The Understandable Girl

Postcard Review by Caroline Russell-King

Show – The Understandable Girl

Playwright/Composer – by Nikki Loach with contributions from Lyudmyla Honcharova, Snizhana Bora, and Katheen Ballagan.

Production Company/Theatre space – Quest Theatre (professional) / C-Space

Length – 1 Act (1 hour no intermission)

Genre/s – TYA drama

Premise – An elementary schoolchild is tasked by her teacher to befriend the new Ukrainian refugee girl who doesn’t speak English.

Why this play? Why now? – This show is topical as Canada takes in thousands of refugees fleeing war.

Curiosities – Maybe the age-appropriate level of the show was ignored or not indicated. How can adult audience members behave worse than their kids? Why do people think that the rules don’t apply to them? Why do adults feel the need to record their children watching the play? Why do adults film the play when they have been asked not to? Why do adults scroll through their phones oblivious to the light pollution and distraction it causes others? Why do members of the theatre closest to cel hone perpetrators not quietly remind patrons of the rules?

Notable Moment – The initial packing and fleeing of the Ukraine is powerful.

Notable writing – Calgary hasn't always been served well by Artistic Directors programming their own works but in this ca

se it has worked out. This one act drama for elementary school children is well written. It shows the evolution of friendship between two children with no common spoken language only gesture and inference by context. Nikki Loach has crafted a sweet play with the help of the two actors and another contributor. Using “Charlie Brown wah wahs”, mime, dance, and shadow puppets they tell a story of friendship.

Notable performances – Katheen Ballagan plays Lucy, an obnoxious energetic child, who befriends Myla, a recent Ukrainian refugee, played by Snizhana Bora. The grown women tap into their inner child to create 7 and 8 year old girls. Bora is in Calgary due to the war and that gives the show an air of poignance.

Notable design/Production – Set Designer Scott Reid is the Production Design Mentor who give the set a backdrop of buildings, while on stage are two trees with detachable leaves and materials for the girls to make a fort. Suitcases and boxes make the planes, trains, and automobiles that get the mother and child out of the war zone. The sheet of the fort is used as the screen for the Ukrainian puppet story that the children have to make for a class project.

Notable direction – Loach also directs her own work, which isn’t usually recommended for playwrights, but in this case works well.

One reason to see this show – The show only has a few public performances and is now closed but will continue its tour in the schools. Hopefully it will meet audiences that will appreciate it the most.