This was beautiful, smart, and heartbreaking.
This play reminded me a bit of “The Lost Daughter” (yes I know it was originally a book, but I’ve only seen the movie) with the themes of motherhood, loss of identity, and the journey of forgiveness.
The dialogue is intelligent and effective, but the monologues given straight to the audience are somewhat of an overused device - both in this play, and generally contemporary theatre at large. They definitely make the mistake of “telling” instead of “showing.” I suppose, however, that there’s a way of staging them that makes them more engaging for an audience, maybe by actually showing the Girl in the Yellow Bikini just as Juliana sees her, and then using some good-old-theatre-magic technical elements to make her disappear and pop up in cool ways.
A deeply moving and tragic memory play. The scattered memories that play out in a Glass Menagerie fashion, and the tragic hero arc of the protagonist Juliana both feel SO deeply rooted in the theatre tradition that it really just *has* to be a good play, but is missing a little bit of that special-unconventional something for it to be really be a standout in its genre.