We Used To Be Girl Scouts is one of nine shows performed at this year’s Fringe Festival by students and graduates from Edinburgh Napier’s acting and directing programs.

Written by Emery Schaffer, our story follows three American high school sophomores – Mary (played by Hannah-Mae Engstrom), Sasha (Samuela Noumchuet) and Drew (Trystan Youngjohn). Newcomer Mary is a pastor’s daughter and plans to escape from her abusive family. Drew thinks she might be pregnant, and Sasha gathers up her courage and confesses to her best friend Drew that she is in love with her. They meet and end up spending time together in the woods planning their escape.

The script and setting are unashamedly American, with some references that don’t quite translate outside the US, but by and large they’re pulled off by the cast. Other elements, like the avoidance of the word “abortion,” felt unnecessarily coy, even for teenagers.

More problematic were numerous inconsistencies in the script. Could we really believe that a pastor’s daughter, who was banned from Harry Potter, would see the Hunger Games as a cultural benchmark? Or that a lesbian teenager would write her twice-daily rehearsed speech on Cosmopolitan’s pregnancy pages? Or that Drew didn’t confide in her best friend sooner after losing her virginity and only revealed it to her under duress weeks later? And why did Mary pressure the duo to confide in her after only being with her for a few hours? Perhaps a tighter edit could have ironed out these inconsistencies earlier, and as a result the film feels a little bland in both drama and comedy.

That being said, the performances from the cast are strong – there’s a lot of melodramatic stomping just to underline that we’re dealing with teenagers, but they play their assigned roles well. Samuela in particular shows a natural flair for physical expression. The highlight is the addendum they add to the Girl Scout Promise, and it would have been fantastic to see that energy and flair repeated elsewhere in the show.

Overall, while it was a great night and the audience seemed happy, it felt very much like a run-of-the-mill teen drama episode, complete with Garden State-style cliches and screaming. Given that this is being performed at the Edinburgh Fringe, it seemed like a missed opportunity to engage in something that was ultimately more satisfying and challenging to showcase the obvious talents of everyone involved.

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/we-used-to-be-girl-scouts