The Storytelling Ability of a Boy

by Carter W. Lewis
Directed by Robert Kropf
Visitng Company: Boston Art Theatre
Sunday - Tuesday, July 11 - August 31
curtain: 8pm - Tickets: $15-$31

Love gets dangerous when a young English teacher gets involved in the personal lives of two of her students, a strange boy with a gift for writing and a brooding young girl with a nail gun. Darkly funny and deeply moving.

Boston Globe: 'Storytelling' in Wellfleet lands some punches by Don Aucoin

"Things get extreme in a hurry in Carter W. Lewis's The Storytelling Ability of a Boy. How extreme? Well, we have barely been introduced to a teenager named Dora before she has, um, nailed her hand to a wall in a high school hallway, using a nailgun she sees as a must-have accessory, the way more conventional girls might view a Prada purse or a pair of Uggs.

It's jolting, yes. But the greater shock that lies in store for the audience at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, where The Storytelling Ability of a Boy is receiving its New England premiere in a production by the Boston Art Theatre, is what a strangely tender, ultimately moving ode to the power of friendship this play turns out to be.

Which is not to say it's not a bumpy ride. That nailgun is not the only weapon that will be brandished before the evening is over....

...directed by Robert Kropf in a no-holds-barred style that is in keeping with WHAT's edgy aesthetic and that is probably necessary for "Boy" to achieve its full effect. Kropf, artistic director of the Boston Art Theatre and a frequent performer on the WHAT stage (in fact, he's playing the title role in the current production of Cyrano), draws committed performances from his cast of three.

Dakota Shepard plays Caitlin, a new teacher seeking a fresh start. ..Shepard gives a performance expertly attuned to Caitlin's internal struggle as she tries to get past her past and nurture this new talent she has discovered, to fill the clean slate and get it right this time. .. Doyle, who is WHAT's lighting designer (and fulfills that function with this production as well), proves an able performer, thoroughly inhabiting the difficult role of Dora and letting us see the wounded heart behind her self-protective scorn, but by degrees, not all at once.

As Peck, Foster builds a persuasive portrait of the artist as a young eccentric. Peck's initial bravado dwindles to something more interesting as it becomes clear that his third-person approach to narrating his life might be not just the impulse of a born storyteller, but also a defense mechanism meant to establish a degree or two of separation from reality. The reality is that Peck is often on the receiving end of beat-downs by some of the less evolved members of the high school's jockocracy.

Indeed, an especially brutal beating of Peck sets in motion a series of events that will radically rearrange the emotional landscape in which all three characters operate, bringing them to the point of an explosive crisis that threatens to lay waste to everything they have come to care about.

And then, perhaps, something beautiful happens." read full review

Cape Cod Times: 'Boy' celebrates power of narrative by Alicia Blaisdell-bannon

"The Storytelling Ability of a Boy" is one of those fascinating pieces of theater that will seem utterly true to some people and utterly overwrought to others.

It's doubtful anyone will walk out of Carter W. Lewis' sharply written drama feeling on the fence.

The boy in question, Peck, is one of those jittery, edgy, semi-genius high school kids so beloved by English teachers and so victimized by cruel classmates. Peck's only real friend is the equally outcast Dora, who walks around with a bad attitude and a nail gun in her backpack. (Never fear, she only uses it on herself. Why? Because, she says, "it's so hard to stay popular.")...

Caitlin, who has brought some secrets with her to this school (I mean, she has a cello in her house), believes that Dora is a negative influence on Peck... Peck, who has been repeatedly brutalized by other boys in school, just wants to survive with that particular secret intact...

In other words, everyone has a particular narrative. And they are all powerful. So powerful, in fact, that when they intersect, some pretty dangerous things might happen...

It's an intense experience, reminding us once again how transforming words on a page, especially when spoken aloud, can be - for characters in a play, and for us; for good, and for evil. (read full review)

Barnstable Patriot: Youth is served well in production at WHAT by Mary Richmond

We often use the expression, "Out of the mouths of babes..." when kids tell an unexpected truth that seems to belie their tender years, and it is obvious that award-winning playwright Carter W. Lewis believes in this raw, gut intelligence and intuitiveness of youth.

In The Storytelling Ability of a Boy that recently opened at the Harbor Stage at WHAT, Lewis gives his young characters strong voices and prickly personalities that sometimes seem older and wiser than their age might suggest. However, young people are often wiser than the adults around them, more cynical and less threatened by status quo, and in this play their tough truths fall out of their mouths as words onto a stage where they become the fertile seeds of drama, tragedy and even comedy...

Bob Kropf's tight direction of WHAT's new production, which was produced by the Boston Art Theatre company, is spot on and from the moment the young actors arrive on stage there is no story in the room but theirs. Told through a compelling narrative that involves their teacher as narrator, observer and eventually participant, this story is neither easy nor glib. There are moments that seem stolen from recent headlines but that doesn't make them any less relevant, just eerily familiar and foreboding.

...The trio of actors is superb, each in their own way, and together they suck us into a series of pivotal moments that affect not only their individual lives but their relationships to and with each other as well." read full review

Cast:
Peck - Adam Foster*
Dora - Bridget K. Doyle
Caitlin - Dakota Shepard*

Staff:
Stage Manager - Nora Elges*
Set Design - Ted Vitale
Lighting Design - Bridget K. Doyle
Costume Design - Carol Sherry
Sound Design - Jess Bauer
Properties Design - Sarah Beals
Dramaturg - Dan Lombardo
Casting - Norman Meranus
Production Manager - Ted Vitale

To view more production photos click on images below or here