‘T-Files’ Portrays the Dark Side of Teen Years

Some of the young cast members have done TV commercials, shows and music videos; most have performed in school or community productions. But communicating, not expert acting, is what the expletive-laden, pop music-driven, rough-edged, angry and painfully sincere teen-centric play “The T-Files” is all about.

Presented at the newly opened Brick Box space in Hollywood by the California Youth Theatre and BB’s Kids Professional Teens, “The T-Files” offers up the dark side of adolescence. Personal stories relate the anguish of isolation, domestic abuse, taunting and bullying, sex, drugs, secret fears--and parents, tuned out, absent or seriously dysfunctional.

Performed by students, ages 13 to 20, from Southland middle schools, high schools and colleges, and set on a graffiti-splashed high school campus, the play was developed in a series of improvisations by Belinda Balaski and her BB’s Kids group.

Professional director Corky Dominguez has given the grim testimonials a theatrical shape, with strobe-light effects, a loud, angry rock beat, frozen tableaux of teens in various groupings as background to the action, and characters who step out of the story into a spotlight to share their thoughts and histories, despair and rage.

It’s uneven in execution, and some actors are more adept than others at maintaining character and dramatic rhythm, but the cast’s emotional involvement is palpable in the show’s escalation of events involving a desperate, taunted, drug-using girl named V, who gains access to a gun.

Other anxious, tormented or sad teens who are part of the story are Heather, the daughter of a wife-beater, who perpetuates the pattern with her abusive boyfriend, Will; V’s boyfriend Chico, who sells drugs and shakes down other students for cash; and cheerleader Holly, who learns that her cheating boyfriend has given her chlamydia. Kids struggling with not fitting in are new kid Jesse, nerdy Sean, high-achiever Daisy and Aiesha, a good student with a secret past.

Four different casts perform in rotation. At a recent matinee, Marion Elizabeth and Nino Aldi were alarmingly convincing as V and Will, respectively.

As unremittingly fraught and rough-edged as this production is, with its adult language, violence and sexual themes, it nevertheless communicates the vulnerability and fear--and the need for caring parental involvement--behind those closed-off, we-know-everything facades.

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“The T-Files,” Brick Box, 1608 Cosmo St., Hollywood, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 p.m. Also this Sunday, 3 and 7 p.m. Ends May 4. $10-$15. (323) 461-7300. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.