LEE Mattinson’s play is set firmly in the world of Facebook, the social networking phenomenon.
Teenagers thrive in this world, effortlessly reducing the English language to a succession of acronyms – lol, rofl – as they fire their communicative barbs through the digital ether.
Nine members of the considerable talent pool that is the Live Youth Theatre play Facebook friends who happily bicker and banter on-line until they are stopped in their tracks one day by a message posted by Heather Fudge (Megan Doyle).
“All right, everyone. Don’t freak but my mam’s asked me to put a message out to say our Jonathan’s dead ...”
Naturally, they freak. Jonathan was one of their number. Some of the girls even fancied him – or imagined he fancied them.
Nathan (Simeon Zack), experimenting with being gay – which is to say homosexual rather than, in this confusing teenage double-twisting of the language, a bit rubbish – is similarly bereft.
The “like” quotient of Lauren’s (Georgia Richardson) discourse rises to a seemingly dangerous level.
And then – wait for it – messages start appearing on Facebook from the supposedly dead boy. What’s going on. Is he dead or just hiding?
Teenage theories take hold like a bush fire. Is his ex-girlfriend Madeline (Emma Crowley Bennet), who vows to be vile, in on the plot? Someone claims to have spotted them together in the Metrocentre.
Geeky Jack (David Stanners) does the logical thing and builds a time machine so he can go back and save Jonathan.
But all this we learn as if we were reading it on Facebook. The actors on stage speak the quips, messages and insults that they post on the site.
It’s a blizzard of “Question mark?” and – registering approval – “Madeline/Lauren/Nathan likes this”. Or indeed lol or rofl, meaning – I was later informed by my resident 16-year-old – “Laugh our loud” and “Roll on the floor laughing”.
The latter, as you’ll see in the play, are merely kneejerk punctuation marks, more often denoting scorn or embarrassment than mirth.
The play concludes at the school prom where all the kids actually meet face to face. It means plump Dianne (Andrea Scrimshaw) and weird goth Caroline (Louise Ross) can now be insulted in person.
Meanwhile Vivienne (Jackie Edwards), who holds dear the memory that Jonathan once called her pretty, and Charlie (Patrick McNamee) seem to be preparing for different sorts of resolution.
Charlie is convinced his one-time best friend will make a grand reappearance at the prom.
Directed by Paul James, this is a funny and insightful theatrical novelty. Brilliantly performed by young actors who really get under the skin of their characters, I’d be surprised if this short run were the end of the matter.
David Whetstone