Chatroom/Citizenship

This double bill at the Cottesloe was originally part of the Shell Connections series, in which the National Theatre commissions plays from experienced writers to be performed in schools.  Of the two, I preferred Enda Walsh's Chatroom, which seemed to have a real empathy with the lives of troubled teenagers.  The director Anna Mackmin, as always, coaxes excellent performances from her young cast.  Initially I thought this would be just a radio play, as there's very little stage action.  We don't see the kids typing on keyboards, just talking freely, so it's a conversation, but one where there is never any eye contact.  It's the story of Jim, a depressed young 15-year-old, who is encouraged to kill himself by chatroom 'friends'.  I won't give away the ending, which involves a video projection, but it's highly effective.  Walsh shows how cruel teenagers can be without caricaturing them, and captures the insecurity of their aggressive flare-ups, and the importance of inclusion and exclusion from the group. I wish Mark Ravenhill's Citizenship showed similar insights into the real psychology of adolescence, but though his writing is always sharp and sometimes very funny, the teenagers he portrays are nasty caricatures, created from an adult viewpoint.  He seems to press all the right buttons -- drugs, sexual insecurity, teenage pregnancy -- but doesn't really empathise with his characters.  Perhaps, like the rest of us, Ravenhill has become middle-aged?