![]() The main event of the play is the day when the girls are 16 and a nude photo of Scarlett appears on a social media website. The hierarchy already forms when the girls are only 5 relegating Scarlett (Shakura Dickson), the only named girl, at the bottom. While most of the action takes place when the girls are 16, Placey includes flashbacks to when they are 5, 8 and 11 and one flash-forward to when they’re 45. This is supposed to cement the bonds of friendship among them, but, as Placey shows, it also cements the hierarchy that the girls establish on first meeting each other. Helen’s in a given year remain as a group from their first year through high school. The farmers do not intervene unless one of the hens risks being pecked to death. In case we doubt that is what the girls are doing, Placey has one girl whose parents are farmers explain how hens in a barnyard form a literal pecking order among themselves. Instead, as happens in schools and other kinds of institutions, the girls, separated from the boys until high school, establish a pecking order with one girl at the top, another at the bottom and all the rest ranged somewhere in between. ![]() Placey proceeds to demonstrate that thinking outside the box is exactly what these girls do not do. Helen’s School, an elite private school for children who are deemed to “think outside the box”. The action follows the lives of seven girls admitted to St. The second one might think a rather presumptuous topic for a male writer, no matter how much a feminist ally he is. The first topic has now been covered by numerous plays for teenagers. The second is the total lack of awareness of feminism among female teenagers today. One is the deleterious effect of new technology on social interactions among teenagers. In 2016 Placey published his play in a collection entitled Girls Like That and other plays for teenagers, so the Tarragon should really not have been in doubt about Placey’s intended audience. The main pleasure of the evening is watching the ensemble work of the excellent cast directed by Esther Jun. Yet, many plays seen at YPT, including Placey’s own Scarberia from 2016, are far more subtle than Girls Like That. The play is so clearly intended to hit a series of discussion topics and it makes its points so broadly that one would more likely expect to see it at Young People’s Theatre rather than the Tarragon. Girls Like That by Evan Placey, a Canadian now resident in Britain, is written for an audience of adolescents and yet the Tarragon is presenting it for an audience of adults. ![]() ![]() The Tarragon Theatre has made an odd choice to conclude its 2017/18 season. Tarragon Theatre, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, Toronto ![]()
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