Three years ago I came out of retirement to teach eighth grade English at Encinal to kids who were sent home in sixth grade during the pandemic and spent seventh grade getting educating on-camera. The transition to live-learning after the quarantine was clumsy, with books and writing not exactly the most compelling subjects for my students. S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders changed everything.
Written in 1967 and set in far-away Oklahoma, this story of friendship and family, loyalty and love, with a Capulet/Montague rivalry and all white characters, seemed unlikely to land 54 years later. But it did so beautifully, as does the play version currently being performed at Encinal Junior & Senior High School by their courageous drama department. It turns out, thankfully, that some things are eternal and integrated into young people no matter where they are or when they live. Kids recognize the truth of those enduring hardships—the neglected, the misjudged, the poorly treated.
Director Megan Taylor and her grown-up and student crew do a terrific job at presenting this story on the Jet cafeteria stage. The beat-up folding chairs, well-worn stage, and utilitarian linoleum floor enable us to become part of the play space for this show that focuses on the Greasers and their envied rivals, the Socs. The characters travel from home to drive-in to car to church to hospital with simple and effective changes in furniture and props. As has often been the case (I know too well from decades directing there myself), the lighting is less than optimal and the acoustics tricky for a room built to feed hungry young scholars. But in that awkward open-ended box that is the stage, there is magic.
For those who read my earlier review of Antigone 3021, recently staged at Alameda High, this next section is going to sound familiar—what carries The Outsiders are the performances by the core of the cast, supported by an earnest ensemble. Ava Denier plays Cherry, the thoughtful liaison between her Soc crew and the bad dudes, with an openness and genuine presence. Emilia Arneson is Sodapop, and, as always, her acting is sharp, focused, and energetic. Sam Cleminshaw, seen last year as the meanest of the Mean Girls, is strong as Darry, the toughest of the tough here. Kimiko Sanaa plays the fragile Johnny (sharing the role with Anye Dias on November 21 and 22) and her vulnerability is her superpower. But this play belongs to Amelia Ericson, who really takes on two roles, as narrator and the central character, Ponyboy. Throughout the play there is a gentle tremor in her voice and countenance that conveys perfectly who she is—the heart of all the hearts onstage—and we eagerly track her from curtain up to down. Her performance is now part of the long history of that space, meager trappings blessed with the talent of extraordinary actors.
Having taught this book and now seeing the play, I could not help but reflect on what we ask kids to do at school—to look at and try on difficult circumstances in order to teach empathy and understanding. So we say let’s read books on prejudice, poverty, and death, and then we say let’s go further and have you portray people dealing with those themes and many more equally as difficult. There is a special kind of bravery at work in classrooms and more so on stage. And no matter how imperfect the performance, how ill-fitting the costume, and how artificial the set, these young actors stand before us doing their very best to honor the text, guided by someone they trust to help them act with valor.
As a former English teacher and part-time poet, I cannot end this review without talking about the great line from the book/play Stay Gold and the possibly unknown source material. There is a deli in Oakland called Stay Gold, a production and financing company of the same name, an album with that two-word title by a band called First Aid Kit, and you can buy on Amazon a lined notebook of inspirational quotes entitled “Stay Gold Ponyboy.” There are also, I’m pretty certain, dozens if not hundreds of tattoos of that phrase on arms and legs everywhere (though for the record, not on me, yet). Where it comes from, as Ponyboy tells us, is the poem by Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay, which he wrote in 1923 (happy 101st birthday). Think about that. A poet from New England wrote some verse, a young woman from Tulsa used it in her novel that some say created the Young Adult genre, and now a bunch of wonderful kids here in Alameda are doing the play of her book. Long live the written word, poetry, plays and actors!
The Outsiders is being performed November 21-23 at 7 p.m. at Encinal Junior & Senior High School, 210 Central Avenue. To purchase tickets online, visit Encinal’s gofan.com page.
Gene Kahane is the founder of the Foodbank Players, a lifelong teacher, and former Poet Laureate for the City of Alameda. Reach him at [email protected]. His writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Gene-Kahane.
