Blasting the Velvet Under ground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man” is a great way to start off a show. As Lou Reed’s voice fills the Duke Theatre, the young cast of “Once and for All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen” is bouncing off the stage.
They’re teenagers, and they’re waiting for no one.
Some are dancing on chairs, others are falling off them. A couple of girls draw on the floor with chalk, another spits out water. A few kids seem to be flirting — or maybe they’re fighting. Who knows?
Suddenly an alarm blares. Everybody hurriedly cleans up the mess, the song repeats — and so does the whole scene.
What it all means is unclear: that teens may look out of control but actually behave according to preordained rules? This open-endedness is especially refreshing when so much entertainment revolving around (and geared toward) youth relies on scrubbed-up conventions and myth-making. There are no obvious cliques or archetypes here, and no lecturing, either.
Developed in Ghent, Belgium, by its young cast, director Alexander Devriendt and writer Joeri Smet, “Once and for All” avoids the clichés of kid-centric storytelling. Actually, it avoids storytelling altogether. Random-seeming brawling and dancing, acting up and making out fill the hour, interrupted by short monologues.
This is life as seen through the eyes of young boys and girls, rushing forward to the sound of blaring techno and rock, and even the odd Peggy Lee classic.
The actors, all in their mid- to late teens, are light-years away from American entertainment’s usual robo-performers. No squeaky-clean Disney moppets here: When they fight, it’s sloppy; when they kiss, the mix of shy vulnerability and desire made kids in the audience squirm. (A joint presentation of the experimental Under the Radar festival and the family-friendly New Victory Theater, the show contains profanity and is suitable for ages 13 and up.)
Carried along by its furious momentum, the show ends in an exhilarating wet mess. Kinda like adolescence itself, come to think of it.