How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
Melding the conflicts of exclusive preteen cliques with the same age group's penchant for daring imagination, Lucy Gillespie's "Hangman School for Girls" presents a multi-faceted take on adolescent development in an English all-girls school. Told in snippets before class, during lunch and at school events, the play centers on Hazel, a girl who possesses the maturity to see through her classmates' petty mind games but also becomes their target.
Gillespie does double-duty as writer and protagonist. Her performance is so full of lip-biting hope and festering rage that it's difficult to picture anyone else in the role. She superbly conveys the utter helplessness of being faced with a group of peers who seem to have seamlessly, impenetrably bonded.
Even though each character is an obvious trope — the self-important boss, the insecure weakest link, the fidgety second-in-command, the comic relief — Chelsea (Sarah Ann Masse), Dina (Laura Wiese), Jenny (Lillian Meredith) and Anna (Louiza Collins) all seem like real people. They thrive on one another's attention and create and destroy alliances in minutes. Hazel is only a few steps behind, but those steps prove to be fatal to her sense of self over the six years they spend together.
Relegated to the ratty old corner desk, Hazel makes it her only friend, and it actually responds back. Desk, portrayed by Nick Afka as a suave-talking gentleman just old enough to be too creepy to interact with a child, is both her cheerleader and her teacher. Together, they man the emotional trenches and make snide comments about the rest of the world. Desk tricks Hazel into revealing her darkest self without granting her the same courtesy. He's cunning and manipulative, which makes it hard to remember that he's also a figment of her imagination.
Transitions are smart and streamlined; the girls age smoothly, their chatter changing but still staying the same over time. Gillespie is often left at the end of a scene rearranging the chairs for the next segment, but this too is woven into the story: Even as Hazel seemingly sets the chairs according to her own design, by the next scene the girls have commandeered them and Hazel simply looks on sadly from her own, separate seat.
The storytelling can be uneven when dealing with the more surrealistic elements of the plot, such as when Desk concludes the first act, rather abruptly, with a monologue about how delicious young girls are. It's a creepy scene and a necessary inclusion since it shows how Hazel's imagination can go spiraling out of control. But the anecdotes with the bratty foursome are what deal the greatest emotional punch.
The story's setting, far from being trivial, only serves to emphasize its universal themes of loneliness and rejection. All actors, under Leta Tremblay's direction, offer stellar performances that fully flesh out their social roles. It's a daring, funny, frank exploration into group mentality and the pain of exclusion — in short, a must-see.
"Hangman School For Girls" is playing at Manhattan Theatre Source (177 MacDougal St.) through March 27. Tickets ($15 advance, $20 day-of) can be purchased through theatresource.org or by calling 212.501.4751.
