Review: Seventeen, Seymour Centre

Seventeen captured the excitements and fears of graduation. Photo: Carlita Sari

Walking into WildThingProduction’s Seventeen at the Seymour Centre, we were instantly taken back to high school. The stage had been covered in AstroTurf. There was a broken swing-set, a graffitied table and even a bubbler, small details designed to spark our own memories of being 17 – good, bad and everything in between.

Written by Matthew Whittet in 2015 and directed by Mary-Ann Gifford, Seventeen follows a group of teenage friends who gather at their high school playground to celebrate the completion of their final exams. Throughout the course of a single night, they share their fondest memories of each other, their deepest fears about growing up and their dreams for the future.

But in a clever twist on this predictable coming-of-age saga, all roles are performed by older actors.

Whittet was inspired to experiment with this playful, age-bending casting after conducting a series of interviews with actors in their sixties and seventies. The intensity with which these actors were able to recall their teenage emotions took Whittet by surprise, forming the basis of his five characters who each represent the different excitements and fears experienced when we find ourselves on the precipice of change.

The allure of independence dominates the play’s early scenes. Lying on the grass under a starry sky, the friends talk about getting jobs, buying their first car, going to parties and moving out of home. This scene feels authentic, conveyed with just the right amount of hysterical teenage energy that sparks a palpable buzz in the cosy Reginald Theatre.

Tom (Noel Hodda) and Edwina (Katrina Foster) share their excitements for university while on the swing-set, a clever feature of the stage design (Paris Burrows) used throughout the play to emphasise the characters’ newfound sense of freedom. Mike (Peter Kowitz) and Sue (Di Adams) compare travel plans – Mexico, Europe, maybe America.

Peter Kowitz’s performance as Mike was a stand-out. Photo: Carlita Sari

But with any big change comes uncertainty and fear. High-school misfit Ronny (Colin Moody) exemplifies these heavier emotions through his quiet sadness and lack of direction. “When I think of the future, I just see a black hole,” he says, turning the play’s initial ecstatic mood into something much darker.

Mike also shares this fear through his struggle to accept his sexuality, though his boisterous, too-cool-for-school attitude acts as an almost flawless disguise. Kowitz’s performance was a stand-out in the play in his ability to simultaneously dominate the stage with a hyperbolic self-assurance and convey a sense of deep insecurity.

Mike’s younger sister Lizzie (Di Smith) was equally dynamic. Smith’s performance was bursting with youthful zeal, balancing the more intense emotions of the play by providing some necessary comedic relief in moments of heightened tension.

Sue and Edwina’s friendship felt authentic and meaningful. Photo: Carlita Sari

Sue and Edwina’s friendship felt nostalgic, filled with deep conversations about the future. “What’s going to happen to us?”, Edwina asks Sue towards the end of the play, the intimacy heightened in this moment through the warm lights (Grant Fraser) used to remind us of a sunrise.

It is a shame their falling-out had to be over a boy. This unresolved complication feels stale for a modern audience that craves more complexity and depth in representations of female relationships.

In fact, much of the play’s storyline feels like we’ve seen it all before in the countless films, books and TV shows that have been made about high-school angst. But while Seventeen doesn’t have many new ideas to add about the anxieties of graduation, the choice to cast older actors meant we could appreciate the heartbreaks, joys and fears of school leavers without dismissing them as the mere trivialities of over-emotional teens.

Whittet’s play is a clever meditation on youth in all its dazzling complexity. What it ultimately suggests is that we never really stop being 17, forever leaping into the unknown to chase our dreams.

Seventeen is playing at the Seymour Centre until October 19. Tuesday-Saturday at 7.30pm; Saturdays at 2pm.