Tristine Skyler's fresh take on adolescent angst lends authenticity and urgency to the confused, frightened, often inarticulate voices of the Baffled Generation, represented here by two 16-year-olds huddled in the waiting room of a New York ER, keeping a life-or-death watch for a friend who's OD'd.

Tristine Skyler’s fresh take on adolescent angst lends authenticity and urgency to the confused, frightened, often inarticulate voices of the Baffled Generation, represented here by two 16-year-olds huddled in the waiting room of a New York ER, keeping a life-or-death watch for a friend who’s OD’d. Adult characters express themselves in more stilted idiom, and the playwright is maddeningly coy in building to the big confrontational scenes between the generations. (Rewrites are definitely in order if dreams of commercial transfer are dancing in producers’ heads.) But the kids are the real goods, and blessedly natural perfs by two young thesps bring out the best — and worst — of them.

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Skyler (“Getting to Know You”) doesn’t speak for a particularly broad spectrum of disaffected youth. As pampered progeny of Upper East Side professionals, Sal (Laura Breckenridge) and Josh (Brendan Sexton III) never had to boost hubcaps to score weed. They are, rather, the sort of kids who play chess, win science fairs and keep a civil rapport with adults.

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Sal, in fact, is unusually close to her mother, who is open-minded enough to give her a 3 a.m. curfew on big party nights. But when Josh needles her about the coziness of their relationship (“Do you know that you and your mother manage to have a completely suburban lifestyle right in the middle of New York City?”), she becomes angry and defensive instead of blowing it off with a laugh. It’s one of the subtle ways in which Skyler shows how ambivalent good kids feel about being good kids in a society that prizes so much else before simple goodness. Without denying Sal her essential innocence, Breckenridge takes her through all the agonies of growing up before she’s ready.

The smarter and more sophisticated Josh is one of those sad young souls who are just too socially precocious for their own good. Making it look effortless, Sexton does a canny job of suggesting that aura of charming intelligence that appears to be Josh’s gift but is more like a curse as it deceives people into thinking of him as an adult smart enough to take care of himself.

There’s little physical comfort to be taken from the stark hospital setting and harsh institutional lighting. (For that matter, even the grabbed-from-the-laundry-basket costumes look unfriendly, lacking the touches of subversive wit that transform real teen gear into protective armor.) Finding no secure footing in this hostile environment, Sal and Josh retreat into the coded teen-speak that offers them a false sense of control and turn sullen backs on the adults who try to get through to them.

Skyler’s dexterous rendering of their vernacular — a verbal shorthand of private jokes, public boasts, rants, rages and silences — is all the more poignant because it feels so real. Which is just how it is played in Jeff Cohen‘s artfully unfussy production. The only false notes come from the grownups (Sal’s clueless mother, Josh’s frightening stepbrother, the distraught father of the kid who’s having his stomach pumped) who bring their anxieties — but not their maturity — into the waiting room.

Even when they aren’t slipping into the rhythms and speech patterns of their children, the adults allow the kids to dictate the terms of engagement. They don’t ask the right questions; they swallow half-truths and settle for evasions; and they are themselves so childish that they make no effort to offer adult comfort and reassurance. The inadequacy of adults is a real part of the kids’ problems, but the inadequacy of these caricatured adults is a major problem of this play.

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The Moonlight Room

Tribeca Playhouse; 74 seats; $15

  • Production: A Worth Street Theater Co. presentation (Carol R. Fineman and Vern T. Calhoun, producers), with Solecist Prods., of a play in two acts by Tristine Skyler. Directed by Jeff Cohen.
  • Crew: Set, Marion Williams; costumes, Kim Gill; lighting, Scott Bolman; sound, Laura Grace Brown; production stage manager, Michael V. Mendelson. Opened Nov. 3, 2003; reviewed Nov. 10. Running time: 2 HOURS.
  • Cast: Sal - Laura Breckenridge Joshua - Brendan Sexton III Mrs. Kelly - Kathryn Layng Mr. Wells - Lawrence James Adam - Mark Rosenthal

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