Where the hell has Magan Wiles been hiding? The young actress, in the lead role of Dani, doesn’t so much act her role as she becomes it.

By Lucy Prebble
Directed by Eric Little

My overall impression of ECHO Theatre’s production of The Sugar Syndrome can be summed up by a question: Where the hell has Magan Wiles been hiding? The young actress, in the lead role of Dani, doesn’t so much act her role as she becomes it. The subtlety she brings to the part of this insecure, bulimic, smart-assed 17-year-old is nothing short of commanding. The play pivots around Wiles’ performance as Dani; the other characters and their hang-ups—compelling as they may occasionally seem—are mild diversions from her star turn.

When Dani gets drunk and rolls around on the floor, laughing and drinking wine right from the bottle, Wiles has that languid look down. When Dani lays down the law with her clingy boyfriend Lewis (Anthony Wininger), her frustration is palpable, and never less than real. Wiles is just so poised and in-the-moment.

When I open a local-theater playbill and see names like Lavonne Byers, Donna Weinsting, Brooke Edwards, Kelly Schnider, or Stellie Siteman, I know I’m about to be treated to a performance by a gal who knows exactly how to kick ass. So it goes with the barely-out-of-college Wiles; I can’t wait to see what she does next. I hope the Kevin Kline Awards judges see just what I did.

The Sugar Syndrome is the tale of Dani’s odyssey through Internet chat rooms, anonymous sex, an absent father, an overbearing mother, an eating disorder, and a nascent friendship with a not-really-recovering child molester. Dani is just trying to find that elusive intimacy with another we all need, and to navigate her way through issues with parents and with chocolate cake (she can eat an entire one by herself, as we see in one hilarious scene).

Dani’s friendship with the callow, horny young Lewis is small potatoes to her; much more interesting to her and to us is her growing bond with Tim the pederast. They meet in a chat room; she’s pretending to be a young boy, just for kicks. They agree to meet in person, in a park (naturally). He’s confused, and then terrified that she’ll reveal his secret to others. In fact, Terry Meddows plays Tim’s horror of being found out through a number of scenes. That pitiful fear, in combination with Tim’s earnest and kind nature, and his cute friendship with Dani has us rooting for him. Yep, that’s right: We’re hoping and praying that this child molester will survive, erm, unmolested. It takes balls/ovaries of steel to write this character, so hats off to playwright Lucy Prebble.

Tim is drawn as avuncular, but he can be creepy, too. When he waxes poetic on the purity of man-boy love, you just shudder. And when Dani checks out the kiddie-porn on Tim’s laptop, her expression makes you want to vomit (bulimia pun intended).

As Tim, Meddows brings his dependability to the role; he elevates every show that he’s in. Still, I would have liked to see a decision by Meddows and/or director Eric Little to bring a bit more subtlety to the part. Tim has two buttons—he’s either flighty or sweet. Only when he gets drunk and slow-dances to a Bob Dylan song with Dani do we sense something deeper from his character.

It also would have been nice to see more in the way of set-dressing and props. Granted, a compelling drama could be staged on an empty subway platform, and the ideas would be enough to feed the soul, but sometimes the eye demands more. The utilitarian partitions and futon/sofa do a lot from scene to scene here, but more than anything else, they seem to say “tiny budget.” If that’s the case, it’s understandable. Sets are forever the orphans of low-budget drama. A more homey look would have embellished the action, though, especially during the moments went the pacing went south.

Much has been made of the fact that this challenging, complex, and funny drama was written by a 22-year-old, and much should be made of it. It’s polished stuff, especially for someone that young to have created. Dani’s emotional arc gives us something to remember, and the sheer chutzpa of making a child molester a sympathetic character is something to behold.

Still, some of Sugar Syndrome’s dialogue is too snappy, like an episode of MTV’s Daria. Yeah, Dani’s sarcastic—we get it. The character of Dani’s mom (played by Mary Schnitzler) is nearly superfluous, and I’d like to see this play re-written with her in a maximum of one scene, if any. Her whining grows wearisome, and she serves only to illuminate Dani’s character.

With buckets of curse words, a friendly neighborhood pedophile, and a simulated hand-job in one of the first scenes, this play isn’t for everyone. But you couldn’t fight the magnetism of Dani’s character, or the magnetic performance by Wiles. With those goodies in place, Sugar was sweet.