It’s easy to see why the National Theatre ranked it as one of the most significant plays of the twentieth century in 2000, and despite it being the most performed play ever written by a female playwright, Paul Robinson’s direction and Tara Finley’s production keeps it fresh. Margaret dies of stomach cancer, Rosie, on discovering that Jackie is her mother, is angry with her, and goes to live with Doris. It’s both a staging of deaf experience and a demonstration of how often our attempts to connect go awry. Her daughter, Margaret, vows never to have children, but soon finds herself juggling motherhood and work.

Cabot notes how “patterns of behaviour ripple down” the generations and this repetition of rebellious daughter against old-fashioned mother is captured perfectly by the company. During the clearing of a site for travellers Councillor Knox was seriously assaulted leaving him blind in one eye and with a punctured lung - both permanent injuries. Widely studied on drama syllabuses, the play moves back and forth through the lives of its characters as it sets the enormous social changes of this century against the needs of individual women.Abby Nicol played superbly the youngest member of the family, the daughter/sister whose life was filled with love and care but not with truth until the denouement of the play.

The play begins in the Wasteground, where the four girls play as contemporaries - Doris appears aged five, Rosie aged eight, and Jackie and Margaret aged nine. t is also about how the dierent generations brea ree rom their parents6 traditions and culture. However, rather than a play about women and men, this feels like more of a play about mothers and daughters. Rosie, who appears mostly as a child, was vivid and funny, if a little one-dimensional; Katie Brayden as Jackie had great presence and great control.Okay, so we’ll just remove sign language in education and make everyone talk and learn via listening and talking. It is actually not as confusing as it sounds, though you do have to keep your wits about you as this also coincides with the actors playing out their different ages which you can only estimate. Scenes move between the women at different ages and time periods, showing the impact of their choices and expectations on one another across decades. I sat at the back of Contact Theatre with Brigid Larmour, the wonderful director who first staged it, she’d assembled a great cast and team, yet we were all so nervous.