REVIEW

Curious Theatre Company is known for serious, socially conscious work. But people at opening night of Speech & Debate were ready to laugh.

Scratch that. They were dying to laugh, dying for a little release from the autumnal tension. They got it from Stephen Karam's sharply funny portrayal of three high school outcasts who fight their way to friendship.

They find one another via a perceived sex scandal, in which a teacher has been exchanging sexual IMs with an 18-year-old who, unbeknownst to him, is one of his students.

Each of the teens has his or her own reason for revenge. There's Howie, the out-and-proud recipient of the IMs, played with flirtatious, youthful charm by Steven J. Burge, who even in silence has a playful physicality that tells us who Howie is.

Solomon, given a humorless studiousness (which doesn't mean he's not funny) by Glen Moore, is an ambitious school-newspaper reporter dreaming of a big scoop and revealing a moralistic bent.

Both are drawn, somewhat against their wills, into forming the school's first speech and debate team by Diwata, a marvelous creation brought to vibrant life by Laura Jo Trexler. Like a spazzier Angela Chase, Diwata skirts the edges of high school life. She dreams of school-play stardom but can't get a decent role (probably with good reason).

Trexler has a real affinity for teenage girls of a dramatic bent, as when Diwata gives a one-woman performance of The Crucible with accents careering from Foghorn Leghorn to Eliza Doolittle.

Director Dee Covington reveals her own understanding of adolescents in this production, which gives us neither overly precocious, verbally gifted kids (a la Dawson's Creek) or sex-starved fools (a la most film comedies).

These three are smart, savvy and easily scared, full of ideas and desperate for an audience. There are only a few adults in this world, played on- and offstage by Rhonda Brown, and while well-intentioned, none of them is particularly connected to the students' lives.

The humor and tenor of the production is enhanced by the collaborative work of set and lighting designer Richard Devin, sound designer Gary Wright and video designer Todd Webster. Chapter headings, drawn from the categories of speech and debate, are projected being scrawled on a chalkboard by an invisible hand.

The lascivious IM chat unfolds before our eyes as well. And a Casio keyboard plays a major role in Trexler's one-woman tour-de-force podcast.

There's hilarity to spare here, but sensitivity and understanding as well. These students are hamstrung by two worlds, the puritanical one of schools and parents and the hypersexualized extracurriculars. Neither fits them particularly well, and just like earlier generations, they're going to have to find comfort on their own.

Speech & Debate

* Grade: A-

* When and where: 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays (no show Nov. 27), through Dec. 13, Curious Theatre Company, 1080 Acoma St.

* Cost: $17 to $34

* Information: 303-623-0524