Theatre

DERRICK SANTINI Enlarge Image

Mayko Nguyen and Colin Doyle in MTYP’s Offensive Fouls

Talk the talk, walk the walk. Offensive Fouls — presented on Feb. 17 and 18 at Manitoba Theatre for Young People — appeals to teens because of its believability and honesty.
   
Written by Calgary-based playwright Jason Long, the Dora-nominated play is a look at love and racism told through the story of two high-school students, Caucasian basketball fanatic Joey and his Chinese-Canadian girlfriend, Christine, whose relationship is tested after a race-related incident.
   
"(Teens are) your toughest audience because they want the truth," says Colin Doyle, who plays Joey. "If it’s cheeseball, they’ll tell you, but they walk out going, ‘Wow, they talk just like us.’ When they find out I’m 33 years old, they literally sever their heads from their bodies and throw them at me."
   
Doyle — whose company, Hustle N’ Bustle, created the touring show — says that in post-show Q-and-A sessions, students have voiced their appreciation for that fact Offensive Fouls doesn’t "beat you over the head with a message."
   
Long says the play was preachy for its first couple of productions until it was picked up by Edmonton’s Concrete Theatre in 2006.
   
"The artistic director, Jared Matsunaga-Turnbull, felt the first version started to read like a commission," Long says, noting Offensive Fouls was originally commissioned and produced by Calgary’s All Nations Theatre in 1999/2000.
 
"He said that about two-thirds of the way in, there’s a lot of speeches saying racism is really bad. His point was if people are coming to hear racism is bad, we’ve either got them or lost them already. One of the most seminal moments ever of any director or artist telling me something as a writer was when he said, ‘It’s a love story. Write the end like it’s a love story.’ That was amazing advice because it freed me up from having to solve the issue of racism in a play, which you can’t do."
   
Yes, teens don’t like being told what to think. They also aren’t the most patient of people and that’s OK, because Offensive Fouls runs in real time, clocking in around 50 minutes, with no whistles, stoppages or time outs.
   
"The word immediacy always comes to mind when I’m writing plays; what’s the most immediate way to tell the story?" Long says. "It’s a voyeuristic peak into the lives of two people who are on the verge of possibly losing each other. There’s just something interesting about zooming in on that, staying in that moment and not having blackouts or scene changes or music transitions or time changes. If we hook the audience early, they’re going to stay, because nothing is taking them out of the story."
   
Offensive Fouls is all about bringing you in, even scoring a slam dunk with the extremely particular young male demographic.
   
"Because my character is an athlete, immediately the guys, who tend to be a bit trickier to rope into the arts, are going ‘Wait a minute, I know who Paul Pierce is. This is great,’" Doyle says. "I bring that up because I’m a big basketball fan and I was nervous Pierce was going to be traded from the Boston Celtics. I just didn’t want it to change the story."
 

OFFENSIVE FOULS
Feb. 17 - 18, 7:30 p.m.
Manitoba Theatre for Young People