Depression-era drama makes point

​Moxie Theatre opens its eighth season with Naomi Wallace’s The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, a Depression-era drama about coming of age in a desperate time. Its observations about loss, sexuality, hope and humanity unfold in a highly poetic script by Wallace, a MacArthur “Genius” Grant winner. While the insights about self and the life given to us, like it or not, seem beyond the ken of a 15-year-old protagonist, Dalton (Ryan Kidd), they do command attention, particularly when parlayed with the risk-embracing words and actions of 17-year-old Pace (Amanda Osborn), whose game of chicken with a moving train is more than an obvious metaphor. Osborn and Kidd may be too old for their parts, but under the direction of Delicia Turner-Sonnenberg, they fully inhabit Wallace’s weighty words and messages.