CHILD-ish
The Adults
Photo: Jae Yang
A Tarragon Theatre Production in association with the Child-ish Collective – CHILD-ish, written and created by Sunny Drake, directed by Andrea Donaldson, closes Nov. 16.
If you want to get away from the November drearies, take yourself over to the Tarragon for an utterly charming show called CHILD-ish, which premiered last year at Vancouver Pacific Theatre.
It is what theatre calls a verbatim play — no fiction, no invention, just the actual words of children. Australian-born, Toronto–Los Angeles–based playwright Sunny Drake interviewed forty-one children, aged five to twelve, and used their words as the foundation for the script.
But it is much more than a transcript.
The words are spoken by adult actors — Jordan Pettle, Monique Mojica, Karl Ang, and Janelle Cooper — who do not imitate children. They speak as adults, but convey the emotions that the words demand, and that simple choice changes everything.
Hearing children’s words in adult voices makes us listen differently. We hear their honesty, their humour, their curiosity, and their heartaches with startling clarity. The immigrant child’s story becomes all the more poignant; the boy who lost his best friend and doesn’t know why seems all the more bewildered; the girl who has too many boyfriends when her friend doesn’t have any faces an agonizing dilemma. The reality of these situations takes centre stage in a child’s world. An adult might gloss over them ordinarily but not when speaking as the child.
As the play progresses, actor Asher Rose carrying a clipboard, who portrays the Narrator (Sunny Drake), occasionally stops the action to reveal how the piece was made — moments when the children themselves redirected the process. They wanted to talk about death, marriage, parents, and having more than one mother or father. It was the children who steered the conversation toward deeper and more complicated subjects, and those interventions by Drake and the children give the piece its substance and shape.
Hearing children discuss divorce, love, and death without self‑consciousness is disarming. When adult actors deliver those words with composure rather than imitation, it exposes how much emotion adults bury under irony. The open presence, and the actors’ refusal to sentimentalize make the production radiant.
Beyond its charm, CHILD-ish invites adults to re‑examine how we listen. The words of the children reveal an emotional intelligence that defies the expectation of innocence. When adults speak their words, we hear the honesty stripped of cuteness — the confusion about death, the questions about gender, love, and fairness — and it confronts us with how layered children’s thinking really is. Their logic may be playful, but it is also devastatingly clear. That is what gives the piece its ache.
CHILD-ish
The Adults and the Narrator
Photo: Jae Yang
There is a wonderful late sequence where the actors drop character and invite the audience to join in. We are told to turn to the person beside us and answer questions the children themselves asked: Do you believe in dragons? What’s your favourite shape? Do you understand real estate? Can you be in love with more than one person at the same time? The questions are charming, funny, and unexpectedly revealing. The scene turns the theatre itself into a playground of curiosity. You could feel the room softening, strangers talking easily, the adults briefly rediscovering play.
Amanda Wong’s set is ingenious— what looks like a large pouffe over time transforms into playful shapes with the whole space evolving into a playroom, a physical embodiment of imagination.
Ming Wong’s costumes — stylish, character-specific, and unmistakably adult — reinforce the adult concept. Karl Ang in a suit and tie, Jordan Pettle in something more casual, Janelle Cooper in a sleek pantsuit, and Monique Mojica in a beautifully crafted tunic with Indigenous motifs — each look defines the person, not a caricature. Asher Rose’s dress on the other hand is absolutely artsy, especially the pants.
Andrea Donaldson’s direction keeps the show lively and fluid. She orchestrates the ensemble with painterly precision: the actors circulate among shifting clusters of morphing furniture as if it were normal progress. It is all rather amusing to watch
During the audience interaction scene, the actors casually roam the stage, eating snacks, sipping drinks and chatting, which feels spontaneous and delightful. Donaldson maintains the balance between levity and sincerity beautifully.; it’s part of a rhythm that mimics how children jump from idea to idea without hierarchy.
There is not just one surprise ending to CHILD-ish there are two, and of course I’m not going to tell you about either of them, just to say that they both add to the consummate delight of the show. And be prepared for lots and lots of unicorn references.
CHILD‑ish is a reminder that the smallest voices can ask the largest questions. It argues that children are not miniature adults to be managed; they are philosophers who have not yet learned to hide what they know.
Hearing the words of children spoken by adults, you come to realize how intelligent children are, how much they perceive, and how little credit we often give them. But above all, CHILD-ish reminds us that children are not only smart — they are also very wise.
CHILD-ish
The Narrator
Photo: Jae Yang