers as juniors, especially when the goalie, number 00, keeps running off stage to throw up. There are nine main characters in this play, with the only adult coming in at the end of the play for one scene. At times it seems as if all of the teammates are talking at once, you almost have to decide what to focus on to understand what is happening. While this is true, whatever you may miss in past scenes, the play does well to fill you in later.
Although each character seems to fit into a neat box, you quickly realize that the ex- Coaches daughter and captain, the intellectual, and the party girl all are way more than just what they seem. The skill of these actresses is not to be missed while they had never played soccer before, each character goes through warm up drills while simultaneously talking over each other and never missing a beat. C.B. Goodman took great care into directing this play, doing significant research into the writing of it, trying to really articulate the “wild woman” archetype in the play. Even if you have never played a sport before, you will feel connected to this show somehow, whether it is through the passion they have for what they do, or the tension amongst the team. This is a can’t miss production by our very own classmates, so go out and support! Do not miss your last chance to see the play October 3rd, and 5-6!