‘Punk Rock’ exceptionally disquieting at Griffin Theatre

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Joey deBettencourt and Leah Karpel star in "Punk Rock" at the Griffin Theatre. | MICHAEL BROSILOW

Updated: May 9, 2012 10:13AM

In such plays as “Harper Regan,” “Pornography,” “On the Shore of the Wide World” and “Port” (all of which have received searing Chicago productions by either the Griffin Theatre or Steep Theatre), British writer Simon Stephens has captured the abiding tension and sense of disgrace that lurk in much of contemporary life, and the ways in which sex, money, loneliness, and both everyday cruelties and more overt terrorism have all become part of a disintegrating human fabric.

In his 2009 drama “Punk Rock” — now in a Griffin production that features a superb ensemble of young actors under the direction of Jonathan Berry (who has proved himself a formidable interpreter of Stephens’ work here) — the playwright, who has worked as a teacher, turns his attention to a poisonous high school environment in Stockport, England. The writer grew up in this old industrial city near Manchester, and he has often made it the backdrop for his plays.

Stephens homes in on five students of different social backgrounds, all of whom are exceptionally bright and verbal, but at various stages of social and emotional development (and scarring). At times the story feels like an updated but intensely feral take on Alan Bennett’s “The History Boys.” But in the final analysis it more closely resembles “Spring Awakening” and several American plays that have dealt with the 1999 high school massacre in Columbine, Colorado, for while bullying and psychological games are the initial weapons among these students (and they are harrowing enough), a gun eventually enters the picture.

Most of the action unfolds in the school’s gothic-style library (Joe Schermoly’s set is ideal). This is where William Carlisle (Joey deBettencourt), first chats up Lilly Cahill (Leah Karpel), the petite, quietly sexy, fashionably outfitted (and troubled) “new girl,” who has moved around a great deal because her father, a university professor, has been climbing the academic ladder. But while William can be her friend, he cannot be her lover. For that, Lilly turns to the handsome, more mature and more tacit lacrosse player, Nicholas Chatman (Brandon Ruiter).

Already a couple of sorts are the angry, bullying Bennett Francis (JJ Phillips), and classically attractive Cissy Franks (Jess Berry). The two most obvious outcasts in the group are sensitive, warm-hearted Tanya Gleason (Leah Raidt), plagued by a poor body image, and Chadwick Meade (Ryan Heindl), the much-abused and seemingly wimpy scientific genius with an apt doomsday philosophy.

The tension among these raw-nerved, insecure, not-quite-solidified adolescents builds gradually but inevitably towards a horrific showdown. But to its credit, that is not where “Punk Rock” ends. Stephens’ brilliant, searingly written epilogue is in many ways the most disquieting aspect of this play, and deBettencourt acts the stuffings out of it, with invaluable assistance from Jeff Duhigg as Dr. Harvey, the psychiatrist who arrives too late, but listens intently.

The individual and ensemble playing in this harrowing and disquieting play is exceptional throughout. Intervention, of course, comes much too late.