You can’t change what happened, but you can change what happens next.
These words lie at the centre of Hannah McPake’s Balloon Girl, a recent play at Sherman Theatre.
Over the past week, I have found myself describing this play to people as “Doctor Who meets A Christmas Carol meets redeemable Elon Musk.”
The family-friendly Sci-Fi follows Carol Gaudron, a multi-billionaire, tech-savvy, and deeply ambitious woman looking to launch the first civilian up to Mars.
The night before launching, she is visited by Louisa, a time-traveling teenage ghost from Victorian times, who is “tasked” with convincing Carol to cancel the launch and see the error of her ways before it’s too late.
While this plot may sound hefty, it is persistently scarily rooted in reality.
The play immediately grounds itself in real-world capitalism.
We see Carol’s success through comparisons to the likes of Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg, complete with a slideshow of their faces plastered on the stage.
Further, Carol’s aim at sending a working-class girl up to Mars on her own poses the age old question of: just because we can, does it mean we should? Does one small death for man justify one giant leap for the elites of the world?
The grapple between technological advancement and humanity is a theme throughout the play, shown through Carol’s private AI assistant and ever-shrinking morals.
Humanity rushes to the forefront of the play with the entrance of Louisa in all senses of the word.
The previously empty and bleak stage becomes filled with stunning set design, taking the audience through an exciting whirlwind of Wales throughout history.
Carol, who had been orphaned at a young age, is Welsh, yet pushes back and rejects her cultural identity. Her struggles with facing the death of her parents is one of the main emotional drives of the play.
As she allows herself to remember her parents, she allows herself to remember her heritage and embrace her history. Perhaps the most poignant and heartbreaking aspect of the play is the backstory of Louisa’s character.
Louisa Maud Evans was a real girl from Bristol in the late 1800’s.
In the summer of 1896, Cardiff’s Fine Art, industrial, and Maritime Exhibition was set to include a performer called Mademoiselle Albertina, who would take a hot air balloon up to a considerate height before descending back down to the outskirts of Cardiff by parachute.
The event was advertised as a safe yet daring show coming from an experienced performer.
In reality, Louisa was a young girl with very little experience and the balloon she was sent in was built with spectacle in mind rather than safety.
On 21 July 1896, Louisa went up in the hot air balloon, but was caught by wind. At only 14 years old, she tragically passed away after drifting out to the Bristol channel.
The people of Cardiff, outraged at the exploitation of such a young girl, raised money for her funeral and headstone, which remains in Cathays Cemetery today. Louisa’s story is a tragic one, yet one that should never be forgotten.
The technical aspects of the play are also worthy of high praise. The crew did a magnificent job of moving between time periods seamlessly and artistically.
The actors did a phenomenal job at switching between personas quickly and efficiently.
Light moments of comedy got large reactions from the audience, including some one-liners I was later told were improvised.
The show also included a signed performance throughout. The ending of the play is a hopeful one, and once the curtains close, we are left in the same position as Carol.
We can change what happens next.