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Woman in Mind
By turns sad and funny, satiric and moving, Alan Ayckbourn's intelligent British comedy Woman in Mind charts, without sentimentality or heartless irony, a frowsy middle-aged Englishwoman's hopeless descent into psychosis.
130 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Alan Ayckbourn
181 books45 followersSir Alan Ayckbourn is a popular and prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their first performance. More than 40 have subsequently been produced in the West End, at the Royal National Theatre or by the Royal Shakespeare Company since his first hit Relatively Speaking opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in 1967. Major successes include Absurd Person Singular (1975), The Norman Conquests trilogy (1973), Bedroom Farce (1975), Just Between Ourselves (1976), A Chorus of Disapproval (1984), Woman in Mind (1985), A Small Family Business (1987), Man Of The Moment (1988), House & Garden (1999) and Private Fears in Public Places (2004). His plays have won numerous awards, including seven London Evening Standard Awards. They have been translated into over 35 languages and are performed on stage and television throughout the world. Ten of his plays have been staged on Broadway, attracting two Tony nominations, and one Tony award.
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January 14, 2021
Woman in Mind is a powerful study of a woman on the edge of insanity. Told mostly as a monologue, the action depicts her increasingly delusional behaviour and gradual breakdown into a psychotic state. The reasons for her behaviour become evident as the play progresses. She is clearly neglected emotionally. Her husband, a vicar, has long lost any interest in his wife, concentrating instead on the book he is writing about the history of his Parish. He also pays particular attention to his sister Muriel, a dreary self-centred character - who nevertheless proves welcome light relief, by being exceptionally bad at cooking the family's meals. Susan's son, Rick, is now estranged, since joining a cult which forbids communication with his parents. The only person who shows any interest in or compassion for Susan, is their family doctor, Bill Windsor.
These are the actual characters who drift in and out of the play, which is set in Susan's beautiful and vast imaginary garden. But in this fantasy world of hers, there are three other, much more preferable, characters.
Andy is Susan's imaginary husband. He is handsome, and devoted to her, a master chef. In fact he is a perfect husband in every way, and the opposite to Gerald. Susan imagines that she has a mischievous younger brother, Tony, and also an imaginary daughter, Lucy. Lucy is beautiful and very close to her mother, sharing all her secrets, and using Susan as her confidante. Watching Susan's reactions to these perfect embodiments of her wish fulfilment, is a very poignant experience.
The play begins by Bill talking gibberish to Susan, and only gradually do we realise that this is how Susan's brain is processing what she hears. "Woman in Mind", the title, indicates that Susan lives in her mind.
Early parts of the play are written so that it is clear where the boundary lies, but by the end there is confusion between Susan's fantasy world and reality. The action escalates, becoming more and more surreal and absurd in typical Ayckbourn fashion. Susan seems increasingly to be living in an incomprehensible nightmare, as parts of her real life are twisted horrifically and mixed up with nonsensical episodes.
The play's very final moments make reality crystal clear.
Alan Ayckbourn's many earlier plays are nearly all characterised by a bitter, almost savage, black humour. This one represents a startling change of direction, with events being shown by an unreliable viewpoint character, rather than the audience watching other viewpoints of the characters surrounding her. It is an unconventional play, and unusual for Ayckbourn. It has been conjectured that the stimulus for it might partly lie in his mother's earlier mental breakdown, plus the fact that at the time of writing it, the author's own son, although not estranged, was part of a community in California.
Woman in Mind was first produced at the author's home town theatre in Scarborough in 1985, where he was the Artistic Director. It was the 32nd play of his to premiere there. It then transferred to London's West End the next year, which is where I saw it. The main character, Susan, was played by Pauline Collins, her husband, Gerald, by Michael Jayston, and the solicitous and kindly Bill, by Ralph Bates. Susan's garden and beyond, where all the action takes place, was a stunningly beautiful set which earned a round of applause all for itself!
Ayckbourn often stipulates a split set for his plays, with the action taking place on different parts of the stage, each section representing a different time, place, or group of characters, sometimes even playing simultaneously.
The reality is that Susan and Gerald have a tiny back garden. But most of the play takes place in "the woman's mind" ie in Susan's imagination. Hence the audience's view is that the same piece of grass becomes a small part of an imaginary vast estate. There are trees, lakes and a tennis court all within easy reach. The author directed that the two worlds be differentiated through changes in sound and lighting, and the transition from one to another is indicated by the characters' speech. Ayckbourn initially intended the play to be viewed in the round, and from what he has later said, he maintains that Susan's viewpoint is better able to be conveyed that way. Interestingly also, the author initially wrote the viewpoint character as a male, but changed this is as he wrote more, partly in case the audience might think there was an autobiographical component.
Although atypical, Woman in Mind, December Bee is a play which stays in the mind, as a searingly honest depiction of one woman's descent into madness. By the end, Susan cannot tell what is real and what is imaginary and neither can we, until the final flash.
It feels very authentic, is exceptionally moving, and I personally think it is one of Alan Ayckbourn's best plays.
These are the actual characters who drift in and out of the play, which is set in Susan's beautiful and vast imaginary garden. But in this fantasy world of hers, there are three other, much more preferable, characters.
Andy is Susan's imaginary husband. He is handsome, and devoted to her, a master chef. In fact he is a perfect husband in every way, and the opposite to Gerald. Susan imagines that she has a mischievous younger brother, Tony, and also an imaginary daughter, Lucy. Lucy is beautiful and very close to her mother, sharing all her secrets, and using Susan as her confidante. Watching Susan's reactions to these perfect embodiments of her wish fulfilment, is a very poignant experience.
The play begins by Bill talking gibberish to Susan, and only gradually do we realise that this is how Susan's brain is processing what she hears. "Woman in Mind", the title, indicates that Susan lives in her mind.
Early parts of the play are written so that it is clear where the boundary lies, but by the end there is confusion between Susan's fantasy world and reality. The action escalates, becoming more and more surreal and absurd in typical Ayckbourn fashion. Susan seems increasingly to be living in an incomprehensible nightmare, as parts of her real life are twisted horrifically and mixed up with nonsensical episodes.
The play's very final moments make reality crystal clear.
Alan Ayckbourn's many earlier plays are nearly all characterised by a bitter, almost savage, black humour. This one represents a startling change of direction, with events being shown by an unreliable viewpoint character, rather than the audience watching other viewpoints of the characters surrounding her. It is an unconventional play, and unusual for Ayckbourn. It has been conjectured that the stimulus for it might partly lie in his mother's earlier mental breakdown, plus the fact that at the time of writing it, the author's own son, although not estranged, was part of a community in California.
Woman in Mind was first produced at the author's home town theatre in Scarborough in 1985, where he was the Artistic Director. It was the 32nd play of his to premiere there. It then transferred to London's West End the next year, which is where I saw it. The main character, Susan, was played by Pauline Collins, her husband, Gerald, by Michael Jayston, and the solicitous and kindly Bill, by Ralph Bates. Susan's garden and beyond, where all the action takes place, was a stunningly beautiful set which earned a round of applause all for itself!
Ayckbourn often stipulates a split set for his plays, with the action taking place on different parts of the stage, each section representing a different time, place, or group of characters, sometimes even playing simultaneously.
The reality is that Susan and Gerald have a tiny back garden. But most of the play takes place in "the woman's mind" ie in Susan's imagination. Hence the audience's view is that the same piece of grass becomes a small part of an imaginary vast estate. There are trees, lakes and a tennis court all within easy reach. The author directed that the two worlds be differentiated through changes in sound and lighting, and the transition from one to another is indicated by the characters' speech. Ayckbourn initially intended the play to be viewed in the round, and from what he has later said, he maintains that Susan's viewpoint is better able to be conveyed that way. Interestingly also, the author initially wrote the viewpoint character as a male, but changed this is as he wrote more, partly in case the audience might think there was an autobiographical component.
Although atypical, Woman in Mind, December Bee is a play which stays in the mind, as a searingly honest depiction of one woman's descent into madness. By the end, Susan cannot tell what is real and what is imaginary and neither can we, until the final flash.
It feels very authentic, is exceptionally moving, and I personally think it is one of Alan Ayckbourn's best plays.
June 8, 2013
Conked on the head with a rake, Susan awakens to find her doctor kneeling next to her, speaking a language she can't understand: "Score grounds appeal cumquat doggy Martha hat sick on the bed." Neither can we, for that matter, for Ayckbourn's proclaimed goal in writing Woman in Mind was "to write a first-person narrative, a play seen like a film through the lens of a hand-held camera." The result being that in a very real sense we are as trapped as Susan is in her mind, able to perceive only what Susan perceives. So that when the doctor says, "Susan, Susan. I speak English," we, like Susan, only hear "Choose 'un, choose 'un. Pea squeak Jinglish."
Luckily, this annoyingly Joycean symptom clears quickly, only to be replaced by a second more persistent one: Susan begins to have periodic hallucinations, which we also see. Married to a stodgy, selfish, and bullying vicar named Gerald, she dreams she has another younger, wealthier, more handsome husband named Andy. And instead of having a "cranky" son (who belongs to a weird religious cult that won't let him speak to his parents) Susan believes she has a delightful, dutiful daughter who cares about Susan's well-being almost as much as Andy.
Similarly, her small suburban home, with its tiny garden and restricted horizons, becomes in her mind's eye a large country estate complete with tennis courts, a large lake, and an impressive front gate ten miles from the manor house. Her hallucinations are clearly wish fulfillment of a sort for a woman who has lived too long a life she hates.
So strong is her distaste for her life that when her doctor tries to deny the reality of her hallucinations by telling her what he sees around them--the small garden, the simple suburban house--she comments sadly, "You're describing someplace I wouldn't choose to live in, even in my wildest nightmares." The point, of course, is that Susan never chose what kind of life she wanted to live, she just let it happen to her.
In time Susan's hallucinations diminish in intensity, and Susan reenters--partially at least--the real world, only to find it as bitterly disappointing as before. Her Gerald remains as pedantic as ever, spending all his free time grinding out a mere 60-page history of his parish since 1386. "Actually," Susan snaps, "Gerald's been working on it since 1386." Later she adds, in a moment of lucidity, "When I think what he and I could have achieved with our lives if he hadn't insisted on discussing everything first."
She finds no solace in her widowed sister-in-law, Muriel, a harsh and unsympathetic woman who resents having to do housework while Susan is ill. Muriel has perfected the passive- aggressive art of botching simple meals; her omelettes aux fine herbes, featuring Earl Grey tea, send everyone running for the bathroom. And when Susan's son Rick returns with news that he has left the cult, has married a woman he's embarrassed to bring home, and will soon be off to live in Thailand with her, the pressure proves too much.
The hallucinations, which had never completely gone away, return with a vengeance. One of the figments of Susan's imagination--her dream brother Tony--seems to have killed the neighbor's dog and threatens to do the same to Gerald.
As the hallucinations turn from charming to frightening, Ayckbourn makes clear that he has no interest in repeating the patronizing and trite argument from Man of La Mancha--that perhaps Susan is happier with her illusions. Susan's hallucinations are dangerous compensation for a life of quiet desperation--especially when we see how terrified and alone she really is once her hallucinated world has swallowed her whole: "Oh, God! Where am I? Where have I gone?"
Luckily, this annoyingly Joycean symptom clears quickly, only to be replaced by a second more persistent one: Susan begins to have periodic hallucinations, which we also see. Married to a stodgy, selfish, and bullying vicar named Gerald, she dreams she has another younger, wealthier, more handsome husband named Andy. And instead of having a "cranky" son (who belongs to a weird religious cult that won't let him speak to his parents) Susan believes she has a delightful, dutiful daughter who cares about Susan's well-being almost as much as Andy.
Similarly, her small suburban home, with its tiny garden and restricted horizons, becomes in her mind's eye a large country estate complete with tennis courts, a large lake, and an impressive front gate ten miles from the manor house. Her hallucinations are clearly wish fulfillment of a sort for a woman who has lived too long a life she hates.
So strong is her distaste for her life that when her doctor tries to deny the reality of her hallucinations by telling her what he sees around them--the small garden, the simple suburban house--she comments sadly, "You're describing someplace I wouldn't choose to live in, even in my wildest nightmares." The point, of course, is that Susan never chose what kind of life she wanted to live, she just let it happen to her.
In time Susan's hallucinations diminish in intensity, and Susan reenters--partially at least--the real world, only to find it as bitterly disappointing as before. Her Gerald remains as pedantic as ever, spending all his free time grinding out a mere 60-page history of his parish since 1386. "Actually," Susan snaps, "Gerald's been working on it since 1386." Later she adds, in a moment of lucidity, "When I think what he and I could have achieved with our lives if he hadn't insisted on discussing everything first."
She finds no solace in her widowed sister-in-law, Muriel, a harsh and unsympathetic woman who resents having to do housework while Susan is ill. Muriel has perfected the passive- aggressive art of botching simple meals; her omelettes aux fine herbes, featuring Earl Grey tea, send everyone running for the bathroom. And when Susan's son Rick returns with news that he has left the cult, has married a woman he's embarrassed to bring home, and will soon be off to live in Thailand with her, the pressure proves too much.
The hallucinations, which had never completely gone away, return with a vengeance. One of the figments of Susan's imagination--her dream brother Tony--seems to have killed the neighbor's dog and threatens to do the same to Gerald.
As the hallucinations turn from charming to frightening, Ayckbourn makes clear that he has no interest in repeating the patronizing and trite argument from Man of La Mancha--that perhaps Susan is happier with her illusions. Susan's hallucinations are dangerous compensation for a life of quiet desperation--especially when we see how terrified and alone she really is once her hallucinated world has swallowed her whole: "Oh, God! Where am I? Where have I gone?"
January 17, 2014
From BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Drama:
Susan is a middle-aged woman, trapped in a loveless marriage to a smug vicar, and estranged from her son. After a minor accident with a garden rake, her mind starts to conjure up the perfect fantasy family. But the line between imagination and reality soon becomes alarmingly blurred.
Susan is a middle-aged woman, trapped in a loveless marriage to a smug vicar, and estranged from her son. After a minor accident with a garden rake, her mind starts to conjure up the perfect fantasy family. But the line between imagination and reality soon becomes alarmingly blurred.
August 28, 2022
if you are to read this book, i recommend to read it with a british accent in your mind. it makes the experience most enjoyable.
March 27, 2020
After accidentally knocking herself in the head with a rake, Susan awakens to a doctor speaking gibberish over her. As she slowly regains understanding, it becomes clear there is still something unsettling wrong.
A very interesting read and probably an even more compelling show to see.
A very interesting read and probably an even more compelling show to see.
March 18, 2014
Do I really have to do term paper working on this play?? Goshh-_-||
February 18, 2017
Susan's self-importance drives her to reconstruct another family who live and care her. However, this just sinks her deeper into the quagmire of desperation. When the reality is getting harsher and more brutal than she could swallow, she plunges into the virtual would for solace. Nonetheless, the reconstructed family isn't a pillar which she could rely on, she is thrown either into the chasm of ignorance or briefly onto the summit of honour. Eventually, she lost her sense of self which she usually reaffirmed though other's admiration and recognition. Susan collapses into a state of utter confusion as she found that people around never remember her, let alone love her. Thus the life becomes so pointless meaningless that she could see but darkness ahead.
September 8, 2024
Susan hits her head and is hallucinating. It bounces back and forth between the real world and her dreams… or does it? Her real family doesn’t appreciate her, and she doesn’t care for them anymore. Her fake family adores her and is overly protective of her. There’s a darker tone with the fake family as the show goes on. Kinda reminds me of the Haunting of Hill House or maybe something we’d see in Doctor Who. The play is a subjective viewpoint from Susan, and what we see and hear is what she sees and hears. There’s some creativity with the design because of that.
Interesting and a little freaky. It dips between funny moments to making you a bit unsettled
Interesting and a little freaky. It dips between funny moments to making you a bit unsettled
September 17, 2023
Dit stuk over een teleurgestelde huisvrouw en moeder is sterk opgebouwd en toch onvoorspelbaar, verrassend. Ayckbourn paart lichtheid en humor met wrange bitterheid en ontroering. De psychose wordt zo getekend dat ze simultaan zowel hilarisch grappig is én schrijnend herkenbaar, emotioneel pakkend.
December 13, 2020
Very well written play with a complex exciting role for actresses
August 16, 2022
I think this play could deff still be performed today, depressingly still relevant. Also I really enjoyed the dream sequence at the end felt very real for a dream?
November 22, 2023
December Bee 🎄🐝
January 3, 2026
Look, horror and comedy run on a lot of the same beats! This worked really well. I went in largely expecting Ayckbourn shenanigans and sure there was some of that but also this was really stressful!
July 27, 2021
do always enjoy any media with the premise of a slow descent into slight madness. short n engaging. dissatisfaction with suburban life? just hallucinate up a better family!
July 26, 2011
Dark, powerfull, brilliantly acted. I have seen the play twice, once as an amateur production and once a professional, directed by Ayckbourn himself. Both versions were well acted and the depth of the play came though strongly. The character of Susan is particularly important, played by Dorothy Norris and Janie Dee respectively, well done ladies.
The play is subtitled - December Bee.
April 2, 2020
pooled ink Reviews:
Ayckbourn is quite clever. I enjoyed this play and how it made you feel guilty for laughing because although on the surface everything was quite hilarious deeper down it was incredibly sad.
Read my review here: http://pooledink.com/2015/07/11/woman...
Ayckbourn is quite clever. I enjoyed this play and how it made you feel guilty for laughing because although on the surface everything was quite hilarious deeper down it was incredibly sad.
Read my review here: http://pooledink.com/2015/07/11/woman...
December 11, 2014
Brilliant, funny and sad
June 26, 2015
Has Alan Ayckbourn ever written a really significant play? Don't think so, but he does write engaging baubles, and this is one of his better baubles. Worth enjoying, but maybe not worth studying.
June 27, 2017
I really enjoyed this show and I kept guessing all over the place.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews