Drama

Characters: 2 male, 2 female

Exterior Set

This is a lovely play about the choices made by a woman and her daughter and their consequences. Jenny, a 38 year old pregnant career woman, returns to the home of her mother and step father whom she has not seen in twenty years. Ostensibly, she wants to know if she ever had German measles, but it soon becomes clear that her reasons for coming are more complex. She needs help from her mother of a sort which she is unprepared to give.

"Beneath the spare, truthful writing lurks a vast subtext. . . . A fine piece of writing." Time Out.

"Accurate, detailed, loving writing has created four real people, sensitive to the needs of others yet each, ultimately, with an instinct for self preservation." London Spectator.

"Louise Page's intimate, emotional dramas open up vast areas of feeling beneath the surface of ordinary lives" (Independent) Tissue: "The tissue of the title is a left breast and lymph node removed during Sally Bacon's mastectomy...Louise Page catalogues Sally's changing attitudes to what her mother calls her chest, her brother calls her tits and what she calls her bosoms." (Guardian); Salonika "There is in this strange and beautiful new play...a moment when the author crosses the boundaries of naturalism and the seaside sands of Salonika are literally parted and the dead past rises to life" (Guardian); Real Estate "Miss Page, by accurate, detailed, loving writing has created four real people, sensitive to the needs of others yet each, ultimately with an instinct for self-preservation. These are 'ordinary' people to whom nothing special happens. They become special, extraordinary because of the dignity their creator endows them with" (Spectator). Golden Girls: "Not only does this enthralling play take us into the world of women's athletics, it also raises any number of questions about the success ethic, the dubious role of sponsorship and the secondary status of nearly all women's sports." (Guardian)