Cordelia Lynn’s dreamlike, folklore-inflected but oddly bourgeois play about a house of women by the sea defies easy interpretation. Is it a study of loss – involving both grief and dementia – or a playful suggestion of how a collective, matriarchal society might work?
Maybe it’s neither. Or both. Maybe I’m like Mark (Tom Mothersdale) who blunders into the house and tries to assert his authority by mansplaining and taking over the cooking. Though the atmosphere and the largely subdued, natural performances in James Macdonald’s production have a lulling, hypnotic effect, this is an aimless, shapeless piece of work. Lynn asks the audience to work too hard, and to accept some fatuous gimmicks along the way.
