Theatre in Review: Teenage Dick (Ma-Yi Theater Company/The Public Theater)

	Shannon DeVido, Gregg Mozgala. Photo: Carol Rosegg

For most of us, the adolescent years are filled with enough intrigue -- alliances, secrets, and betrayals -- for, well, one of William Shakespeare's history plays. Thus, the premise of Teenage Dick, Mike Lew's ferocious comedy in which a Richard III figure runs riot through an American high school, committing a litany of sins in his effort to become senior class president. This is no crookback Richard, however; as played by the rapidly rising Gregg Mozgala, who has cerebral palsy, Richard is a CP sufferer whose halting, pigeon-toed walk is, he believes, the reason for his unpopularity. As it happens, he has a plan to change all that.

Stuck with the job of class secretary -- to his mind, a dumping ground for nerds -- Richard schemes to take out the current president, Eddie, an entitled, oblivious jock who rules the football team, the school, and (in his mind, at least), the world. Richard will also have to leapfrog over the vice president, Clarissa, whose ulterior, frequently aggrieved displays of religiosity put the student body on edge. Deploying a mixture of charm and menace that Shakespeare would easily recognize, Richard takes the audience into his confidence, frequently speaking in a semi-Elizabethan patois undergirded by the rhythms of iambic pentameter. Thus, the opening line of Richard III ("Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this sun of York") transformed into "Now that the winter formal gives way to glorious spring fling we find our rocks-for-brains hero Eddie -- the quarterback -- sleeping through his job as junior class president." He also calls Clarissa, his frenemy, a "pox-scrabbled harlot" -- an epithet that, I'll wager, you don't find too often on Twitter or Instagram.

Richard's path to power runs through Anne Margaret, Eddie's ex, a beautiful but notably guarded aspiring dancer. (It's not every playwright who can summon up two Shakespearean starlets and a 1960s movie star in a single name.) He cleverly manipulates her into asking him to a Sadie Hawkins Day dance, and she sets out to teach him some hip-hop moves so they won't embarrass themselves on the dance floor. What starts out as a kind of stunt blossoms into real affection as the two bond over adolescent jokes about Richard's disability. ("Come on babe why don't we paint the town. And all that spaz!") And even as he gets Clarissa kicked out of the election and works to undermine Eddie's influence, Richard starts to fall for Anne, who, haltingly at first, returns his affection. So fond of him does she become that she makes the mistake of sharing a highly personal secret, unwittingly setting them all on the path to destruction.

Lew juggles so many balls -- Shakespearean parody, teen treachery, a running commentary on how society treats the disabled -- that it's not surprising that things occasionally get dropped. The action sometimes lurches inelegantly between wisecracking comedy and full-throated melodrama, and it is debatable whether the dramatic structure can handle the tragic weight it is made to bear in the later passages. But the playwright is already a master of caustic, crackling dialogue, and his plotting is consistently surprising, sometimes even moving. Moritz Von Stuelpnagel's direction goes a long way toward papering over the stylistic cracks, and he has put together a cast skilled at takedowns and unexpected moments of tenderness.

This is Mozgala's biggest, most challenging assignment yet, and he easily jumps to the head of the class, implicating us in his scheming, trading insults with Eddie and Clarissa, and executing a kind of tango of trust and manipulation with Anne, whom he initially sees as a prize to be won but who gets under his skin in ways he can barely acknowledge. He rises to another level in the later scenes, when, seeking to escape responsibility for the carnage that ensues, he tries desperately to play the victim card, then opts to take his revenge to another level. His magnetic personality helps us around some of the play's bumpier transitions as well.

Tiffany Villarin's Anne is a surprisingly complex character, a bright, talented, yet deeply self-doubting soul who, inside, is nothing like the pretty, popular trophy girlfriend that others see. Extremely self-protective by nature, and highly disciplined about dance, which she sees as her ticket out of town, she is more than tough enough to spar with Richard. She handles Anne's big confession with delicacy, enough to lend a rabbit-punch power to her betrayal. Even given one of the play's biggest moments of overreach, in which she complains about the lack of agency shared by Shakespeare's women -- try telling that to Portia, Rosalind, or Beatrice -- she keeps it from being a too-overt bit of authorial overreach.

Shannon DeVido, seen to good effect a couple of seasons back in Samuel D. Hunter's melancholy The Healing, is a riot as Buck, whom Richard dismisses as a quisling for her devotion to Eddie and the football team. ("The varsity squad was facing expulsion for hazing the JV team," he says, accusingly. "Allegedly," she replies. "You don't know! Those freshmen could have been broomsticking themselves.") She has also mastered the skill of using her motorized wheelchair to threateningly approach a foe. Also, Marinda Anderson is fun as the eternally cheerful teacher Miss York, who is forever dispatching erring students to "the tower." Alex Breaux adds to his gallery of open-mouthed jocks as Eddie, described as "naught but a Fabergé egg, all pretty surfaces hollowed of brains." Sasha Diamond is amusingly offensive as Clarissa, forever peeved about how she is treated for her beliefs but also capable of telling Richard that he is lucky to have CP, because it will guarantee a free ride to the college of his choice.

Teenage Dick has an unusually elaborate production design for the Public's tiny Susan Stein Shiva Theater. Wilson Chin's high school set is amusingly topped with medieval crenellations; it also has a trophy case that parts to show the full-length mirrors of Anne's dance studio and, later, a series of vertical striplights for the Sadie Hawkins scene. (He also finds space for Anne's bedroom, the site of a fateful encounter between her and Richard.) Miriam Nilofa Crowe's lighting combines full stage washes with chiaroscuro effects and plenty of color, plus a mirror ball for the dance scene. Fabian Obispo's sound design includes various musical selections, a medley of voices on the Internet, cheering crowds, applause, a DJ, and an earthquake-like rumble. Junghyun Georgia Lee's costumes display an intimate knowledge of current teenage styles. Cheers also to choreographer Jennifer Weber for the dance routine that is the occasion of a brief triumph for Richard and Anne.

Teenage Dick may be a little rough around the edges, but it is loaded with young talent, and by the end one deeply appreciates how thoroughly gulled one has been by Richard and the playwright who created him. (It's especially fascinating that Ma-Yi, a company founded to create opportunities for Asian artists, is presenting a piece that has so much to say about the disabled and how easily we dismiss them.) "So, close your eyes and forget about me," Richard tells us bitterly at the end. "You always do, anyhow." With Mozgala and company in charge? Not a chance.-- David Barbour