Attracting the attention of hundreds of Madison residents and university students, the Hemsley Theater was packed on Friday night. After filing down the stairs to the underground hall, the audience settled into seats on each side of the astroturf stage, positioned like sports fans in bleachers, looking down at the players.
They came to watch the story of “The Wolves,” an award-winning play written by playwright Sarah DeLappe. This story follows the journey of a high school soccer team made up of nine women. The UW Theater and Drama department is performing the play from Feb. 16 to Feb. 26 at the Hemsley Theater in Vilas Hall.
As the show begins, the lights brighten, and the players run onto the field for their pre-game stretch. Dressed in red uniforms and matching French braids, the women sit down in a circle to stretch. Here, they slip into seamless conversations, switching between period jokes and political debates, singing Hobbit songs and accidentally sharing each others’ secrets.
While their ironic conversations make you laugh, the team struggles to reconcile with issues faced by many young women. We see the women process the social dimensions of mental health issues, eating disorders, abortion pills and more.
Yet, the women learn where to draw the line when it comes to telling jokes and making judgments. Through emotional explosions and timid apologies, the women come to respect each other and the individual struggles they all experience — the struggles that simultaneously divide and unite them.
For these real but sensitive topics, there is a content advisory for the show for its discussions of abortion, sexual content and violent events.
The play is entirely made up of a sequence of pre-game stretching circles, yet the audience comes to know the players quickly, including the besties, the new kid, the comedian and the quiet girl. All while trying to win their games, we see how the best friends are tested, the new kid is isolated and how the tension almost breaks the players. And when the team’s morale takes one final blow, they must overcome their differences in order to win.
DeLappe was inspired to write this play by the juxtaposition that exists in suburban conversations that often flit between far-away world events and a comfortable middle class lifestyle. In the play, the actors switched between serious and less intense topics easily, illustrating the conversation style of middle class Americans.
The flawless performance of the UW actresses and production crew was filled with gripping dialogue and stirring emotions that resonated with the audience and the diverse experiences we all have. The audience is left with a feeling of community and the remembrance of what it means to be a team, through all the tears and laughs.
As the show closes and the lights dim, the soccer players form a tight circle, wrapping their arms around each other. They begin to chant and the reverb of their voices echoes fervently in your chest as the women conclude with a final “We are the Wolves!”
