By Quelemia Sparrow. Directed by Marisa Emma Smith. Presented by Alley Theatre in association with Full Circle: First Nations Performance at the Firehall Arts Centre on Wednesday, June 22. Continues to June 25

It’s great if your life is full of interesting events, but stringing those events together isn’t the same as telling a compelling story.

God knows interesting things have happened to Quelemia Sparrow. In her solo show, O’wet/Lost Lagoon, she talks about how she became an international model at 15 and was soon rubbing shoulders with the likes of Anna Wintour, Matt Damon, and Prince. And then there’s the other reality. Sparrow’s dad is Musqueam and her mom is English. Her dad survived residential school but he and his family lived that legacy through his violence and alcoholism.

At the beginning of O’wet/Lost Lagoon, Sparrow reflects on her embodiment of colonialism: “I am my people and I am those people….I am the destroyer and I am the destroyed.” So she identifies the schism. She also sets the stage for potential healing: “Some say your soul will leave your body after a terrible fright.” Her challenge is to reunite body and soul.

But Sparrow doesn’t deeply explore the nature of the tension between her two worlds. The violence in her home is mostly represented by one emblematic scene in which her parents have a drunken fight. But a deeper investigation of Sparrow’s dad, his struggle, and his relationship with his daughter never emerges. The modelling side of the story is also superficial. As I watched the young Sparrow flit from one international assignment to another, I wondered why I should care that she swam in a pool in Barbados with Minnie Driver.

Sparrow introduces enormous plot points and abandons them. She tells us about getting pregnant but doesn’t tell us what happened with the pregnancy. She’s engaged to be married and then she’s not—with no explanation.

Fortunately, Sparrow is a charming presence: physically precise and warmly engaging. Near the top of the show, she jokes that she has to remind people that she was once young and beautiful, because on finding out that she used to model, their surprise is sometimes too emphatic.

And some parts of the script work. The best is a magical thread in which she flies in a canoe with her ancestors.

I’ve been told that, like many new scripts, O’wet/Lost Lagoon is still evolving. Hopefully, part of that process will involve defining—and delving into—its core.