Theatre / The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe, directed by Chris Baldock. At Belco Arts, until November 1. Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

The Wolves is a tense group play about an American girls’ soccer team, very useful for giving a large group of young actors a chance to test their performance skills.

In this production there are two casts of 10. Some nights you will see The Lycan Cast, on others The Lupin Cast. I saw The Lycan Cast, but my bet is that both casts are strong and that this was a solution to giving a large group of prospective young performers an opportunity to work on a challenging piece.

The team is only ever seen in preparation for its next match. They are identified by shirt number, not name. There are male coaches but they are offstage and never seen. The action takes place almost entirely within the group.

There’s much in the way of warm up routines and a lot of overlapping teenage banter. Nothing much is off limits, from sexuality and periods and boyfriends to a somewhat confused discussion of history and geography, American style. Their world narrows to the team and the game.

A newcomer turns up and has to show some tenacity to make her way into the group.

It’s episodic and done on a green-turfed thrust stage that echoes the soccer field. There is much looking inwards and sometimes faces are only glimpsed.

Events go in an unexpected direction. An adult arrives in difficult circumstances. The team has to deal with serious disturbances to that inward-looking existence.

The Lycans are Eleanor Graham, Zara Huber, Jennifer Noveski, Susan Brown, Ainslie Bull, Jayde Dowhy, Grace O’Mahoney, Eva Loxley and April Telfer, with Ruth Hudson as the Soccer Mum.

Good performances all round and hard to single anyone out in a piece so dedicated to the team, but excellent to see Mockingbird Theatre continuing to present theatre that provokes thought.