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Forget the seven ages of man. Swedish playwright Jonas Hassen Khemiri presents the three ages of woman in this rather banal feminist piece that won him a Heddaprisen – Sweden’s answer to the Oliviers.
Frank Perry’s lofty translation might have done it a serious disservice, but still, lord knows how. Khemiri deals in the vaguest of truisms, suggesting that beneath each woman there are several selves jostling for position. Here, naïve radical, neurotic careerist and content elder bicker and compete, occasionally coming together to console one another.
Each of these selves is stifled in turn: the idealist free spirit balks at her first love, with his babble of baby talk and his self-centric workaholism, but, after giving in to her whims and travelling the world, she’s overruled by the need to succeed, albeit on someone else’s terms. So begins a semi-satisfying career in dental hygiene, but what does it all add up to? Either a catastrophic breakdown and suicide or resigned self-acceptance, suggests Khemiri.
This is a play that peddles in generalities, and its feminist tract isn’t helped by a distinctly male perspective, betrayed by a whisper of lesbianism and a hackneyed public-transport romance. Florence McHugh’s design draws out an intriguing tension between domesticity and global destitution, as if the contemporary consumerist self exists between the two, neither human nor humane.
Even so, the play space pushes Jamie Harper’s production towards literalism, with the three women sharing a flat as well as an identity. A more focused, abstract approach might have increased options and theatricality. Ida Bonnast is sprightly but ardent as the youngest of the three; Katherine Manners, pinched and reedy-voiced in the middle; with Karen Archer a grounded presence to finish. Life, however, tends not to divide so neatly.