Children is what is missing from all three sisters but this play is concerned with their memories of the past of their childhoods and how those memories diverge.  Catherine has brought a supply of cannabis and sharing it, they develop an air of bonhomie.

It is a play about regrets and nostalgia, and about their abrasive mother who might be the reason for their childlessness.  Vi pretended that her marriage was perfect but the daughters remember otherwise.  There is much to laugh at in Shelagh Stephenson’s play.  One daughter says,  “That Vi dyed her hair red and afterwards dogs ran away from her in the street!”

Does every family have a tin box with secrets inside it?  Mary is looking for the tin with chrysanthemums on it, a Pandora’s box, the contents of which I shall not reveal.  Catherine talks about her therapist and the succession of Javiers.  Teresa has too much to drink and accuses Frank of having an affair. 

Stephenson’s play is a study of sisterly rivalries and inconsistencies of memory with underlying sadness and poignancy.  The acting performances are excellent we feel for Laura Rogers’ disappointed Mary, recognise Adam James’ disappointing, ambivalent Mike, Carolina Main’s rootless Catherine and eldest sister, Theresa (Lucy Black)’s displaced mothering and rivalry with Mary.

I found Anna Reid’s wide bedroom set rather distancing, not helped by the covid spaced audience also giving a feeling of emptiness and remoteness.  Also the mirrored panels are not glass but mirror plastic and started to bend and give distorted reflections which might have been intentional along the lines of distorted memory, or maybe accidental, but I found them distracting. Hampstead will be thankfully back to full capacity audiences on 27th September. 

Alice Hamilton, the director recalls her own mother acting in this oft produced play in an amdram production.  Mary asks, “Who are you if they take your memories away?”