Chlorine Sky
Being a teenage girl can be challenging, and finding yourself as a teen is nearly impossible. Emotions, emotions, and more emotions invade your mind in every aspect of your life. As a result, everything is intensified, from your self-esteem to friendships, and most girls get lost and attempt to fit in by resorting to becoming people pleasers. Then, unknowingly trying to stand out from your interpersonal awkwardness, you believe the world is fighting against you, minimalizing your self-worth.
Steppenwolf's acclimatization of Mahogany L. Browne's Chlorine Sky poetically allows us into the life of an African-American teen girl named Sky who faces challenges in her relationship with her best friend, her first love, toxic relationships, difficult family members, casual misogyny, and her rising emotions of betrayal, rejection, teen anxiety, colorism, and sisterhood, all while trying to combat her biggest challenge, herself.
This 90-minute young-adult play production captures the heartbreak of teenage friendship and their breakups. Sky is a basketballer who feels that she isn't pretty like other girls and lives in the shadow of her best friend, Lay Li, who casts a ray of sunshine everywhere she goes and is a magnet to every teenage boy. Yet, with all of the outside noise, cattiness, and drama that teenage girls bring, Chlorine Sky goes beyond the surface of childhood adolescents in this 'Coming-to-age' story narrated by Sky, who loves basketball, but unfortunately has to deal with cataclysmic feelings hurled against her.
Steppenwolf brought together a top-notch cast featuring Demetra Dee((Kiyana), Destini Huston((Lay Li), Samuel B. Jackson (Curtis/Clifford), Tiffany Renee Johnson (Essa), and Alexis Ward (Inga), centers around lead actor Akili Ni Mali, who is outstanding as the confused teen Sky. The audience sees how Sky navigates through her traumatic teens through novel-in-verse video clips featured on a large screen.
Browne using her experience as a young teen, helped Director Ericka Ratcliff identify with the characters in this Young Adults (SYA) production of Chlorine Sky, which intensified the passion she brought into the narrative storyline. As the Artistic Director of Congo Square Theatre Company, Ericka Ratcliff continues her goal to amplify the mission of celebrating the complexities of Black life and culture on stage by brilliantly sculpting Browne's teen girl's intimate emotional rollercoaster, showing how they pitted against one another, knocking their appearance while detailing how unsafe they are in male-subjugated spaces into a masterpiece.
The good news is that there is a happy ending through all of this teenage drama, which unfortunately doesn't always happen in real life because "Sometimes, growing up means growing apart." It's difficult for any teen to figure out the feats and fiascos of life, and Chlorine Sky's reliable storyline is a breath of fresh air for teens, making it a tremendous parent-teen event.
Let's Play Theatrical Review Highly Recommends Steppenwolf for Young Adults play Chlorine Sky.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company Presents
Chlorine Sky
By Mahogany L. Browne
Directed by Ericka Ratcliff
February 14 – March 11, 2023
