THIS IS WHERE WE LIVE
Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace (16 Ryerson)
Rating: NNNNN
Aug 9 at 5 pm, Aug 10 at 10 pm, Aug 11 at 7:30 pm, Aug 12 at 7:30 pm, Aug 13 at 9:45 pm, Aug 16 at 7:45 pm. 1-888-328-8384, summerworks.ca.
Two teen outsiders in a small Australian town – newly arrived Chloe (Jenna Harris), who uses sex to intimidate others, and Chris (Tim Welham), lonely son of a stuffy, by-the-book teacher – find solace with one another despite brutal family lives and the rejection of their peers.
Vivienne Walshe’s poetic, exciting script reveals the characters’ inner and outer lives, and in the hands of director Taryn Jorgenson, the production is high energy and electric. The fine actors play the eccentric, damaged parents as well as their abused children.
Jenna McCutchen’s set, based on various-sized standing and fallen ladders, suggests there’s a way out of this hellish underworld for the two needy teens, but the play’s ambiguous ending isn’t so clear.