Teens reach for the stars

Forget the rent boys and crack dealers - in Mark Ravenhill's latest play the focus is firmly on the superficial appeal of celebrity, in a world where teens can dream either of being whirled to fame by Pop Idol or of breaking down on the Jerry Springer show.

Here music is not the food of love unless garnished with promoters, screaming fans, movie deals and international tours - and if a boy can't display the photogenic cheekbones of Brad Pitt or the publicity muscle of Robbie Williams, then he will never get the girl.

This, at least, is the premise of Ravenhill's Totally Over You, one of 10 new plays commissioned for the National Theatre's Shell Connections season, which targets secondary schools and youth theatre groups.

Writers, including the leading Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse and the Evening Standard award winning Philip Ridley, have created works that will all be performed by teenagers at the National throughout the next week.

Last night, the audience could see two of these dramas - which both displayed a healthy cynicism towards the concept of love. Ravenhill's play is based on Molière's Les Precieuses Ridicules, and was performed in a sparky, streetwise production by the Kildare Youth Theatre, complete with a satirically bland boyband.

If Totally Over You has a weakness, it is that a plot where four girls dump four boys in order to date celebrities can lead to over-repetitive observations on a world view fired by Heat magazine. Despite this, director Peter Hussey has coaxed winningly comic performances from a frequently entertaining script about the hormone-fuelled follies of the age. Kristina Peacocke as the

calculating Kitty and Keith Burke as the boyfriend who heads a fake boyband to win her back lead a spunky, talented cast that differentiates with humorous acuity between schoolgoers who are fashion victims and those who are merely victims.

The Finnish playwright Laura Ruohonen has created a darker, more enigmatic, work for teenagers, which seeks comedy in such observations on love as: "It's like smoking - if you don't start when you're young you won't get hooked." The New Peckham Varieties Youth Theatre brings out the shifting tones of a drama that can seem naive one moment, and richly original the next - as it tells of two sisters separated by an ex-convict.

Its distinctive tone launches both a spirited and varied evening. It displays both the energy and diversity necessary for theatre to enjoy a healthy future.