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FARRAH, the 15-year-old central character in Grounded, wants to have a seagoing career, but her Newcastle classmates ridicule her ambition. And when the bulk carrier Pasha Bulker runs ashore on Nobbys beach in a fierce storm in 2007, Farrah wonders whether her dream has been grounded as well.

Playwright Alana Valentine has written what director Toni Main refers to in a program note as a complex script, but the actors and production team make it come vividly alive for most of its 90-minute running time.

The scenes have very different styles. The taunting of Farrah by classmates has a darkly comic rhythm, while sequences that show the developing friendship and affection between Farrah and Jack, the leader of a gang called the Blue Jays, have a gentle warmth.

The storm scene, which culminates in the grounding of the ship, uses sound and lighting to create remarkable images.

Small blue lights on the hands of several actors on a darkened stage suggest the developing ferocity of the ocean waves, with constantly moving red lighting subsequently showing the buffeting of the ship.

The complexity of Farrah’s relationship with her single mother, Matilda, is revealed by the use of three actresses in identical dresses but with very different looks to play mum, sometimes delivering lines singly and at others speaking in unison.

And Farrah’s best friend Chloe lets her know in a rap-style song that she has arranged a meeting for her with the Newcastle harbourmaster so that she can talk to him about the issues involved in a woman having a seagoing career.

Writer Valentine certainly has a good ear for language.

Scenes where business people talk about the influx of sightseers and media people in the wake of the ship’s grounding are very much the real thing, and a series of short monologues by students about the post-school jobs they are considering could come from any playground.

Jemima Webber, rarely off stage, makes Farrah an engaging figure, whether arguing with Siobhan Caulfield’s retro-punk Chloe or gradually realising that the initially teasing Jack (Mathew Baird-Steele) is attracted to her. Dean Blackford and Scott Gelzinnis are lively as the other Blue Jays, and Emily Daly, Naomi Dingle and Tamara Gazzard work well together as the three faces of Matilda.

The youngest cast member, 14-year-old India Wilson, gives zest to the ensemble scenes, and professional actor Paul Kelman shows what can be done with the small but important roles of a librarian, the harbourmaster and a pilot who helps bring the Pasha Bulker into Newcastle Harbour after it is pulled off the beach.

While I had no difficulties following the storyline, having attended an acted reading of the work in January, some audience members told me after the show that they had problems because of the complexity noted by the director.

Still, this is a memorable addition to the plays that have been written about Newcastle and its people.

It will have a season at Sydney’s Australian Theatre for Young People from May 30.