Jailbait, by American playwright Deirdre O’Connor, is ostensibly a play about sex but ultimately, by subtle turns, it becomes about belonging.

Adolescence is a hard topic to pinpoint without seeming predictable or pointless. An experience all adults have had, it is hard to portray genuinely without falling back on clichés or retreading well-trod ground. So it’s refreshing that Jailbait takes care with its insights into teenage and adult life without condescending to either.

The premise is two utterly different stereo typed girls (the babe/slut and the naïve/nerd) faking their way into a club and into the beds of two much older unassuming men. The stories of each character are aired nice and evenly with the result being a look in through the side window at four disparate people, all of whom have something to offer, something to hide and everything to lose (if they haven’t lost it already). 

Theatre of Love’s production takes this piece to the bar, literally staging it at Galatos which, aside from being freezing, is a really good venue. The ambiance is inclusive and swallowing, even though they are competing with an all-ages club night downstairs (and all that you imagine that entails). There is a magnetism that keeps the attention within the confinement of the aged building. As the play itself is about both intimacy and awkwardness, this choice of staging is inspired. 

The set includes a teen girl’s bed, a toilet and some couches – yet this is enough. Include the lighting (Sam Mence) and sound and you are easily transported from bedroom to bathroom to dance floor without transitional glitches.

Into these changing scenes comes Emmy (Ashleigh-Rose Keating), a stereotype indeed but played with arresting conviction by Keating who’s slight over-the-top-ness came to pass as more of an intentional distancing, used to show the great gaps between her character’s public and private lives. It’s hard to play a character seems is cocksure and one dimensional but who, like everyone, has some inner turmoil as yet unearthed, yet Keating succeeds.

Emmy’s friend and foil, Claire (Kristina Hard), is obviously complex and emotionally vulnerable yet Hard manages to nurture this to her advantage with a real authenticity. Comfortable on the stage, Hard maintains the most genuine American accent throughout and feels alive, real: the centrifugal force within the play.

Emmy’s older man Mark (Dwayne Cameron) is extremely dislikable in his unedited rants to his cohort and fellow ‘hunter’ (I’m using this term in relation to woman not ducks or other game), Robert. Consider his response when Robert asks Mark his thoughts on marriage: “My first wife isn’t even been born yet.” Despite his instant hideousness, Cameron somehow manages to pull some small scrap of connectedness from out of his character’s wretched chauvinism. A feat indeed. 

Robert (Devlin Bishop), as wingman, is far more limp, less aggressive in his ‘pussy pursuits’ yet still gainfully undertaking them. In this role Bishop conjures the pathetic nature of a middling life; one in which even the largest moments are merely compromises for the better life he’s too afraid to live. Taking his American accent into unfaithful territories (British, Kiwi and maybe an attempt at Canadian) doesn’t prevent Bishop from also taking the audience by surprise at how multi-layered and convincing his Robert can be.

The Direction (James Wenley) takes good advantage of the space, and the various points of egress and entrance, all without seeming overwrought or making you dizzy. The only aspect I’d question (and I’m about to broach a vastly complicated topic one reliant no doubt heavily on subjectivity, so please ignore/forgive me) was the choice to go with foreign accents over adapting the script. You know, I’m not even sure they would have been allowed to adapt the script so it could have been a ‘hands tied’ situation, but for argument’s sake the story of adolescent girls acting dangerously beyond their years is not a story particular to America, it is every country, it is almost every girl, and as such it may have behoved them to relax and tell the story in their native tongue.

So now for the final line, the summation where all the pretty words go: Jailbait is about as elegant as it is awkward. Mesmerizing, with suspension of disbelief achieved, I think this is a play that deserves to be seen.
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