The Edmonton Journal is proud to host reviews of local high school theatrical productions, written by student reviewers through the Alberta Youth Theatre Collective. This review covers McNally High School's production of Forgotten, written by Altaire Gural and directed by Kendra Lamothe-Chang.
Forgotten: Where Less Becomes More
There is a quiet confidence in a production that trusts its story over its spectacle. McNally High School's Forgotten is exactly that kind of show. Working with minimal resources and a deceptively simple premise, the cast built something genuinely affecting, funny, and at times, surprisingly tender.
The story follows Gwendolyn Deering, a girl plagued by vivid dreams of Neverland, caught between a crumbling real world and a fantasy that refuses to let her go. What makes Gural's script smart is how it layers comedy into nearly every scene without sacrificing the emotional weight beneath it. From Gwen's opening struggle to sleep, to the pillow fight that somehow transitions into a conversation about Neverland, the tone stays playful while the stakes quietly build.
Comedy is not reserved for any one character here. It is a full ensemble effort. Peter Pan brings a particular brand of oblivious charm that makes his scenes land with effortless comedy and wit, while the pirate ensemble operates like a rotating cast of comedic duos. The pairing of Hook and Mr. Smee, played by Alexis Roode, was a consistent highlight, with jokes that sucked your breath out of you, their dynamic carrying the kind of straight man and chaos energy that never got old. Even in scenes that exist purely to move the plot forward, someone finds the joke.
The production's strongest individual performer was Dane Yasul-Perry as Hook, who also doubled as Dr. Holder. Where the dual role could have felt disjointed, Yasul-Perry played it with sharp comic awareness and consistent control, making the irony of Hook masquerading as Gwen's therapist land with real wit. Every scene he was in had an edge.
The motif of "don't let me go," spoken by Gwen to Peter Pan, was the emotional spine of the show. It returned at key moments throughout, accumulating meaning each time, and by the final act, it carried genuine weight. The lighting during the hypnosis sequence, how it shifted as Gwen reached that line, was one of the few technical moments that felt deliberately crafted rather than functional. It worked.
Forgotten is not a loud show. It earns its moments quietly, through a well-structured script, a standout villainous performance, an ensemble that trusted the comedy in every scene, and a recurring four-word line that by the end, you feel rather than just hear. For anyone who has ever held onto something they knew they were losing, this one will stay with you.
What Stays, What Shifts
Hunter Lafleur from M.E. LaZerte High School offers another perspective: a tale of two realities, the past and the present, woven together through memory and imagination. McNally's Forgotten subverts familiar notions of Neverland by grounding it in emotional realism. From the outset, the production establishes a clear emotional trajectory that resonated until the very end. With a highly disciplined ensemble performance and fluid blocking, the students of McNally have ensured the survival of not only Neverland but the memories that lingered within the audience beyond the final bow.
