Theater Online - New York Theater Reviews

You would think with a title like Jailbait that you’re in for a lewd, pervy melodrama, not unlike something Russ Meyer might have concocted in his heyday, or to put in more modern terms, a free-for-all pastiche not unlike what some of downtown maestro Timothy Haskell’s chopsocky, cheerfully seedy productions have done. But instead when you’re presented with a teasingly multifarious, utterly sensitive drama about adolescence and the need for a taste of adulthood, it’s doubly shocking. Even as glance at the press materials suggests something more pulpy, and as a viewer, you are so truly glad it’s something much, much more. Jailbait could be the most searing portrait of teenage female longing since Joyce Carol Oates’ 1964 short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been“” (later adapted into the 1985 film Smooth Talk, with a very young Laura Dern).

It starts immediately on the right foot by presenting its duo of fifteen year old teens as relatively normal girls of above average intelligence. Emmy (Wrenn Schmidt) is a pretty, slightly devious blonde, concerned with breaking the shell of her more conservative pal Claire (Natalia Payne), who already seems more mature than Emmy, and agrees to go on a club night with Emmy, posing as college students. While nursing old, cork-capped white wine (“It tastes like refrigerator!”, says one), they put on makeup, concoct scenarios so as not to blow their cover, and Claire slowly learns Emmy has set up a blind date. Emmy has previously met Mark (Peter O’Connor), a slimy-on-the surface yet resourceful guy straight out a Neil LaBute play, and she arranges to see him again, and his buddy Robert (Kelly AuCoin), a more straight-laced, recently dumped becomes Claire’s unwitting new date. Surprisingly, Claire and Robert hit it off beautifully, despite some awkward beginnings, and the night progresses, as regrets settle in, and new feelings emerge.

Playwright Deirdre O’Connor has no interest in turning this into a morality suspenser or a tawdry sex drama, yet amazingly, neither area is ignored either. Her flavorful dialogue aptly captures adolescence peering into maturity, and the exchanges amongst all four actors are natural-sounding and often quite funny, but never in a preciously designed manner. And director Suzanne Agins has used the difficult Cherry Pit space (once the former Bank Street Theater) to great advantage, transforming the set walls into Claire’s bedroom, Robert’s apartment, and the bar where most of the action occurs, the latter with great touches (a solitary machine dispenser suitably suggests a men’s room, with even the requisite graffitied penises for effect).

But it’s the acting that makes this a special and completely dignified evening. Schmidt and O’Connor have the more difficult roles, since they’re closer to “types” than their counterparts, but both give shaded, nuanced portrayals. In particular, O’Connor avoids oily stereotype, though he’s crass and often pitiless, his behavior makes a certain kind of sense in the scheme of things, and is never less than completely believable. AuCoin is a study in reserved sadness as Robert, and the fact that he’s possibly clued in to Claire’s youth early on but goes through the motions anyway is presented as touching yearning rather than some dirty old man’s bag of tricks. You genuinely feel for this man, obviously broken by his former relationship, and AuCoin has never been more affecting on stage before. But the night belongs to Natalia Payne, recalling the graceful beauty of Carla Gugino and also her shrewd ability. Payne finds every last kernel of truth to Claire, from her wide-eyed sincerity when first mingling with Robert to her moving discovery that her lipstick has been kissed off in the ladies’ room to her eventual, crushing disappointment at the tail end of the evening. By eschewing the impulse to “play 15”, Payne is even more convincing of that age, since her performance zeroes in on the desire of girls of that age to seem more mature, and the lengths they will keep up a fabrication to accomplish it. It may not seem so at the time because of her consummate skill, but upon reflection, Payne’s creation is a marvelous one that sticks in the memory. And, conversely, so does the play.