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Hilary, a middle-school student, has just moved to Falcon, Colorado. She wears all the wrong clothes, says all the wrong things, and most of the other students are ready to tease her for it, except one, who reminds them to ask themselves what Jesus would do. Socially, things might be looking a little bleak. But Hilary has an improbable secret weapon to get in with one group of girls — a passion for, and deep knowledge of, keeping horses. They start to get to know each other. What happens when the conversation moves from secret weapons to secrets?
falcon girls — directed by May Adrales and running now at Yale Repertory Theatre through Nov. 2 — tells the story of six middle-school-age girls growing up in rural Falcon, Colorado who have gotten heavily involved in the world of horse judging, a competitive team activity in which participants learn to visually evaluate horses for their qualities as runners, jumpers, workers, and breeders. As the very first scene of the play deftly demonstrates, a horse judging team comes off somewhere between an academic quiz bowl team and as a training ground for agriculture school; it’s the kind of middle-school activity for people who might likely someday become trainers or veterinarians. It also, as it turns out, becomes a magnifying glass for a deep glance at the deeply felt yet constantly shifting alliances, animosities, hatreds and friendships that can define middle school, a point in most people’s lives awkwardly teetering back and forth between childhood and adulthood.
Playwright Hilary Bettis — in what we’re given to understand is a mostly autobiographical story — makes falcon girls much more than an after-school special largely by getting very specific about the time and place in which she tells her story. Through Bettis’s lens, rural Falcon, Colorado in the mid-1990s is a relatively isolated place with a few prevailing influences. It is, first and foremost, a ranching town. Horses aren’t just a pastime, but a real part of many people’s lives. Evangelical Christianity is a force in the community, powerfully shaping the majority of adults’ and kids’ views on sex, what is permitted (almost nothing) and what is condemned (almost everything). Yet through the media, adolescents are aware of a wider world where things are different. They’re listening to 1990s hip hop, with its teasing of sexual liberation. Some of them are hanging out in internet chat rooms and having explicit conversations with strangers. They experiment with makeup, the possibility of running off to a coastal city, and the inchoate allure of sexuality other than the hetero variety. Bettis weaves a final dark thread through the show of the possibility that the town is being stalked by a serial killer.
The specific place and time, in turn, have distinct effects on the six girls associated with the horse judging team — new girl H (Gabrielle Policano), devout but questioning Mary (Anna Roman), reserved Carly (Alyssa Marek), moody Rebecca (Annie Abramczyk), awkward April (Alexa Lopez), and mature-just-beyond-her-years Jasmine (Sophia Marcelle, though on the night this reviewer saw the play, understudy Gabriela Veciana played the role). In a more liberal place, Mary might be the square of the group, but in Falcon, she’s the leader. Jasmine, meanwhile, fights to keep her burgeoning sexuality in check. As is typical in middle schools everywhere, the girls are fascinated by sex and want to talk about it with each other as a way to sort out their own feelings, but they’re not just worried about being considered sluts for the things they might say and do; most of them are worried about going to hell.
All of this makes falcon girls a finely tuned study of early adolescence, aided by energetic direction from Adrales and committed performances from all six leads, who work at their best in ensemble, which is frequently. They feed off one another’s energy brilliantly, in team practice, on the bus to and from competitions, in the school hallways. The girls’ heads exploding with ideas and bodies exploding with hormones make them a real handful for the team leader, the almost unbelievably kind, wise, and decent Mr. K (Teddy Cañez), for H’s overworked and protective mother Beverlee (Liza Fernandez), and for Dan (Juan Sebastián Cruz), the middle-school boy helping out with the team and just trying to get H to notice him. This makes for an altogether realistic and light first act, as the team competes in regional events in the hopes of making it to nationals. The decision to make the play essentially a one-set production (a moody, haunting barn; scenic design by Beowulf Boritt) helps keep the pacing up, as the actors roam the stage and scenes flow from one into the next. We see the girls very much as girls, unsure what to do with any of the changes they’re going through. The play’s second act, following a classic format, introduces more somber scenarios that force all the characters, in some way or another, to confront adulthood: the difficulties of team competition, the messy politics and sometimes deeper consequences of sex, the expectations of family, and the constraints of conservative religious values. Some of the girls suffer life-altering changes. Others find themselves moving toward deeper connections to family. Still others are only just starting to find their way.
Viewed one way, there’s a sense in which falcon girls is just a solid character study, succeeding in the relatively modest ambitions that it sets for itself. But the specific time and place give it more depth, especially playing on a New Haven stage. At several key turns in the play, we see that Falcon, Colorado in the mid-1990s is a very different place than the Elm City now. The kids may be immediately recognizable, and some of the pressures on them easy to relate to. But others are quite different — sharp reminders that geography matters, in many ways even more now than it did then, in the questions of whether to kiss that boy, or kiss that girl, and whether and how to keep a baby.
falcon girls runs at Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., through Nov. 2. Visit the theater’s website for tickets and more information.