Miran­da Har­court’s new one-woman play “Biog­ra­phy of My Skin” has just opened at Down­stage, and, crikey, it’s good. My co-the­atre-goer Kowhai and I have spent a bit of time since dis­cussing its impact on us.

The premise of “Biog­ra­phy of my Skin” is that it’s a one-woman bio­graph­i­cal play writ­ten for actress Miran­da Har­court by her hus­band, Stu­art McKen­zie. So she’s telling her sto­ry, but in her hus­band’s words. Clever, huh?

There are dif­fer­ent lev­els of Miran­da and Stu­art, as they become char­ac­ters in the play, as well the the peo­ple behind the pro­duc­tion.

The sto­ry focus­es on Miran­da’s life, jump­ing all around from child­hood to her present life as a wife, moth­er, daugh­ter and actor.

While it is a one-woman play, Miran­da isn’t alone on stage. Behind her is a giant screen, where pre­re­cord­ed clips of friends and fam­i­ly inter­act with her. They phys­i­cal­ly dom­i­nate her, but she argues with them or has per­son­al chats.

She recounts hilar­i­ous tales of old boyfriends, her $4‑a-metre wed­ding dress, the infa­mous “Gloss” par­ty in the ’80s, but the sto­ry also goes into some deep, seri­ous places. The play delves into some of the hor­ri­ble expe­ri­ences that have hap­pened in her life — the kind of things that most of us would only share with those clos­est. And she’s an actress talk­ing about a painful mem­o­ry in her real life, and we as an audi­ence know she’s speak­ing the words her hus­band wrote. Oh, there is ten­sion.

The voice of Stu­art, the hus­band and writer, comes through. Often he’s annoyed or frus­trat­ed with her, whether its his long-time crush on her before they were a cou­ple, or that she could­n’t dri­ve, leav­ing him to fer­ry around their young fam­i­ly.

Miran­da comes across as a com­pli­cat­ed woman, in a com­pli­cat­ed mar­riage, which has man­aged to sur­vive through hard work.

I remem­ber some “Sex and the City” episode where it was decid­ed that men did­n’t usu­al­ly like com­pli­cat­ed women, and so love was hard­er for those com­plex ladies. But Miran­da and Stu­ar­t’s rela­tion­ship and mar­riage in the play gives hope to com­pli­cat­ed girls. If two peo­ple involved in the arts bub­ble, with all its uncer­tain­ly and ten­sion, can make it work, then per­haps there is hope for the rest of us.

It is a clever, brave, fun­ny and thrilling play. Superbly writ­ten by McKen­zie (I loved the clever twists and sur­pris­es), and superbly act­ed by Har­court. Ka pai.