What is the importance of language in The Wolves: A Play?

The first point to note about the play’s use of language is that because it is a play, its story, circumstances, and relationships are communicated almost entirely through dialogue. There are a few pieces of text that describe action or character attitude: these are referred to as “stage directions”, and tell the reader things like when the attention of the characters goes to characters whom the audience cannot see (offstage) or when a character’s attitude is particularly noteworthy. This last is particularly significant when it comes to the appearance of the character identified as “Soccer Mom” (Week 6, Part 2); without the stage direction “she is manic with grief” (170), the actor playing the role would not easily or necessarily know, from the character’s dialogue alone, what is happening in that character in that moment.

In terms of the dialogue itself, there is a clear sense that effort has been made to shape its form and content to reflect the characters and identities of the characters. The first layer of significance to this relates to the dialogue of the team in general, which feels colloquial, casual, and informal – that is, the way young women at sixteen or seventeen years of age (such as these characters are) would actually speak. There are, for example, frank discussions of menstruation and of sex; there are occasionally curse words (one particularly potent moment involves one character calling another a “cunt” (119). The second layer of significance to the use of dialogue to reflect the identities of the characters is the way the language of each character is shaped to reflect her individual identity. Thus the language of #25 (team captain) tends to be firm and commanding; the language of #7 tends to be sexualized and blunt; the language of #13 tends to be somewhat disjointed from other conversations; and the language of #46 tends to reflect her status (at least at the play’s beginning) as an outsider.

The final point to note about the play’s use of language is that because it is dialogue, it does not necessarily (or fully) explain what is going on with each character at each particular moment. Instead, it develops meaning through implication, leaving interpretation and insight up to the reader. This is particularly significant throughout Week Sex, as the layers of information about the tragedy that has befallen the team filter in, hint-like, in references to someone going out jogging very early in the morning and to someone else not cleaning his windshield. This is not only reflective of how characters in this situation would talk (i.e. they already know what happened, and have already developed a kind of shorthand). It creates a sense of suspense in reader and audience; it also makes the reader and audience more active and more engaged, having to work out what is being discussed as opposed to having everything explained.