THE HANGOVER REPORT – Clare Barron’s incisive DANCE NATION investigates the conflicting motivations of adolescence

The company of Clare Barron's "Dance Nation" at Playwrights Horizons.

The company of Clare Barron’s “Dance Nation” at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons.

Ever since her cathartic You Got Older a number of seasons ago at HERE Arts Center, I’ve kept a close eye on the budding career of young playwright Clare Barron. Like the living legend Caryl Churchill, Ms. Barron has evidenced the ability to intelligently explore larger themes and questions in provocative ways that are only possible through theater. Tonight, her new play Dance Nation opened at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons, and I continue to be deeply impressed by her considerable talents.

Dance Nation depicts the tumultuous experience of female adolescence vis-à-vis a tightly run middle school dance team. What Ms. Barron accomplishes so skillfully is to perceptively layer the instantly recognizable, conflicting motivations of early teenage years in a way that rings truthfully, and hence painfully awkward. These emotions are heightened by the competitive nature of these girls’ dance training, auditions, and contests. In several ways, Dance Nation can be considered a companion piece to Ms. Barron’s previous play I’ll Never Love Again, another play which investigates the singular, unavoidable experience of navigating young adulthood.

Sensitively yet sharply directed by Lee Sunday Evans, Dance Nation is at once grounded in frank naturalism, as well as intense flights of fancy. Ms. Evans’ staging is typified by the production’s age-blind casting, a gorgeous reminder that we were all once there. And what an ensemble cast Ms. Evans has at her finger tips – I can’t imagine a bunch doing Ms. Barron’s play better service than the fierce crew currently dancing up a storm (figuratively and literally) down at Playwrights Horizons.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

DANCE NATION
Off-Broadway, Play
Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons
1 hour, 45 minutes (without an intermission)
Through June 3

Categories: Off-Broadway, Theater

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