The performance we saw this week was Shape of a Girl. It's Jan McLeod's account of a true story that occurred in Canada in the mid-1990s when a group of girls terrorized another girl so badly that she committed suicide.
The play is not about that incident per se, but about an incident occurring in another junior high school nearby. Braidie is watching the news accounts of the death of Reena Virk and realizing the role she has in a similar circumstance in her own class. She is realizing the girl that they are all trying to impress (the Queen Bee) has destroyed the confidence of another girl and that she, Braidie, has been carried away on the "mob mentality" and not wanting to disobey the "mean girl" and potentially be the victim.
This was an amazing play, an amazing solo performance with an equally amazing Q & A discussion period following. This performance is during the day and many schools take advantage of it. The school children were in 4th through 8th grades. The teachers were very open about having been targets or having been part of a group that ridiculed someone and feeling powerless. The students provided fantastic dialogue and insight.
Our homeschool group left and went across the street for pizza and moms and kids alike agreed that we were glad that the kids were not in school and did not have to potentially deal with this stuff!
