Teenagers tend to be self-centered, but Matthew, the blond hunk in “Wild Animals You Should Know,” is a grade-A narcissist. In the first scene of Thomas Higgins’ new play, he recites the Boy Scouts’ oath while stripping to his undies in front of his laptop — all for the benefit of his gay best friend, Jacob (Gideon Glick), who’s watching on Skype.
Matthew (Jay Armstrong Johnson) has simple goals: “I just want everyone to want me,” he says.
The two high-school students are having a laugh but they are, in fact, Scouts, and pretty serious about it. So much so that they’re about to leave for an overnight trip during which they’ll work on their Eagle Scout project.
Higgins splits the play almost evenly between the boys and the grown-ups supervising them while camping in the woods. You have to wonder, though, if the latter ever got their badges in adulthood.
Accompanying the troupe are two very different cases of arrested development. One is Walter (Patrick Breen, of “Next Fall”), Matthew’s wet noodle of a father and pretty much the exact opposite of an alpha male. He’s paired with Larry (Daniel Stewart Sherman), a burly, loud dude who hangs six-packs on his belt by their plastic ring.
Walter recently lost his job, and now that he’s spending more time at home, it’s dawning on him that he doesn’t know his own son.
What he learns on the trip is troubling, and makes up the play’s core.
Director Trip Cullman and his cast do likable work here. It’s fun to watch Alice Ripley play a no-nonsense, sexy suburban mom after winning a Tony for her portrayal of a bipolar one in “Next to Normal.” She doesn’t get nearly enough stage time, but she and Breen make an appealingly unlikely couple.
Ultimately, though, Higgins undercooks his play.
The most intriguing, if underdeveloped, element is whether Matthew’s a sociopath or merely in the grip of teenage confusion — he seems to have skipped the oath’s line about being “morally straight.” The way Matthew relates to the closeted Scoutmaster, Rodney (John Behlmann), certainly is messed up.
But then Higgins timidly backpedals, opting for a “rebuilding” of the family and pat evasiveness. After sniffing out the psychological wilds, he retreats to the safety of base camp.