The Contemporary Theatre of Ohio (formerly know as CATCO) draws the curtain on a strong season with an electrifying production of one of the best plays of the last 10 years, Sarah DeLappe’s The Wolves, directed with energy and empathy by Dr. Aviva Helena Neff.
The Wolves follows an indoor soccer team of the same name over a season lining up with their Junior year of high school, at the intersection of a series of life events, including college scouts hovering around: #11 (Emma Rose Johnson), #25 (Ollie Worden), #13 (Sha-Lemar Davis),  #46 (Summit J. Starr), #7 (Jo Michelle Shafer), #2 (Cindy Tran Nguyen), #14 (Isabella Stevens), #8 (Sermontee Brown) and #00 (Gwyneth Clare).
The production effectively uses a traverse stage to allow the audience to feel like we’re at a sporting event, which also adds to the eavesdropping quality, the sense that we’re seeing and hearing things we normally wouldn’t. The brilliant structure of the play sets each scene before a match so we see a lot of quotidian stretching and running drills – I have no idea how much pre-existing soccer each actor brought to the production, but the Soccer Specialists Tatum Adamson and Coley Sidloski did a stellar job working with the cast and Neff because it feels extremely real – and some debriefing on the previous game and sizing up the team they’re about to battle, but a lot of conversations about where they are in their life.
The genius of DeLappe’s writing is its ability to conjure the 180-proof strangeness of childhood shifting into young adulthood, the rhythms of how kids, particularly young women, talk to one another when adults are nearby but not immediately around are captured better than almost any other writing I can think of (the only immediate comparison I can think of is Claire Barron’s Dance Nation). Like many of my favorite writers of the current moment – Annie Baker, Qui Nguyen, James Ijames – DeLappe subtly turns up the color and distortion on naturalistic dialogue until the audience is transported to a landscape of cracking, exposed layers.
Neff uses the patterns of soccer to shift the rhythms of those words and slyly play with the focus of the audience’s attention. She lands on two characters in conversation with a hard stop, like the world only orbits around them, but more often overlapping one argument against another in a shower of sparks.
This challenging (doubled by hiding its difficulty) writing needs a strong cast to soar, and this production exceeded every hope I had, having been stunned by the work of most of these actors in the recent past. There’s no weak link here, and the juggling of individual and small group relationships, the extended history most of these people have together, growing up in the same private school and playing soccer for years but also players coming in over time, is consistently dazzling.
The moments of someone coming out of a chrysalis, finding some self-realization, feel established but also as out of the blue as I remember them feeling at those ages. Worden’s #25, the team captain, carries the weight of performance and the group’s seriousness on their shoulders; as we see them emerge with a different haircut, their entire body language shifts, the weight off their shoulders on both levels. Clare’s goalie, #00, embodies a similar transition as she finds some equilibrium with her anxiety issues.
Shafer’s #7 struggles to maintain their place in the hierarchy, the most mature, natural leader, and team striker with an older boyfriend (never seen on stage) is balanced with a perfectly pitched insecurity; watching them yell at Worden’s captain when disciplined shows exactly how much this team and these relationships mean to them. Their relationship with Stevens’ #14 is a linchpin of the show and their chemistry sizzles as we see the long-term duo energy start to fracture and fall apart.
Johnson’s #11’s hilarious weirdness, bringing up documentaries she’s seen, including starting the extended, volleying riff on the Khmer Rouge that kicks off the play, and stumbling over some catchphrases, is a finely-carved look at the way so many people find a way into ourselves. She and Starr’s new player #46, home schooled and newly moved to town, paint a fascinating contrast as a similarly odd and smart person gets more static and more pushback from the team because they’ve had time to get to know #11 and are less inclined to grant slack; it’s a brilliant look into the ways groupthink grows and evolves without ever hammering us over the head.
Brown’s #8 brings a subtle energy to her character, volleying back and enhancing conversations, so when that energy catches fire – a heart-stopping response to Davis’ #13 – it makes a deeper impression. Davis and Nguyen are also key players here; there isn’t a slack performance anywhere in the tight 90 minutes of this play. I’ve seen it mentioned several times on social media, so I don’t think I’m spoiling anything, but Eleni Papaleonardos’ appearance as the only adult we get direct time with also broke me.
Neff and The Contemporary’s production of The Wolves is a towering achievement. A play I’ve read several times, and saw the quite good OSU production a year or two ago, reminded me of its ability to surprise through the quality and sharpness of its execution. It’s hard for me to picture seeing a better production of this beautiful, life-affirming, heartbreaking play.
The Wolves runs through May 21 with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday, at the Riffe Center’s Studio Two. For tickets and more information, visit thecontemporaryohio.org/2022-23/the-wolves.