Middle-aged Linus McBride (Arthur Hanket) lives a life of quiet desperation. He's the only history teacher at a large but underfunded high school in Oregon. His father died in the spring, leaving Linus the sheep farm where he grew up. All summer Linus holes up there, speaking to no one. When school opens in September, he learns that his classes have been reduced yet again. His fellow teacher and newly appointed principal, Judy Bench (Amanda Weier), informs him that cuts must be made and his specialty must suffer because there are no history questions on standardized tests. He faces a further challenge in a smart-mouthed, rebellious transfer student, Marion McNeely (Charlotte Chanler), who's hell-bent on defying all authority. Both are seriously damaged people who defend themselves with subversive wit, and when they begin sparring, sparks fly. It emerges that she's living in a foster home, having recently been released from a girls' reformatory. And both, they discover, were victims of parental abuse.
He tries to persuade her to stay in school rather than dropping out to pursue a career in porn, but he's also fed up and threatening to resign. Marion challenges him by striking a bargain: She'll stick it out if he will. Over time he becomes a sort of parent manqué, and under his tutelage, she becomes an accomplished A-student, planning to attend college. Perhaps inevitably, she falls in love with him. Clearly he loves her, but whether he's in love with her is a question he won't entertain.
Playwright Joseph Fisher writes wonderful dialogue: quirky, funny, oblique, and unpredictable. He never lets us second-guess him, and the encounters between Linus and Marion are magical—and magically played by Hanket and Chanler. Their early scenes have a kind of fairy-tale charm, but in Act 2 reality sets in, and the story turns darker. The wolf in the title refers to a varmint that threatens Linus' sheep, but it also evokes the predatory adults who prey on the young from within the fold.
Benjamin Burdick directs with finesse and authority. Hanket's luminous Linus somehow manages to be impassive yet eloquent, full of feeling withheld, which emerges in anarchic humor. And Chanler never lets us doubt that within her bad girl is a budding woman of fierce integrity. Weier, as Principal Bench, and Colin Walker, as lecherous math teacher Harold, also do fine work, but their less-complex characters offer more-limited opportunities.
Presented by and at the Open Fist Theatre, 6209 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. Aug. 6–Sept. 11. Variable schedule. (323) 882-6912. www.openfist.org.