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"High school is a hellish place," says playwright Toni K. Thayer with a shudder. "Adults want to underplay the reality of that angst. They forget about how terrible it is, how the people there used to dominate every facet of your life." But there'll be no chance of amnesia for anyone who dares to come see "ANGST:84", Thayer's malevolently comic expose of high school horror, playing at Dobama's Night Kitchen on August 7th. The anti-nostalgic mix of dark comedy spiked with poignancy is likely to bring back those oppressive teenage memories with the double-barreled potency of a drug flashback.
The one-night-only Dobama performance is part fundraiser and part brush-up, since the next day the company piles into rented vans and takes the show on the road. The production is traveling to the New York International Fringe Festival to present six performances of Thayer's play between August 10-18. It's a massive undertaking for the Night Kitchen company -- unlike the majority of fringe shows, which tend to be tiny-cast affairs, ANGST:84 features a whopping ensemble of 14 actors. To add to the complications, all but four are age 18 or under.
"Most of these young actors have never been to New York City, so it'll be...um...a challenge," says Thayer, her eyes widening with a mix of pride and mock-dread as she imagines her mixed duties as playwright, tech gofer, and adult chaperone. But she is clearly delighted with her cast, not just at their talent ("fantastic") but their loyalty: All but two of the original cast from last October's sell-out run have been able to reprise their roles, including actor Rob Nix who has come back from Chicago for the show.
The play's acceptance into FringeNYC is a major coup for the Night Kitchen, Dobama's young company aimed at the 15-to-late-20's crowd, and for its artistic director Dan Kilbane, who directs. It's the only entry from Ohio out of 180 shows by emerging companies and performers -- some of which will be arriving from Slovakia, France, Spain, and Australia -- and one of a mere handful with a cast this young. It's also a strong validation of the Night Kitchen's mission of spawning original works by and for the young-but-assuredly-hip, and its sponsorship of Thayer as an emerging playwright, who has premiered every one of her stage works at DNK. Nor is she the only Night Kitchen alum who is NYC-bound: Sarah Morton's one-woman show "The Eighth Wonder of the World", which premiered in its 1997 season, will be seen there in October.
Like many Night Kitchen writers, Thayer first contributed material to a company-created show -- "This Vicious Cabaret" -- in 1996. That was followed up with a one-act play which became the organizing center of 1998's "Cole Cuts", a quirky compilation of short plays by local writers, set in a nightclub and incorporating Cole Porter tunes.
"ANGST:84" also had its genesis in music. "When Dan commissioned me to write a full-length play, he kept joking that we should do a project based on the music of The Smiths," says Thayer. But once she began digging around in 80's music -- featured prominently in the play's energetic sound score -- it was like time travel. "In 1984 I was a freshman in high school," she recalls. "We all had to read the George Orwell novel -- it was an iconic year -- and we felt that it was about us."
The looming surveillance of "1984" is at the spine of Thayer's play, with the forbidden romance of one of the central couples -- in-crowd cheerleader Winnie and third-string bench-warmer Julian -- based on the novel's lovers Winston and Julia. In Thayer's satire, it's high school peer pressure combined with the omnipresent Big Brother that makes "ANGST:84" feel so achingly, hilariously real. She makes the Orwellian atmosphere as apropos to an Ohio high school's locker-lined corridors as Jane Austen's world of gossip and manipulation was to the movie "Clueless".
"I thought that with this show, I had exorcized my adolescent demons," Thayer smiles. "But you know, they're always there, lurking under the surface. They come right back up at you."
Then she shares one little shard of angst as postscript. "I'm happy that we're getting all this attention for taking the show to New York, but on another level, it's a bit frustrating. Because the real deal is, we're here, in Cleveland, cranking out all this great work -- that's what really counts."
[Dobama Theatre's Night Kitchen presents "ANGST:84". August 7 at 8 p.m., 1846 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights. Call 932-6838 for reservations and tickets.]
Originally published in the Plain Dealer, August, 2001.
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