My overall impression
I love Greg Crafts, The author of FRIENDS LIKE THESE. The man’s heart is even bigger than he is (and the dude is pretty damn big.) I only mention all of this because his heart beams through this play he is written. Some plays seem necessary to tell because they echo from the Writers Place, a place so personal and vulnerable, yet capturing a story that the world should hear. This is one of those plays. Just by watching FLT, it seems that Greg remembers exactly what it was like to be an outcast in high school, turning to fantasy and fiction to release his demons. To undervalue the elements of fantasy and fiction in any adolescents, let alone one that culminates in senseless violence, would be a mistake. Greg seeks out the connection like and drives it in in the most personal way.
The actors did a great job, infusing their roles with TONS of passion and mining the words for delicate honesty, AND they look like high school kids – not college kids TRYING to be high school kids which really made me feel the authenticity of the world and remember my own self-imposed miserable high school existence.
At first I was thrown off by the eclectic choice of music eras bound to the plentiful scene changes until I realized that the entire point is to make the story timeless. Because of internet, this Generation is a huge conglomerate of all the decades of music that have come before which only emphasizes the timelessness of the theme. The use of the Smashing Pumpkins song is meant to hint at a time that was before Columbine that we can get back to. I don’t know if that’s possible but Greg Crafts wants it to be, his play yearns for that innocence to return, that’s why I love Greg Crafts.
