The New York International Fringe Festival concludes on Aug. 25. For more information, go to fringenyc.org.
American middle education is pilloried in Jacob Presson's “Very Bad Words,†a bristling portrait of vanity, ambition and prejudice at an upper-middle-class Massachusetts high school.
Before the action begins, Emily Auciello's dissonant sound design - blasts of Jay-Z, Machinedrum and Major Lazer - effectively anticipates the coming strife. Then we meet the effusive, cocky Will (PJ Adzima), the haughty Taylor (Olivia Macklin) and the comparatively sympathetic Steve (Adam Warwinsky), who think the world of themselves. Enraged at being called out in class for tormenting a peer, they scrawl a gay slur on a locker, a predatory prank generating dire results.
The play's ingratiating glimpses of youthful insolence evolve into a scathing rendering of diamond-hard selfishness, especially from the tireless Mr. Adzima (“Don't hesitate, just execute,†Will says). In Ms. Macklin's cool performance, we learn that men have no monopoly on callous indifference. Mr. Warwinsky ably channels the audience's dismay.
Mr. Presson, a junior at Marymount Manhattan College, started on “Very Bad Words†in high school, and his obscenity-infused script brims with adolescent authenticity. The ages of the players - theater majors at Marymount and Fordham College at Lincoln Center - add further verisimilitude, while the direction, by the Fordham graduate Jake Ahlquist, is unflaggingly brisk. Despite an abrupt ending and a cliché or two, the conviction from all the participants offers a most heartening promise.
“Very Bad Words†continues through Saturday at Teatro SEA, 107 Suffolk Street, Lower East Side.
A version of this article appears in print on 08/24/2013, on page C4 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Very Bad Words.