'Not Your Superwoman' review — Letitia Wright and Golda Rosheuvel star in a touching new play

Read our review of Not Your Superwoman, now in performances at the Bush Theatre to 1 November.

Summary

• Black Panther star Letitia Wright and Bridgerton's Golda Rousheuvel star in Lynette Linton's final show at the Bush Theatre
• Emma Dennis-Edwards’s play explores the complex relationship between generations of mothers and daughters
• The title Not Your Superwoman refers to the pressure on Black women to be superhuman

It’s a star-studded cast for Not Your Superwoman, Lynette Linton’s final production as artistic director of the Bush Theatre. Black Panther’s Letitia Wright and star of Bridgerton and spinoff series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, Golda Rosheuvel, appear in this powerfully raw two-hander about mothers, expectations, and resilience.

Joyce and her daughter Erica meet at an airport, travelling to Guyana to scatter Joyce’s mother’s ashes. It’s clear that there’s an uncomfortable atmosphere between the pair; a forced politeness, a disconnection. As they navigate their mutual grief and connections with their past, Erica is faced with a seismic event regarding her own future. The pair must confront issues within their own relationship and decide how they can deal with both the past and the future; together and apart.

Emma Dennis-Edwards’s script is perceptive, touching and often very funny. She exposes the origins of the tensions between the pair through natural dialogue, asides to the audience and flashbacks of events and conversations with their matriarch Elaine. These reveal parallels and echoes between the past and the present, demonstrating that the characters’ own perspectives always dominate.

Rosheuvel gives Joyce an almost haughty air; an executive assistant who is used to luxury travel, but still steals the wine glass from the business class flight. A mother who doesn’t know how to pronounce her future son-in-law’s name or even what her daughter’s job really is. She gives real depth to the role as we begin to understand from where her detachment originates.

Wright is wonderful as Erica, full of self-analysis and spiky anger. She fails to see Joyce’s own pain, only her failures. Wright’s bitterness is palpable in the contrast between her closeness to her late grandmother and the distance from her mother. Both actors hold the audience with rapt attention, with totally convincing chemistry. The only chink occurs when the pair take it turns to become matriarch Elaine, where there is not quite enough consistency between the way each performs the role.

There is historical trauma on both sides; through Joyce we learn about her miscarriage and a violent episode as a child. Erica feels rejected by Joyce, who was always working and never fully present in her childhood. They are polar opposites in how they handle this: Joyce tries to repress and progress, while Erica is attempting to work through things with therapy-speak.

The title, Not Your Superwoman, refers to the pressure on women to be superhuman, specifically Black women, who are often given the trope of being ‘strong’. Dennis-Edwards highlights how this resilience and unspoken pressure reverberate through the generations. It’s an important message, but one that shines no positivity on men whatsoever.

Three chairs form the only props, relying on Gino Ricardo Green’s creative video design. This makes intelligent use of projections to portray the multitude of locations around Guyana, and also the tiles in Elaine’s kitchen and the wallpaper from Erica’s childhood home. Shadows sometimes appear, as though ghosts from the past, all complimented by Jai Morjaria’s evocative lighting and Max Pappenheim’s gentle soundtrack.

Linton has done vital and significant work at the Bush and will be sorely missed. Not Your Superwoman is a suitably rich, poignant, and very human farewell.

Not Your Superwoman is at the Bush Theatre to 1 November. Book Not Your Superwoman tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: Not Your Superwoman (Photos by Richard Lakos)