Our Mothers’ Daughters by Sarah Tara Ray at The Hen and Chickens Theatre 26-30 May 2026
“On that note: love, love, love!” ★★ ½
Sarah Tara Ray’s debut play challenges relationships that are affected by abortion in a freshly uncensored way, though unfortunately lacks the realistic dialogue, character development, and structure to string it all together.
Our Mothers’ Daughters focuses on an otherwise unnamed character, The Artist, and the friends and family who make up the inner circle of her life. The characters are initially given tropes that are well-suited to the casting (the one who uses humour to mask her worry, the young naïve one, etc), and the play makes clear straight away the existing depth of their relationships. It’s the nature of these friendships that Ray captures particularly well; there are plenty of inside jokes that the audience are let into just enough to find funny, all while building our understanding of the women’s relationships.
As the play progresses, LGBTQ+ relationships are challenged around the theme of abortion, showing one character in a particularly difficult situation; this moment falls well in the first half of the play. However, despite multiple surprise revelations such as this sprinkled throughout both halves, the play lacks an overall climax, and the structure of the second half in particular fails to lead towards any particular moment. On reflection, this left me expecting the play to end at various points towards the end of the second half.
Although poetic at times, the dialogue ultimately fails to develop any character beyond the version we are introduced to at the start of the play. The poetic metaphors are individually well-written, but do not fall naturally in the context of the scenes. They are used interchangeably between all the characters, thereby blending their speaking styles and personalities into one, causing them to lose collective value, and binding the characters to the two-dimensional attributes they are assigned in their first scenes. The soliloquy from The Artist in the second half gets away from this and shows the emotional core of the play’s message – though brief, this is an excellent scene.
Ray aligns the plot with political references to reproductive rights but turns scenes into lectures; although this puts the setting into a wider context, it disrupts the direction of the scene.
The play is generally well-cast, with Sophie (Andi Bickers) and Emma (Ellen Pallant) giving particularly good performances. The character of Billy (Sarah Tara Ray), though played well, is granted the least development of the characters, and fluctuates between reflecting on the same thoughts throughout the play, and giving one-liners that undercut the nature of the scenes. However, the concept of Billy’s character remains important; she plays a crucial role in negotiating change amongst her friends, and also asks the important question; can you be upset about change which doesn’t affect you?
Ray is using a portion of the profits made to donate to Abortion Talk, a charity which challenges abortion stigma, and also provides information on reproductive health within the programmes. I must stress that this is a well-cast show with an excellent and important concept, but currently lacks the foundation to make an impression.
Our Mothers’ Daughters plays at the Hen and Chicken’s Theatre until 30 May 2026.
Writer: Sarah Tara Ray
Director: Hanna Berrigan
Photography credit to Luke Martin
