CALGARY - Crow Theatre's I, Claudia currently running at Alberta Theatre Projects practically defines must-see theatre.

It's enchanting, enthralling and completely captivating.

It is an emotional roller-coaster that gladdens the heart with laughter and then bittersweet tears.

Written by Kristen Thomson, directed by Chris Abraham and starring Liisa Repo-Martell, it's a one-woman show that introduces its audiences to four unforgettable characters.

Part of the play's charm is that Repo-Martell brings the characters to life using masks and costume pieces which she changes as part of the choreographed action of the play.

There's Claudia, a young girl eying her 13th birthday who's becoming a woman and a teenager simultaneously and it's a particularly difficult passage because she's trying to deal with her parents' divorce and her father's impending marriage to a brassy young woman.

Every nanosecond Claudia is on stage, the play sparkles with effervescent wit and sarcasm because Claudia is such a precocious child.

Her father's girlfriend initially seems crass, loud and domineering but the wedding scene reveals a very different kind of woman and it's heartwrenching.

Claudia's grandfather is a loveable, lecherous old devil and the kindly school caretaker is also the caretaker of Claudia's secret world.

For 90 magical minutes, I, Claudia takes us into a child's world of confusion, pain, bewilderment and fantasy and it's a journey that lingers long after the lights come up at the Martha Cohen Theatre.

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