‘||: Girls :||: Chance :||: Music :||’ Captures the Nature of Girlhood Friendship

A few years ago, I wrote an opinion piece for my college paper titled “Friends Aren’t Forever and That’s Okay.” Reflecting on the fleeting nature of high school friendships, I realized that even though those friendships didn’t last, they meant a great deal, and shaped me in ways I couldn’t fully understand at the time.

I’ve graduated college now, but couldn’t help but think of these friendships while watching ||: Girls :|| ||: Chance :|| ||: Music :||, a new play by Eisa Davis at ACT’s Strand Theater in San Francisco. Davis, raised in the Bay Area and inspired by her time in UC Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program, clearly understands the bonds of girlhood. Directed by outgoing ACT Artistic Director Pam MacKinnon, the play captures the essence of being a teenage girl amongst other teenage girls: a combination of ego and uncertainty, with small moments feeling magnified and personal.

In ||: Girls :|| ||: Chance :|| ||: Music :||, we’re introduced to four high school girls at a prestigious summer music program in Berkeley who’ve been assigned to rehearse and perform together as a group. Aside from their love for music, they seem to have nothing in common.

Fax (Hillary Fisher), the group’s vocalist, is anxious, hyper-prepared and constantly overthinking, a perfectionist prone to rambling. In contrast, Margot (Naomi Latta), the group’s drummer, is laid-back and carefree. She proclaims that “words are so not [her] vibe,” yet her playing reveals an intensity beneath the surface.

Riles (Yeena Sung), the pianist, is vibrant and unapologetically expressive, with multicolored hair, a wardrobe filled with fun prints and Labubus hanging from their backpack. Then there’s the more reticent Clementine (Gianna DiGregorio Rivera), often in the background, who effortlessly plays multiple instruments and offers comic relief.

Notably, there are no boys at the program, and throughout the summer, these girls create unexpected bonds despite their clashing personalities.

In a series of monologues, we get a glimpse into the minds of these girls and their home lives; the play touches on heavy themes like eating disorders, substance abuse, sexuality and homelessness. But as is often the case with teenage girls (I speak from experience), they’re so consumed by their own struggles that they fail to recognize how vastly different their lives are outside this shared space.

At one point in the first interactions between Fax and Margot, Fax turns to the audience and says “I don’t know this yet, but this person has begun to shape my life.” While the audience laughed at this break of the fourth wall, it resonated deeply with me. It’s often only in hindsight that we recognize how deeply people have impacted us – especially those we least expected.

Even Clementine, who doesn’t forge as deep a relationship with the other three, represents something important: the person you often take for granted. Someone who’s always there, and you don’t realize how much their presence really mattered until they aren’t anymore.

At the end of the play, we we learn that none of these girls really kept in touch. They’ve all grown in ways that are natural, and that their high school selves could have never imagined.

Part of me wanted to see the girls get past their differences and help each other grow through life. But that’s not typically how things play out. The abrupt ending to these friendships as summer ends is true to these fleeting-yet-formative friendships.

||: Girls :|| ||: Chance :|| ||: Music :|| doesn’t mourn that girlhood ends — it honors what grows from of it. As I wrote in that sophomore-year opinion piece, “These are the people who shape you into who you are and who you want to become, even if it’s only a brief amount of time that your paths cross.”

‘||: Girls :|| ||: Chance :|| ||: Music :||’ runs through April 19 at ACT’s Strand Theater (1127 Market St., San Francisco). Tickets and more information here.