Phanésia Pharel’s “Dead Girl’s Quinceañera,” now playing at the Goodman Theatre in the smaller Owen space, attempts to turn the apparent abduction of a Miami teenager into a comedy thriller, which should be enough to signal that this is not a play that lacks guts.
Indeed, for much of the 90 minutes we are watching a lively trio of Miami teens conducting a true-crime investigation into the disappearance of their friend, Maria, last seen at her quinceañera, we’re told, but unresponsive to any messages from her friends since. The style, as one of them notes, is “Nancy Drew on steroids,” and we watch as the girls, charming and likable as they act out elements of the typical high-school power structure, try to figure out the clues to where their friend has gone. On designer Sara Brown’s witty set, they have Post-it notes and lists of suspects, and the whole thing has a teen true-detective vibe even as it preaches a gospel of empowerment and explores the challenges of Latina girlhood in South Florida.
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But that is by no means the whole story. As the detectives near the truth, things take a much darker turn. How you feel about this play, which had its world premiere this past summer by the Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts, probably will turn on whether you think issues like trafficking and abuse can be mined for comedy. After the Goodman, the play heads next to Hartford Stage in Connecticut, with all three theaters co-producing director Melia Bensussen’s production.
I struggled with that question, at least in this specific context, and I can only be honest. But I suspect others will embrace what Pharel is attempting here, which seems to be to protest what too often happens to girls by imagining girls sufficiently empowered to join hands and take down their oppressors. (The piece has some echoes of “John Proctor is the Villain.”) The show has countless references to identity issues and other current progressive concerns; there is even a sound clip relating to the current Cornell University allegations, which must have been added in the last two or three days.
Of course, we’re watching adult actors. Wisely, to my mind, Bensussen’s cast (Carmen Berkeley, Ariana Burks, Andrea Ferro and Jacqueline Guillén) mostly does not attempt overt teen impersonations. Still, there is something of a disconnect here between these young teen characters and adult preoccupations.
There is a political argument for that, of course, since teens are too often at the mercy of adults. But in the theater, watching these fictional kids played by adults, there remains a gulf between what and how they are speaking and how they would be speaking at their stated ages. These girls feel, at the end of the day, in service of an adult point of view. Maybe you will find that legitimate, maybe even vitally important.
But it’s there.
In the end, I think the piece probably needs to be performed by actual teens to really work.
All that said, Pharel is an early-career talent with formidable linguistic chops and there are a couple of gorgeous and beautifully performed monologues here where the characters really do come into their own and feel fully realized. Overall, this is a very lively and swiftly paced production from four skilled and committed performers.
I just hope Pharel, a true poet with a wicked sense of humor, will strike out from the nonprofit-MFA mainstream, not worry so much in the future about hitting every perceived righteous button, and let her deeply spirited and richly individualized characters tell her where they themselves want to go, rather than feel like an authorial mouthpiece. A model there would be fellow Goodman playwright Jocelyn Bioh, whose “School Girls: Or, The African Mean Girls Play,” now on Broadway, shows us a group of teenaged girls who have minds of their own.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
Review: “Dead Girl’s Quinceañera ” (2.5 stars)
When: Through Nov. 1
Where: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St.
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Tickets: $34-79 at 312-443-3800 and goodmantheatre.org