Monday, December 31, 2018

THE WOLVES: A Play | "What's Up Sluts"| A Raunchy Teen Soccer Team


Sarah DeLappe's The Wolves, among other accolades, was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play was originally produced at The Duke on 42nd Street before it moved to the Lincoln Center.

Here's part of Wikipedia's synopsis:
“The Wolves” is set in an indoor soccer facility. Each scene depicts the nine teenage girls that make up the Wolves, a soccer team, warming up before their game each week.

The first scene opens with discussion of a Cambodian murderer, and conversations stem from there. Overlapping dialogue illustrates an atmosphere where each group of girls have their own, specific conversations while still chiming in on the main topic. These spin-offs include period gossip, talk of boyfriends [...]
Note: An action from the script informs the reader that the coeds are 16: "the giggle like only 16-year-olds can."


Wikipedia's reference to period gossip is referring to #7, #8, and #14 encouraging, with sexual overtones, #2 to switch to tampons:
#2. (terrified) what if like my pad falls out?
#7. you still use those?
#14. you gotta get off of those [...] you want a ? cause I can get you one
#2. no | thank you
#8. it's not so hard | you just like | pop! [...]
#7. (with the super plus)
#14. (oh my god yes)
#7. little perv
#14. hahaha | hahaha | hahaha
Wikipedia's reference to "talk of boyfriends" is in reference to when #7 and #14 met Dan, #7's boyfriend and Dan's friend, "some college guy", during Dan's Thanksgiving break from college:
#7. "I am so fucking pumped [...] we're going to my dad's ski house | and that asshole won't be there | and he has like a fully stocked bar" 

But #14 was upset after #7 left her alone with the "college guy": #14. yeah but you just like | you abandoned me | to go FUCK your stupid FUCKING boyfriend!! | so / very LOUDLY!
The cast of The Wolves from the Theatre Royal | Stratford East Production

A 16-year-old high school student having loud sex with a college student is a smaller age-gap than say a high school student's attraction to a former professional European soccer player or a middle-aged A-List actor. (Of course, IRL, unless the play was set in one of the 31 states where the age of consent is 16, that college student could have served jail time while #7 would have been counseled by a consoling counselor.)


In reference to Coach Mikhail, who played professional soccer in Croatia or Czech Republic, #14 opined: 
#14. I think he's sorta sexy
#8. he's like 45!!
#14. so's Jude Law
Interestingly, like in Slut: The Play#7 had a preference for referring to her teammates as sluts. For example, after #14 shared that she forgot her bikini, she said, while flashing her sports bra: guess I'll just have to SKINNY DIP. #7 replied: (with love and delight) you total fucking slut. 


And in another scene, #7 greeted her teen teammates with: what's up sluts. Thus, unsurprisingly, in reference to teen oral sex, #7 opined: it was just a fucking b / lowjob.

In the end, possibly the most interesting item from the script is the Gertrude Stein quote: "We are always the same age inside."

The Wolves is a New York Times Critics' Pick and Ben Brantley wrote in his review of the teen play:
"The scary, exhilarating brightness of raw adolescence emanates from every scene of this uncannily assured first play by Sarah DeLappe...some of the most exciting and affecting ensemble work on a New York stage." [Emphasis added]

And Time Out concluded:

"Sarah DeLappe's extremely skillful debut...maps the bruising terrain of the nine teens' lives."

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