Prior to the start of the show, the audience searches for open seating in the crowded small stadium sized venue surrounding the center stage at Profiles Theatre. “Fifteen” by Taylor Swift is one of the carefully chosen teen-pop songs playing in the background while the crowd gets comfortable. A perfect precursor for Deidre O’Connor’s Jailbait that begins in Claire’s bedroom, quintessentially designed for a modern girl her age, fifteen. A Taylor Swift poster hangs on the wall behind her bed indicating she is far from the days when Barney was her idol. Her stuffed animal's arm peaks out from underneath a pillow that she hurriedly hid to cover any evidence of her immaturity from her sleepover friend, Emmy. Where Emmy intends to “sleep-over” is yet to be reveled.
Emmy, the popular, experienced, and boy-crazed boy-magnet, is the orchestrator of tonight’s events where her intentions are anything but innocent. Emmy’s much older 30-something friend Mark, who she met the week before at a 21 and over club, have a set-up prepared that was unbeknownst to both Claire and Robert, Mark’s 30 something friend, prior to the club. Regardless, Claire and Robert, the most unlikely of matches both timid and out of their element, meet.
Fast forward to the aftermath. “It’s a pick-up. It’s a dirty drunken night of fucking, followed by no phone call. No contact. No relationship. Nothing”, retorts Robert after Claire’s naive and innocent explanation of the night. Even after the 3:00am cab ride back home to fake-sleeping Emmy who drank a little too much at the club, Claire wears Robert’s sweater like a badge of honor. A right of passage both girls recount on Claire’s brightly colored flower print bed together. “It’s just sex”, Emmy rationalizes, “We all have to do it eventually”.
Another familiar story of today’s neglected youth, with a dash of daddy issues and a dab of too young for adult relations they’re having in the bedroom. A story that, though disturbing and sad, wasn’t the story line that stood out. It is our battle to stay in or get to the ‘in between’ that was riveting.
Eric Burgher, who plays Robert, and Shane Kenyon, who plays Mark, do a fantastic job of portraying the aging man’s quest to stay young enough. Though Mark is the womanizing asshole of the two, he knows what he wants: sex, 20-something girls, and good-times. Robert, the seemingly more mature and future focused one, is, in truth, the most lost and unsure. Both carry baggage of past relationships where fairy-tale endings with 2 kids a dog and a white picket fence were once realistic and welcomed goals. Perhaps it is the bitterness of reality for Mark and the fear of next steps for Robert that drove them to the club that night. But it is the memory of those past relationship mistakes that they wish to erase and the desire to start again at 20-something that blinds them of truths and pairs them with the two innocent and naive 15 year old girls.
O’Connor wrote a script that intertwines characters and connects the struggles that we face both at 15 and at 30: the desire to be wanted, to be cool and more experienced, and most importantly, to believe we can start again with someone new. An emotional and gripping performance of one devastating example of what can happen when we try to be someone we aren't anymore or aren't ready to be just yet.
Jailbait continues through Oct. 17 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway. For ticket information, click here
