Photo courtesy of Tom Kelleher.
Directed by Michael Ofori, “The Wolves“ was the first theatrical production of the academic year.
By Liv Wilson ’24
Publisher & Books Editor
Amid the rainy weather of friends and family weekend, members of the Mount Holyoke College community gathered in Rooke Theatre for a sold-out performance that marked the first theatrical production of the 2023-24 school year. Soccer balls were kicked — not into the audience, as Melanie Cosdon ‘26 mentioned to the Mount Holyoke News with pride — whistles were blown and the audience was moved to tears. “The Wolves” by Sarah DeLappe was directed by Visiting Lecturer in Film Media Theater Professor Michael Ofori and assistant directed by Emma Platt ’26 and Talia Pott ’25.
“The Wolves,” a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Drama, follows a girls’ indoor soccer team through six Saturday mornings as they prepare for their games. In his director’s note, Ofori states that the players are “deeply introspective, confused, funny, unfortunate, informed, concerned and curious” all at once, which rings true throughout the play’s moments of joy, anger, pain and sorrow.
The show begins with a snapshot of the team discussing serious, real-world issues in a way that only sheltered girls from the Midwest can. The conversations vary from the girls confusing Central America, Middle America, and Middle Earth to deconstructing the psychological implications of the Cambodian genocide before rapidly changing topics to college recruitment or period woes.
“[The flippant discussion of human rights violations] almost feels like a poorly researched infographic followed by a meme,” Actor Georgia Rose ’24, who played #8, said of the girls’ well-meaning ignorance. “I think [this] is an attitude that needs to be examined and ‘The Wolves’ does that beautifully.”
The casual discussion of both world events and school gossip — with the awkward, realistic flow typical of any conversation between well-meaning, ignorant teenagers — intertwines with deeply personal facets of each player, slowly revealed during side conversations and stretches. As the play progresses, the players slowly become more and more accepting of one another and the limits of their own maturity.
In the fourth scene, some of the players discuss Player #46’s background in soccer and beyond. The initial reaction through the show is jealousy at her soccer skill and judgment of her living situation, but the conversation in the fourth scene reveals the fact that #46, played by Arianna Peña ’25, uses soccer as a means of connecting with others.
Cosdon described how the company navigated the delicate political topics and teenage drama. “We spent a lot of time really reflecting on being 16-17,” she said, “and having empathy for those moments of immaturity.”
The show featured a painfully human cast of characters who, with one exception, we only know by the numbers printed on their jerseys. Glynnis Goff ’25 tries to hold the group together as #25, an exasperated team captain coming to terms with her sexuality. Cosdon plays #7, a brash and outspoken striker whose inflated ego leads to a blowout fight with #14, a soft-spoken, eager-to-please defensive player who leaves a heartbreaking mark on the show and is played by Lex Canon ’26.
The show integrates the audience into its world through both set design and staging. The Rooke stage was transformed into grassy astroturf on which the actors did running drills as the pre-show playlist blasted. They stopped at the front of the stage and waved to real and imagined friends in the audience. Bridie Bowler ’26 (Soccer Mom) reads the audience the theater’s rules and points out emergency exits with the same pep and cadence the name of her role might bring to mind. Her performance makes the audience feel as though they are just as part of ‘The Wolves’ as the players on the team.
“Often mainstage productions will have a character read out the pre-show,” Pott said. “We chose to lower the fourth-wall divide at the beginning of the show, so the audience could feel as though they were watching a real match.”
Furthering the immersion, “The Wolves” featured collaboration across college departments that do not usually overlap. According to the director’s note, the cast worked with the Mount Holyoke Soccer team to learn the proper drills and goalie techniques necessary for bringing an authentic feel to the play.
“It was a big adjustment, adding with the factor of playing with the soccer balls on top of remembering our lines and blocking and reading,” Peña said of learning the drills with the team. “But in the end [it] was super rewarding.”
The penultimate scene of the play features no dialogue. Only Syd Hart ’25 as #00 is onstage, throwing soccer balls around in rage for reasons unbeknownst to the audience. #00, the mostly silent goalie who serves as an anchor in the background, is brought to the forefront, setting the tone for the final minutes.
The scream Hart lets out as she rips her shirt in anger causes audible gasps throughout the room, and without a word of dialogue, the audience is alerted that something is horribly wrong.
The final scene in the play brought the most emotional acting in the show, with Brynna Bartoo ’24 as #11 and Arianna Peña ’25 as #46 sitting alone onstage, discussing their feelings about what had happened earlier in the play and making casual conversation. The body language of the actors, with hesitant hand movements and tentative words, underscores the lighthearted attempts at banter. The scene is overshadowed by the underlying feeling that something fundamental has been lost.
One by one, all the girls, with the exception of #14, come on stage until the audience realizes that #14 is not coming back, because she is dead. Bowler shines in the role of Soccer Mom, appearing for the first time since the pre-show announcements, as a now manic mother who has lost her child. All of the characters openly weep onstage as Soccer Mom delivers her final monologue, and the show’s immersive nature had the audience crying right alongside them.
The cast credits their ability to make the grieving seem all the more real with the camaraderie they developed both on and offstage.
“Many of my friends who came to see the show remarked on our ability to cry on command,” Phoebe Baskin ’26, the cast member who played #2, said. “I don’t believe our tears in Week Six were because we made ourselves cry … instead they were a genuine result of becoming our characters and just feeling what happened in Week 5 … The cast really felt like a team. We truly are The Wolves.”
The next show at Rooke Theater will be “Night of Scenes,” featuring four short scenes from various plays directed by Professor Michael Ofori, Professor Noah Tuleja, Glynnis Goff ’25 and Liz Almonte ’24.