Review: Initiative, a Millennial High School Epic

Going into a five-hour play, the question on everyone’s mind is: will it be worth it? For Else Went’s Initiative, now at the Public Theater, the answer is mostly yes. This coming-of-age story about a nerdy, role-playing game group of teens in the early 2000s is a satisfying journey, even if you don’t know a single thing about Dungeons and Dragons.

Stories about teens tend to categorize high schoolers by type. Clara (Olivia Rose Barresi) is the brain, a high achiever whose stint as a homeschooler only makes her more interesting. Riley (Greg Cuellar) is a sensitive kid who dreams of being a professional writer. Lo (Carson Higgins) is the jock with a boatload of secrets, and Kendall (Andrea Lopez Alvarez) is a gothy freak. Some, though, are less easily categorized, like the brash Tony (Jamie Sanders) who barrels through life insulting everyone, expecting to be forgiven because of his age and gender. Em (Christopher Dylan White) is particularly well-drawn as a kid who doesn’t fit in anywhere, but by the end, the audience knows him better than he knows himself.

These characters fall in love, play together, hurt each other, and come back together many times during their high school years, all while grappling with existential questions of who they are and what they want to become. While some of Went’s characterizations tread on stereotypes, each character gets so much time, focus, and care that they bust through all limitations, growing as dynamic as the people you actually knew in high school.

Having been with Initiative through many rounds of development, the cast has spent years honing their performances, and it shows in every beat. Everyone gives a multi-layered performance, where everything we’ve learned about their characters over their high school years stacks together to make moments increasingly dramatic and poignant.

The best scenes are when they play Dungeons and Dragons, acting out a fantasy quest led by Riley as their Dungeon Master. Director Emma Rosa Went (who is married to the playwright) seamlessly pulls together elements from designers who are all outdoing themselves. The costumes by Kindall Almond conjure the imaginary world while still looking like something a suburban teen put together. Lighting designer Christopher Akerlind and projection designer S. Katy Tucker team up to create increasingly intricate Middle-Earthean scenery out of one character’s grungy basement. Angela Baughman’s sound design builds so subtly you’re not even sure when it started, until you realize there’s a fully-orchestrated soundtrack accompanying the adventure. Another marvelous element is Mikiko Suzuki MacAdams’s scenic design, featuring a chandelier-like orb that represents a significant tree as well as a comet—symbols that bring characters together in seemingly fated ways.

And, as their mythical counterparts, the actors are giving it their all, revealing their characters’ strong, smart, outlandish, and capable sides that must be hidden in order to blend in and survive high school. The stakes are incredibly high, not only for the fantasy world but for their own relationships. When dynamics building in the group explode in the game, resulting in permanent expulsion of a member, it’s one of the more gutting sequences in a play that is full of emotional moments. The commitment to naturalism in the rest of the scenes helps highlight the significance of what this fantasy realm means to the players: a place to be free, creative, fully themselves, and powerful.

The one false note comes at the end, which hinges on a coincidence implausible enough to break our suspension of disbelief. It feels like Went is justifying the length of the show by throwing the group into spectacular crisis, when a more audacious choice would have been to let the ending play out as realistically as the rest has. There are also two key scenes that overlap with each other, lowering tension. The overlap plays with parallels between the relationships at the heart of each scene, but it undercuts the emotion when we want to be feeling things full force.

Still, Initiative is a stunner, with themes particularly resonant at this moment. Now as adults, Millennials are again facing an uncertain future, and Clara’s graduation speech leaves us with a lot to think about as we are released into the dark night. I’m glad I spent time in class with these kids, and you will too.