“The Outsiders” isn’t a play typically found on small-town high school stages.
That Richard Spencer, director and mentor for Iola High drama students, picked the intense coming-of-age study of teenagers in the 1960s is no surprise. He likes to challenge students.
The play is demanding, not only in dealing with death, defiance and emotions, but also in the technical aspects of an open-stage play that depends on precise lighting changes to keep the audience captivated.
The play is from the novel of the same name written by S.E. Hinton when she was a teenager growing up in Tulsa. A subsequent movie was released in 1983 and starred Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise and Matt Dillon — a who’s who of young actors of the period.
The story line follows a few months in the lives of the â¨Greasers and the Socs, whose associations are decided by socioeconomic conditions. They have predictable clashes, including one that leads to a stabbing death. The play’s plot has two of the other teens dying, one from injuries he suffered saving others in a fire and the third, overcome by his friend’s lingering death, when he purposely faces police officers holding an unloaded gun.
Ponyboy, a bright 16-year-old played by Drew Smith, is the thread that carries the fast-paced, 90-minute play from start to poignant finish.
Smith has numerous soliloquies, most pronounced at the front edge of the stage under a spotlight. The device gives the play continuity while stagehands move props on and off. The curtain never drops, rather scene changes are accomplished with the stage darkened.
ALL INVOLVED have roles that without their assimilation into Hinton’s dialogue and Spencer’s direction the play would founder.
Eli Grover as Bob, Bryan Miller as Randy, Jordan Strickler as Johnny, Michael Wilson as Dallas and Stephen McDonald, a strapping youngster who looks every bit the part of the Greasers’ enforcer, as Two-Bit are on stage often, to the audience’s delight.
Singling them out shouldn’t be taken as a slight to the other actors, several whose stage presence certainly will earn them more stage time in another production, as well as those who weren’t cast who likely with step into the spotlight another time.
That’s what high school drama instruction is about, not only putting those with expertise at center stage but also giving others, shallow in experience but often long in hidden talent, a chance to excel. Spencer understands the concept and over the years has nurtured many young actors and given them opportunities that might have gone wanting in a less engaging venue.
Students have demanding roles off stage, as well, with Brittany Porter in charge of the constantly changing lighting. She and those who help her should get a special round of applause.
The play will be staged tonight and Friday night at 7 o’clock. Admission is free, which underestimates greatly the entertainment value Iola High students bring to the main Bowlus Fine Arts Center stage.
