Stamping feet, whispered words, entwined needs

IT was difficult to determine in the Mark Taper production of the musical “13” whether all that shouting and foot stomping on stage was anything more than noise. It was. It was youth.

Bedlam is essential to the teenage years because it’s a time when one is seeking some kind of identity or at least recognition that he or she exists. “Look at me!” it says. “I’m here!”

Hence, those of us accustomed to more sedate presentations are naturally taken aback when assaulted by sudden bursts of kinetic frenzy and glass-shattering dissonance offered as entertainment.

I admit I was a bit put off by the show, whose title, “13,” refers to a pubescent age rather than a curse or an omen of bad luck. I am past the years of worrying about pimples or popularity, which was an essential element of the performance, and I don’t need another coming-of-age story in my life.

The show was generally about all of that and about fitting in and the fragile nature of friendships at that transitory age, told through the frantic dancing and loud singing of a talented young cast. It was not, I thought, a show that will live in memory.

But life is full of comparisons, and I am one of the seekers of dichotomies that enhance the meaning of this when placed against the contrast of that. For instance, the very next night I saw the movie “Venus,” which is all about quiet moments and fading years; whispers instead of shouts.

As I thought about it later, I realized that both “13,” with all of its clamor, and the beautifully low-key “Venus” were essentially about the same things at different ends of time’s spectrum. Peter O’Toole, a man in his 70s, plays a man in his 70s who reaches out to a woman 50 years younger in an effort to identify himself.

Our film critic, Kenneth Turan, sees “Venus” as touching “on what matters most in life: love, friendship, connection,” adding: “It’s about aging and what keeps you alive....”

Exactly.

And in different ways, Turan’s observation applies to both the calamitous performance on stage by a cast of uninhibited teenagers as well as to the cinematic masterpiece about a man who seeks love, and all of its life-affirming elements, one more time in what is more backward glance than future promise.

Connections are not confined to any age group. Adolescents thrash about in their miasmic world more desperately than infants because their realizations have grown beyond Mommy and Daddy. Singles haunt bars and clubs dedicated to pairing them up because nature is stirring their libidos. Older people seek bonds of friendship in their own age groups, thus connecting not only with kindred souls but also with the yesterdays that ennobled their lives.

In order to maintain my own age neutrality as an observer, I view life from a position of agelessness, neither junior nor senior, but someone standing just on the other side of time. But I am also a participant in the ages depicted in the two performances, having been 13 once, as I recall, and now being a person in his 70s.

It’s why I find a kind of sameness in the quest of the two age groups to be wanted by someone, to clasp hands with a friend, a mate or a lover in a darkening world.

One of the characters in “13” is physically disabled, thereby laying into the plot line the even greater difficulty of trying to create relationships with those who could never understand, especially as wild and mobile teens, what it is like to be so different. Acceptance is a final element of the show, as it is in “Venus,” where the principals reach beyond age barriers to observe in each other the indefinable nature of love’s beauty.

I saw both the play and the movie in a 24-hour period, as though I were sitting in the same classroom where the similarities and differences of age were being discussed. Both teens and seniors harbor dreams and both suffer the humiliation of exclusion; both need the support of others to make their way through high seas and heavy weather.

What I worried about as a teenager I don’t worry about anymore. What I wear or how I look isn’t as important as who I am. Teenagers, as growing children, don’t know who they are yet; their definition of person lies in their future, shaped as much by external circumstances as by internal drives. And, yes, the needs of the young and the old are consistent with our nature as humans. We need someone to sing with us and dance with us as life begins, and to cry for us as it ends.

A movie and a musical spoke to me of these needs, and I was glad for having experienced both. I learned. And that’s a need of my own.

Al Martinez’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be reached at al.martinez@latimes.com.