Adolescence is hard. Growing into adulthood is even harder — especially for the young protagonist in the Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts’ production of “Mancub.”
The 2005 play by Scottish playwright Douglas Maxwell is a story about a boy who turns into animals. Caught between a trance of imagination and reality, 16-year-old Paul (Communication sophomore Casey Bond) is obsessed with biology and struggles with the life of a teenager: fighting with his dad, flirting and soccer practice. More importantly, though, Paul struggles with his identity as an emerging adult.
Directed by graduate student Christopher Michael Richardson and set as a five-cast-member story, Wirtz’s rendition of “Mancub” was both a pleasant surprise and an eyebrow raise because of the play’s slightly bizarre plot. While all actors were exceptionally funny in the delivery of their lines, their switch between the multiple characters they played was what felt most entertaining.
Communication junior Nastia Goddard sharply transformed between angsty soccer coach Mr. Sisskind and teddy bear-loving brother Luke. In all its theatricity, her performance was refreshing, fun and loud for both parts.
But nothing stole the show quite like Ken, the talking dog next door. Played by Communication junior Liam Jeninga, the character is all wagging limbs, darling head tilts and hilarious faux-aristocratic diction. Jeninga’s performance was uncanny yet still comedic — tapping into a cartoonish but tender representation of dog-ness. Ultimately, Jeninga made it clear: If dogs did talk, this is exactly how they’d be.
As actors ran up and down the stage whenever Paul decided it was animal go-time, the choreography felt seamless and representative of the chaos within the young teenage protagonist’s mind. Paul thrashed adolescently between laughter and rage; confused, lost, overwhelmed — all emotions transmitted to the audience seats.
Yet not everything moved so smoothly. The actors’ attempted Scottish accents were a tough adjustment at first and inconsistently carried across the cast. It’s a small gripe and more a question for the director than the performers, who were otherwise sharp and compelling.
Thematically, “Mancub” taps into familiar territory. Paul’s transformation — fur, claws, feathers and all — appears to be a metaphor for adolescence. In that sense, it feels repeatable as a storyline and is not the first work to tap into the relationship between human and animal.
In one of Paul’s violent animal outbursts, “Mancub” appears to share DNA with Rachel Yoder’s “Nightbitch,” a visceral novel in which a mother thinks she is turning into a wild dog.
But where Nightbitch howls as an allegory about maternal rage, “Mancub” seems more confused about what it’s trying to say. Paul’s growing aggression is chalked up to “growing up” and the play teeters on the edge of excusing violent behavior as just another side effect of puberty. It’s murky. And maybe that’s the point — growing up is messy — but it leaves a few questions for Maxwell on my end.
Still, the ending lands with grandeur. Paul’s final transformation into a bird and his attempt to fly feels both literal and metaphorical: A flight from childhood into the vast, unknowable sky of adulthood.
In its powerful silk-curtain drop, the ending leaves us hovering between two readings: One where Paul breaks free, lifted by hope and new beginnings, and another where he surrenders to something darker, perhaps even fatal.
In the end, Mancub is a play that bites, barks and sometimes drifts into the bizarre — but it never loses its heart. And if you’re willing to follow Paul down the rabbit hole (or into the forest, desert or sky), it’s a ride worth taking.
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