Nothing Like a Pinky Promise

Okay, I can’t lie…I love plays that take me back to certain points in my life.  It’s fun, and makes for an enjoyable watching experience.  These are the types of things that are shared experiences.  And Pinky Promise gave me just that.  Set at a summer camp in 2005, I got to watch a show where I related to so many different things.  There were things I had completely forgotten about, and though I never went to a sleep away camp like this, the early 2000s were a world of their own.  From dancing crazy with friends, to our favorite songs, to copious amounts of body glitter, I saw so much of my life.

Pinky Promise is the story of three twelve year old girls, played by adult women.  Their ties to each other were their camp, and all the years they had spent there together.  Despite how different these three girls were, they were best friends.  Camp best friends.  Because while watching this play, I learned that this is a very different type of relationship than the ones they share with their “home” friends.  We can see from the start of the show that they’re very different from each other.  They love each other anyway.

Heidi, Miriam and Phoebe are three very distinctive girls.  We see that they have a very obvious history, and care about each other very much.  They have their rituals and traditions, and secrets that they only share with each other…as well as secrets that aren’t shared and come out unexpectedly.  Pinky Promise was devised through different means than a typical play,.  They didn’t go in with a script or an exact idea.  I think that was part of what made the show so raw and emotional.  All of those things that these girls lived were lived without restrictions. 

This show is all about growing up.  I loved seeing women my age playing preteen girls because we’ve been through that.  Grayce Carson (Heidi), Sara Quagliata (Phoebe) and Simi Toledano (Miriam) know what their futures hold in a way their characters couldn’t.  You could see the way these girls are starting to grow up…and I’m not just talking about Heidi getting her first period.  Adult insecurities and secrets work their way out.  I remember being that age.  I remember how badly I just wanted everything to be okay.  How badly I just wanted everything to be better.  We all have to grow up.

I’m definitely not saying this show was all serious.  It was actually extremely funny.  The way the girls interacted was fantastic.  They loved each other deeply and that showed in the whole play.  Even when things were tense, they were there for each other.  The comedy was specific, but fun…the scene where Heidi gets her first period had me laughing so hard.  Even some of the girls’ rituals and routines had humor in them.  Although each girl is definitely growing up differently, it doesn’t take away from them trying to do the quizzes at the back of Cosmopolitan magazine.

On the other hand, watching the vulnerability play out was beautiful and heart wrenching.  Miriam thinks it’s her fault her parents are getting a divorce, and as much as she tries to play it off, it’s clear how much she’s hurting…but also how she feels she can confide in her camp friends.  Heidi lived through every moment of her first period with her best friends.  And Phoebe was able to admit that she had kissed a girl at school.  These were definitely things that the girls couldn’t share with anyone else.  But they had each other for it, and that was beautiful.

Watching adults play kids can be sort of weird sometimes, but it really didn’t feel that way with these three.  The way they embodied their characters was totally fantastic.  Everything from their attitude to their body language really was like watching twelve year old girls, which was seriously a lot of fun.  I know they did a lot of developing to get to that point, and it really showed.  There were definitely some really weird moments where I felt like I was watching young girls, and I had to remind myself that these were grown women.  It was actually really cool.

Thank goodness for the Fringe Festival!  Pinky Promise was performed in a small space on the third floor of the Plays and Players theatre, and everything about it was perfect.  The QR code for the program was in a small book of folded paper with camp activities, like Mad Libs, on it.  There were pencil holders made out of tampons out front, and merchandise was knotted camp bracelets (not going to lie, I got two).  The entire experience was a breath of fresh air…you don’t necessarily get to experience stuff like that all the time.  Everything was tied so nicely together, and by the end of the night, I definitely felt like everything had come full circle.