Sarah DeLappe’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play “The Wolves” opens next week at Illinois Wesleyan University. The coming-of-age story centers on a group of high school girls, whose experiences are revealed at soccer practice each Saturday.
It was the soccer that first drew director Christopher Connelly to the script. He attended college on a soccer scholarship and has coached youth teams. At Wesleyan, he’s more known for coaching Shakespeare, and soccer is not the only reason he picked “The Wolves” for his students.
“It’s a play in which none of the women are dependent on males for their relationships or their identity,” Connelly said before a tech rehearsal in the Jerome Mirza Theatre on IWU’s campus. “None of these women are defined by boyfriends, husbands or coaches.”
"The Wolves" premiered Off-Broadway at The Duke on 42nd Street in 2016 following a workshop at Playwrights Horizons the year before. It won the American Playwriting Foundation's inaugural Relentless Award, a prize shared with Clare Barron's "Dance Nation." The latter, similarly, is a coming-of-age story about teens in competition dance. Where "Dance Nation" and "The Wolves" differ, however, is how the grown-ups factor into the story.
“The coach is viewed as totally inept and drunk,” Connelly said. He is a character that is spoken about, but never seen. “They function completely without any kind of guidance on his part.”
Soccer is secondary to the story, but these theater majors found themselves doing more cardio than usual getting "The Wolves" ready for the stage. Kamryn Elise Roane is a senior in the acting program at IWU. She wasn't especially athletic growing up, opting for dance instead.
“I never played soccer at my playground,” she said. “I played softball for awhile and realized I hated being outside.”
The creative team behind “The Wolves,” complete with an AstroTurf soccer pitch created by senior theatre design and technology major Mars Mulvin, allows Roane to experience the joys of the sport and reclaim the soccer experiences of her youth—indoors.
“My biggest memories of soccer would be P.E. in elementary school getting kicked by the boys,” she said, “I remember one time the ball got caught between my legs and people just started kicking.”
Ecaterina Cuznetova is an international student studying acting; "The Wolves" is her first main stage production at IWU. Growing up in Moldova, she was familiar with playing sports, but hadn’t played soccer until now.
“I was in competitive sport for 10 years,” she said. “It was horse riding. So, I know about sport in general but not—the ball. With the ball it’s a bit different. It’s uncontrollable.”
Preparing to play
To get these soccer novices ready, Connelly started with the basics: Don’t kick with your toes.
“If you do it barefoot, you learn really fast not to do that,” he said.
The company of 11 women did stretching drills and workshops with help from an IWU women’s soccer coach. The show includes wind sprints and passing drills—all sorts of soccer stuff that was new to the actors. For safety, the crew discussed placing a short net at the edge of the stage.
“Every once in awhile, I think, maybe we don’t need that; they’re getting better,” Connelly said. “And then last night two balls went into the audience.”
The net is still TBD.
It’s not really about soccer
Each character in "The Wolves" is identified only by her number. Cuznetova plays an anxious goalkeeper, #00.
“She’s a high achiever. She’s a perfectionist,” Cuznetova said. “She feels all the time the pressure and responsibility. She’s so afraid of losing the game, but when she comes up to play the last game of the season, she has the mindset, ‘I want to win. I will win.’”
Roane plays #46: the new girl.
“I’ve been that girl before,” she said. “She makes a lot of mistakes and she says a lot of things she really should not say because she doesn’t understand social cues. But I think by the end of the play she starts to really see these girls and they start to see her.”
DeLappe began writing "The Wolves" after seeing an art exhibit in New York City depicting scenes from Middle East and North African conflict zones. Leaving the museum, she noticed how detached people were from what they'd just seen. Feeling horror and pity in one moment—and heading to brunch in the next.
“This play is about listening,” said Cuznetova. “At the beginning of the play, no one pays attention.”
In "The Wolves'" opening scene, petty teenage gossip is layered over a discussion about someone sentenced for crimes against humanity for their participation in the Cambodian genocide.
“As it’s supposed to be, one is a listener and one is a talker,” Cuznetova said. “Right now in conversation, two people try to be the talkers.”
A tragedy among the team is what gets them to start listening to one another.
“In the last scene, they actually say, ‘How are you? I missed you,’” said Connelly. “I certainly remember one game from high school where the loss still sticks with me. I remember a win that sticks with me. But the thing that really sticks with me is losing a teammate. That’s what ultimately binds them together. They become The Wolves. They become an actual team.”
"The Wolves" runs Feb. 21-25 at Illinois Wesleyan University in McPherson Hall, 2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington. Tickets are $12 at 309-556-3232 and online.
