Can Any Mother Help Me? at The Door, Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Based on Jenna Bailey’s 2007 book of the same title, the latest show from Wolverhampton women’s theatre group Foursight Theatre illuminates an extraordinary story of literary self-help.
Beginning with a letter written to the magazine Nursery World by an isolated and frustrated woman in Ireland in 1935, a group of about 24 women established their own private magazine. Articles, written in the form of letters under literary pseudonyms, were collated and hand-stitched by the editor into a unique magazine which was then circulated around the contributors.
Astonishingly, this apparently exhausting format survived for more than half a century, the magazine finally closing in 1990 when there were just seven contributors left. Apart from the fact that the participants were all mothers, they came from diverse backgrounds and different parts of the British Isles.
As well as such themes as the joys and pain of childbirth, the stress and anxieties of war and the appeal of illicit sex – the story of a nearly-affair is threaded like a serial through the play – the women also shared their thoughts on the female orgasm, albeit in the context of an old wives’ tale.
The show, devised by the company and based on the original letters, is a powerful social document of an era when many intelligent women found that the expectations of them as homemakers left them bereft of intellectual stimulation. By turns it is sad, funny and moving.
Its success is greatly helped by the fluid staging, with a mobile set including a staircase on castors, and by the close integration of sung and instrumental music featuring harp, piano, violin and clarinet, performed by members of the six-strong cast.
Produced in partnership with the Courtyard, Hereford, this beautifully crafted piece is a real credit to West Midlands theatre.
Runs until Saturday, then touring, including Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury (May 11/12) and Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (May 19-21).
