sylvia plath’s three women

It was a sunny lockdown day, lounging in the garden, when I first discovered that Sylvia Plath wrote a play. That golden, broken summer which exists shimmering at the edges of our collective memory; a myriad of horrors, fears, grief and dazzling sunshine, a strange cocktail. I was mourning being away from university, away from the friends I loved, and the city I adored, and was seeking out anything that allowed me, for even half an hour, some escape to a different world. I can’t quite remember how it was that I found the link to CamFM, a student radio programme in Cambridge, and an online production of a play called Three Women. It was by Sylvia Plath. So far, all my boxes ticked. I put my headphones in, and listened.

I consider myself as belonging to that historical litany of girls who first picked up The Bell Jar, triumphantly, aged about fourteen, somehow already aware of the power of this novel to elicit some secret, feminine change towards understanding something greater. I had hungrily devoured other Plath works, especially her poetry, digging out as many recordings as I could find of her voice, marvelling at its depth, its resonance, despite her relatively young age. But I had never even heard of Three Women. I considered Plath a poet, a novelist. I did not realise she was also a playwright. 

Three Women has a relatively simple conceit. It is composed of three interweaving monologues, all pregnant women, all with very different perspectives. The first is happily expectant, excited with the promise of the child to come. The second has already suffered more than one miscarriage, and goes into hospital in the knowledge she has likely lost another child. The third is a student who has carried an unwanted pregnancy to full term, awaiting the moment she will give the baby up for adoption. Three perspectives on birth, on death, on bodily autonomy. The play is set in “A maternity ward, and round about.” The women never speak to one another, confined to their individual narratives, which play out side by side, over the course of around half an hour.

This production was delicate. The simplicity of the sound design allowed for the softness of the actors’ voices to carry all the weight. I became lost in the dance between characters, in the ways Plath’s poeticisms scatter imagery that connects them, breaks them apart, sews them together anew. By the time I reached the end, I felt incredibly moved, as sometimes only art which you had no idea even existed an hour beforehand, can do. When you arrive at something so quickly, and with no barriers of expectation raised in your way, it can simply wash over you, solidifying in your soul as something forever changed. 

This may sound hyperbolic. Maybe it was testament to that time, to being so hungry for things that broke through the monotony. Who can say if I would have had the same reaction if I had found it years before, or years later. All I know is I have never been able to shake the spell of it from my mind. And over the years this spell has woven, first into a daydream, and now into a determination to see this incredible play brought into the physicalised realm of theatrical performance. 

Fast forward four years, and I am able, with a heart full of excitement and, yes, some nervousness, to announce that lowdoor have been in discussion with the Plath estate, and have now been granted the rights to this phenomenal piece of work. This project has involved nearly a year of planning already, with the team and I discussing our options, and how best to ensure that it is given the platform and lifespan it deserves. We are awaiting a response from Arts Council England for funding to run a week long Research and Development later in the year, which will allow us vital time to excavate this work, and explore how we can best bring it to life. The play is deeply poetic, and has struggled in previous iterations to expand into the realms of a physicalised piece. Our aim is to free it of realism and release it into a landscape characterised by movement and music, elevating Plath’s breathtaking language and developing these three women into unique, individualised people. This is a play which has only appeared once before on the British stage, in 2009. It has so much more to give.

We will be posting regular updates on how the show is developing. We want to work alongside charities and organisations who are invested in supporting women who have experienced any of the issues that arise in the play. We want to draw attention to the so-called ‘Three Miscarriage Rule’ which does not allow for women to access medical or mental health support for early loss of pregnancy until they have had three miscarriages. We want to demonstrate the importance of access to options for young women to terminate unwanted pregnancies, especially in a time when there is a sense of uncertainty surrounding the preservation of these rights.

Art is able to change us. It is able to force a new outlook on the world. Plath’s piece, considered one of her first real forays into feminist writing, demonstrates the intensity of childbirth, and the grief and joy that go alongside it. It is a play that transcends its moment in time, which speaks to something truthful and engrained within us. It is a privilege to hold its future in our hands, even for just a little while, custodians of Plath’s brilliance, until the next iteration can come into being. This is the beauty of performance, it is never still, continually moving and expanding. But it is our fervent hope that our attempt will allow Three Women to blossom into public consciousness, to prove the potentiality of it as a piece for the stage, and to bring awareness to the issues it discusses. My favourite forms of art are both reflective, and expansive. Let us bring this work of the 60s into the present moment, ruffle its feathers a little, and float it downstream, catching the light, until the next hand finds it in the current.