Emily Thorne, Jordan Empson, Astrid Deibert in WROL, Light in the Dark Theatre at Edmonton Fringe 2024. Photo by Emily Marisabel.

WROL (Without Rule of Law), Stage 1 (Westbury Theatre)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

The phrase that weaves its way, ominously, through WROL (Without Rule of Law), is “when the collapse occurs.” Not “if,” as you will note, but “when.”

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For the members of a breakaway Girl Guide troupe we meet in the bleakly funny “comedy” by Calgary-based playwright Michaela Jeffery (The Listening Room), they’re words to live by. Armed with that conviction about an imminent social/environmental apocalypse, a quartet of Grade 8 girls are in the woods  preparing to fend for themselves in a world that has never shown much interest in their concerns. The acronym they create is YOYO (“you’re on your own”).

The girls are with their skeptical pal Robbie (Baran Demi), who leans into caution when it comes to “crazy doomsday bullshit,” mainly because of the power differential. “You can’t protect people you love from bad things happening.”

As Emily Marisabel’s Light in the Dark production opens, Jo (Robyn Clark) is working on a series of helpful how-to videos: “come prepared to get prepared.” Breathless and earnest, she’s up to Episode 4, “Shelter.” And she’s demonstrating for the camera her own personal version, made of waterproof dog food bags she’s been collecting. “When you don’t have a dog it’s harder.”

The scenes are interwoven with school presentations. The chosen subject of Sarah (Emily Thorne), who’s brought along an entire book bag, is mass disappearances of the 21st century. Maureen (Jordan Empson), a starchier character, is grudgingly doing a public apology for a disruptive activist intervention at a school function.

Their hideout seems to be the site of a vanished commune, a disappearance, officially ignored, that invites an exposé. But the crux of a play is much less dramatic: the feeling of being stalled, powerless, paralyzed. “We say important stuff and no one listens,” as one character says. In a world that trains girls to be inobtrusive, how does meaningful change happen? The characters argue about that. Writing “strongly worded letters” doesn’t seem to be the answer.

The play’s capture of a generation’s frustration is seasoned with a kind of wry, un-condescending humour. And the actors, theatre school grads, turn in convincing, committed performances. If the 90-minute production feels long, it’s largely because the voices regularly fade into inaudibility in the Westbury Theatre. In a play about not being listened to, there’s an irony that can be overcome.