Review: ‘All My Distances Are Far’ dives into the turbulent waters of teenhood

For the last 20 years, veteran actress Leda Siskind also has been a licensed psychotherapist. She brings both disciplines to bear, with mixed results, in “All My Distances Are Far,” her new play at Theatre 40.

The action, which takes place in a series of brief blackout scenes, spans one school year at a combination middle and high school, during which time we are introduced to a succession of troubled teens as they are counseled by an offstage trainee psychotherapist (Sophie Labelle), alternately seen in counseling sessions with her own unseen counselor.

The adolescent characters include Joe (Taylor Luke), who dramatizes his supposed abuse as a hedge against imminent loss; hyperactive Francine (Lital Peykar), who shoplifts in a desperate effort to bring her estranged parents back together; Ruby (Briana Price), a college-bound foster kid who jeopardizes her future by breaking her long sobriety; and Wade (Chris Vickers-Rynecki), who has Asperger’s and whose struggles to connect with a girl he likes are not going well.

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Then there’s overweight, suicidal Marcy (wrenchingly effective Hillary Freedman), an aspiring poet devastated by a cruel prank, and Mateo (Judah Benaim), the son of Guatemalan immigrants whose wrenching disclosure of sexual abuse will upend his life.

Siskind, who also directs, skillfully helms her gifted young cast in an emotionally engaging evening that is certainly heartfelt. However, her uniformly prepossessing and articulate teens are so quick to confide and receptive to suggestion that the whole enterprise seems sentimentally strained — an exercise in wish fulfillment that is executed just a tad too neatly. Sharing, caring and forthcoming, her adolescents skim along the surface of that hidden, subterranean world that remains frustratingly arcane to many parents and professionals who engage in a daily battle for understanding, with no guarantee of success.

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“All My Distances Are Far,” Theatre 40, Beverly Hills High School, 241 Moreno Drive. 8 p.m. Mondays-Wednesdays. Ends Aug. 24. $25. (310) 364-3606. theatre40.org. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

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