Punk Rock Review

Simon Stephens’ Punk Rock—MCC’s latest production, now playing at the Lucille Lortel Theater through Dec. 7—chronicles longing, lust, and the evil tendencies of teenagers, seven in total, who hang out in a secluded school library. These sixth form students in Stockport, England have familiar concerns—they want to complete their exams, have sex, get into University, and leave their hometown—but in Stephens’ world these stresses turn sinister as the teens succumb to torture and madness. Stephens—whose current Broadway adaptation of Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is rightfully experiencing high praise—has created unrealistically hyper-verbal teenagers who possess the power to be unspeakably cruel. Yet the play never makes it clear why these particular students—including Douglas Smith (HBO’s Big Love), as the shy, stilted William, and Colby Minifie, as new girl Lilly—keep coming to the library, especially after some of the more horrific abuses inflicted by the school’s resident verging-on-psychotic bully (played with over-the-top fervor by Will Pullen).