Playbox’s goal: thoughtful theater for teens

Say “theater for young audiences,” and the expectation is most likely fairy tales and puppet shows for 5-year-olds. The reality is a world of performance geared to all age levels, as far-reaching as theater created expressly for adults.

Case in point is Britain’s well-regarded Playbox Theatre and its new production for ages 14 and older: Anthony Burgess’ shocker of a 1962 novella, “A Clockwork Orange,” playing Wednesday and Friday at the Santa Monica Playhouse.

Adapted by Burgess, this unsettling drama about vicious teenage “droogs” and brutal, state-sponsored rehabilitation, raising serious questions of good and evil and the freedom of choice, is performed by actors who range in age from 15 to 21.

“Our society over here has been going through quite a difficult time. There’s a lot of urban violence,” said Stewart McGill, Playbox’s artistic director, who feels that the stark drama’s underlying message of what happens when society loses its humanity is a timely one. “We wanted a work that we felt could speak to young audiences in the U.K. -- and in the U.S.A.”

Audiences won’t be subjected to the horrific, ever-haunting images in Stanley Kubrick’s film version, however, and “it doesn’t have the Kubrick kind of glam-rock design, either,” McGill said. “We’re staging it as a very physical piece, almost a piece of musical theater, set to Beethoven. The violence is tightly choreographed within the music and the actors are nowhere near each other, so you see the actions in isolation -- at no point are we aiming to re-create what the violent act may be.”

An essential part of each performance is a discussion between actors and audience about their perspectives on issues of urban decline, the treatment of criminals and the responsibilities of members of society.

“We don’t feel the work is complete until we’ve had that dialogue,” McGill said.

This dramatic work, challenging for both actors and audience, is part of a long-standing cultural exchange between the playhouse’s Young Professionals’ Company, known for its original, life-exploring dramas, and Playbox, with its varied repertoire of cutting-edge dramas, classics and commedia dell’arte. It’s a close, 10-year bond that includes a third sister company, Japan’s Model Language Studio, which has done collaborative works with both.

The British company’s choice of the Burgess piece, said Evelyn Rudie, who heads the playhouse with her husband, Chris DeCarlo, resonated with their own youth company’s passion for theatrical explorations of “the deterioration of respect for humanity, for youth in general. When young people are portraying these difficult emotions and different possible futures,” she said, “it becomes even more effective.”

This year, Playbox is underscoring that solidarity of sentiment. Its visit is part of the Santa Monica Playhouse’s fund-raising campaign, launched this year to help Rudie and DeCarlo purchase partial ownership of the theater due to rising rents that threaten its future.

“We wanted to give them a vote of our confidence and underline why we think they’re important,” McGill said.

It’s not all darkness and droogs at the playhouse this week; Playbox is also serving younger audiences on Friday afternoon with poet Ted Hughes’ quirky version of “Beauty and the Beast.”