‘Preteens’ prepare for impending doom in Persephone’s dark new comedy
It’s not a simple task for adults to play kids onstage, especially when those kids are trying to come to grips with their doomed world.
Persephone Theatre’s next main stage production is the world première of WROL (Without Rule of Law), a dark comedy coming-ofage story about a group of eighthgrade kids preparing for the ruined world they expect to inhabit as adults.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t think two thoughts about the environment,” performer Kristina Hughes said. “It wasn’t a concern that I had. But now, it’s all kids can think about.”
The new show is possibly as perfectly timed as it could hope to be, even in our societal uncertainty.
With the recent cross-canada tour by climate activist Greta Thunberg, the teenager who has galvanized young people around the world over climate change, WROL has a much more direct connection to modern life than most art.
In the process of playing teens and preteens onstage, it has given the performers plenty to think about as well.
“Greta is very divisive and polarizing, and I don’t understand that,” Hughes said. “I think sometimes as adults we forget that kids are way smarter than we give them credit for. They’re thinking about these things and they’re scared of it ... the audience will get a version that allows them to have a discourse that allows for less resistance to some of these things.”
WROL features a cast of only five — Hughes, Heather Morrison, Angela Kemp, Elizabeth Nepjuk, and Joshua Beaudry — playing young people determined to survive into the future. As Morrison put it (echoed by Hughes), it’s a little strange playing a kid when you have kids at home.
“The director ... wanted to put these words in the voices of actors who were mature and have had experience, so the messages really land,” she said. “So the challenge is on us, and how do we help people suspend their disbelief?”
Morrison also noted that one of the challenges in playing a kid comes from resisting impulses and instincts. As we grow up we tend to get a better grasp on being polite and mannered, Morrison said, so playing a convincing preteen meant pushing back against some of those societal instincts and being more blunt. As for the audience members, Morrison said WROL will give them a chance to deal with some of these heavier issues of our time and still have a lot of fun at the theatre.
“The audience is primed to be having these conversations with us,” she said. “This is theatre at its best, having a really topical conversation in such a fun format.”
WROL (Without Rule of Law) runs at Persephone Theatre until Nov. 13.