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The Angst Of Middle School Girls At Yale Rep

Would you want to relive your middle school years? When I asked my friends, our universal answer was “no,” although sometimes additional words were added to make the sentiment even more emphatic.

Do you want to watch a group of girls go through their eighth grade year? Playwright Hilary Betts believes you will find this mostly true story engaging. Unfortunately, eighth grade students, with their petty jealousies, rivalries, and meanness, can be tedious to watch. It doesn’t help when most of the class looks more like high school juniors or seniors than 13-year-olds.

falcon girls is getting its world premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre through Saturday, Nov. 2. The play was developed and supported by Yale’s Binger Center for New Theatre.

It centers around a group of girls in very rural Falcon, Colorado, in the 1990s. They are in eighth grade and are members of the FFA Horse Evaluation Team. For those of us who live in more urban areas, FFA is Future Farmers of America, and horse evaluation is being able to look at a horse and, by understanding and observing its skeletal and musculature, determine if it is worth purchasing, breeding, or keeping. Teams of four members go to competitions where they must observe the horse and then give oral presentations of their findings and opinions.

The play opens with the five-member team (one is an alternate), already a tight-knit bunch who have known each other forever. A new girl, Hilary, arrives and wants to be part of the team. The coach, Mr. K, decides she can be the second alternate; it is unlikely that she would ever be asked to substitute.

What follows is a series of scenes that offer us some insight into the world these girls live in, very Christian and very remote. They all have basically the same background.

Each girl has a problem–Rebecca is the star of the team, but she really doesn’t want to participate; it is her mother pushing her. April, who is obsessed with going to Hollywood, stays in her room as her stepfather comes home drunk and starts screaming and threatening her mother. Jasmine, Chicano like April, talks on dial-up internet sex chat room. Then there’s Mary, who is always talking about WWJD (What would Jesus Do) but loves the rap group Salt-n-Pepa, which her father calls the devil’s music. Carly is the alternate on the team; anxiety leads her to pull out her hair. Her parents force her to quit the team to help out on their llama farm.

Hilary has moved to Falcon with her mother, a nurse, for a fresh start. Their relationship is rocky, though not much more so than the usual conflicts between teen girls and their mothers.

Though the play is about the girls, Dan, the team captain, and the coach, Mr. K, also play important roles.

Dan is another insecure teen boy who has a crush on Hilary and doesn’t know what to do, he follows the misguided advice of some of the girls.

The most effective scenes are the ones between Mr. K and the girls. Most have dysfunctional families, and Mr. K is the stable role model of manhood and fatherhood for them. The scene between him and Carly, when she tells him she must leave the team, is a model of empathy and good advice. The same occurs when Mary tells him that her parents are taking her out of school and will home-school her.

In each, Betts has written dialogue that sounds both realistic and could also be a model for how a teacher should respond to the sometimes-awkward questions and situations they are placed in. Teddy Cañez, as Mr. K., does a fine job with the role.

The cast does a good job, given that they are playing characters much younger than they are and much less mature. Anna Roman as Mary and Gabrielle Policano as Hilary succeed in acting and looking 14 more than the others.

Some things surprised me. These girls have been relatively sheltered from books and ideas, yet their conversations include much swearing, as well as discussions about sex and abortion. The latter plays a role in the final scenes, which feel tacked on.

Because of this, some parents may not be comfortable taking preteens and younger teens to see the play; yet they are the ones who will most identify with the characters and the feelings.

For tickets, visit YaleRep.org.