Out of Gas on Lovers Leap, at Meat Market Stables - 90 minutes

Mia Barrett and Will Lonsdale bring energy and flair to their potent portrayal of troubled students with a questionable future.

It is graduation day 1985 for Mystery (Myst) Angeleeds (Barrett) and Chauncey “Grouper” Morris (Lonsdale) and they are keen to celebrate together.

They were members of the senior class of White Oaks Academy, an exclusive boarding school for students with behavioural disorders.

Photos by Jaime Zurzolo

They care for one another (both say they love the other), but they haven’t yet slept together.

Myst wants to remedy that immediately, while Grouper would like to do so in the perfect setting.

In his mind, Grouper builds a harmonious future and wants Myst to marry him.

For her part, Myst can’t handle the pressure. She tells him they are still young and neither of them has even had a job.

Notwithstanding her feelings for Grouper, she is not convinced they are compatible, as they spit ball, fight and make up.

As much as they would like to think they are, neither is in control. Nor are they the most easy-going people.

Grouper has parked his beaten-up car on the edge of a sheer drop, known as Lovers Leap, in Grosset Bay, New England. They drink beer, she smokes pot and he snorts cocaine.

Both find time to badmouth their self-centred parents. In Grouper’s case, his father is an ambitious US Senator (Chauncey also has a disabled brother).

Myst’s mother is a fading rock star, who has had a succession of boyfriends. Mystery has never known her father, hence her name.

At Myst’s instigation, they swap stories about the worst things they have ever done.

Regardless of his love language, there is no escaping Grouper’s troubled mind.

School after school has tried to straighten him out. Still, not long ago, he tried to top himself, although he can’t explain why.

Myst makes him promise he won’t try to do so again, all the while knowing it is a promise he can’t keep.

American playwright Mark St. Germain wrote Out of Gas on Lovers Leap in 1985 and it was first performed off Broadway that year.

The theme of disenchanted teens remains as pertinent today as when the play was crafted.

Alarmingly, in Australia, suicide is the leading cause of death for those aged between 15 and 24.

With only a derelict 1989 Ford Capri, a wooden bench and a couple of make-shift barriers as props, any acting faux pax stood to be exposed, but there was none.

Individually and collectively, Mia Barrett and Will Lonsdale are dynamic, confident and compelling throughout, a couple of young actors with a very bright future.

Going toe to toe, they morph into the star-crossed lovers they represent.

In the cavernous space that is the Meat Market Stables, Barrett and Lonsdale also project well.

Even when the dialogue is delivered at speed and at cross purposes, one is the yin to the other’s yang. They bounce off each other masterfully.

The pacing of the piece is among its many strengths and for that I must applaud the critical direction of Jaime Zurzolo.

There is not a dull moment, as time and again, the actors’ change tack and hold us – the audience – in the palms of their hands.

As you can tell by now, I was suitably impressed by this vigorous rendition of Out of Gas on Lovers Leap.