Saturday, January 25, 2020

The Wolves
Syracuse Stage
Melissa Rain Anderson, director

Storch Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Enter a world you think you may know. The Wolves are a girls' soccer team. The nine players are 16 and 17 years old. Over a series of wintry Saturdays on an AstroTurf indoor soccer field somewhere in suburban America, they perform their ritual pre-game warm-up. Between stretches and pep talks, cajoling and consoling, jokes and jibes, an eye-opening and sympathetic portrait of nine young women emerges, revealing their complexities and confusions as they grapple with issues large and small, near at hand and far away. Through precisely orchestrated cross talk, snappy overlapping dialogue, and some pretty nifty footwork, playwright Sarah DeLappe celebrates these young women as independent individuals: athletes, scholars, daughters, students, and friends. "The scary, exhilarating brightness of raw adolescence emanates from every scene of this uncannily assured first play," wrote The New York Times.