Theatre: The Sistren (4 Stars)

I saw this play in the Arena Theatre in Wolverhampton today. It was performed by a touring company, but they're based in Wolverhampton, so they were on their home ground.

The premise of the story is that when a woman is in a time of great distress and needs guidance a committee of three women is sent to her from the afterlife. These three women examine the circumstances, and after coming to a unanimous decision they influence the woman to make her take the right path. In the play we only see the three ghosts meeting in the woman's kitchen. They are all famous women from English history: Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), Emma Lloyd-Sproson (1867-1936) and Claudia Jones (1915-1964). The central character, the woman in need of aid, is off-screen throughout the play. We aren't given concrete information about her, but we can piece together her circumstances from the conversation of the three ghosts.

• She is in her 30's, single without children.
• She is black.
• She works as a nanny looking after the two children of a working mother.
• She is an intelligent woman who is well read in feminist literature.
• She has been the victim of a sexual assault.

The decision she has to take is whether to speak out about the assault or remain quiet. While this might seem an easy decision for the three eminent feminists from the past to reach, they get involved in arguments with one another about differences in their own backgrounds.

Mary Wollstonecraft is often considered to be the founder of modern feminism. She campaigned for the right of girls to be educated. Interestingly, her daughter was Mary Shelley, who is now remembered as a famous author.

Emma Lloyd-Sproson was originally a member of the suffragette movement, but she later distanced herself from it because she considered it to be an organisation of middle-class women with too much time on their hands. She went on to become the first female counsellor in Wolverhampton.

Claudia Jones was born in Trinidad. She moved to America, where she became a prominent member of the American Communist Party. After being deported she moved to England, where she fought for the rights of black people. She was buried next to her hero Karl Marx in London.

The play deals with feminist issues, but is interspersed with comedy. For instance, the unseen woman is criticised for the disorder in her kitchen, leading to discussions of the dilemma of a woman having to do a full time job and still keep her house tidy. The three ghosts argue over their different political and social perspectives. For instance, Claudia is criticised by the other two for being more concerned about helping black women than women in general. Throughout the play Mary seems to be the least feminist of the three, if that's the right way to describe it.

My thoughts: I was rather surprised, after reading about the play, that it turned out to be a comedy. I laughed at the jokes, but maybe the over-abundance of humour obscured the important issues. As a person who is strongly in favour of promoting women's rights, it seemed to me that the comedy detracted from the feminist message, if indeed feminism was intended to be the central message. The political stance seemed to be just as important as feminism, as shown by the fact that on the two occasions Margaret Thatcher was mentioned it was disparagingly. Mary Wollstonecraft, the only one of the three women that I previously knew much about, came across as the weakest of the three characters, suffering from OCD. Was this deliberate? I would be interested in hearing the thoughts of the authoress, Therese Collins, who also played the part of Emma.

Summing up: a good play, but not perfect.