What would you do if you found Kate Shep­pard in your bed?

I’ll be hon­est, I don’t really know, but Mod­ern Girls in Bed attempts to find out.

Ally (Maria Wil­li­ams) and Petra (Isad­ora Lao) are two young women hold­ing their own Bed-In togeth­er, not for Peace, but to improve the drear­i­ness of their lives. They intend to stay in bed forever – or at least until their lives get less shit.

How­ever, as they stage their protest, Ally’s his­tory books come to life, trans­port­ing five trail­blaz­ing wāhine from Aotearoa’s his­tory into their bed and into their mod­ern lives. Kate Shep­pard (Amy Tar­leton), Kath­er­ine Mans­field (Alex Lodge), Helen Hitch­ings (Renée Sherid­an), Heni Pore (Bron­wyn Turei) and Akenehi Hei (Maia Dia­mond) have their own anec­dotes and wis­dom to impart, but find that their com­ments – des­pite com­ing from pion­eer­ing women of Kiwi his­tory – jar with the ideals that mod­ern women hold true.

How does Kate Shep­pard see Jacinda Ardern’s life as the Prime Min­is­ter and a moth­er?

(Oth­er such ques­tions are also asked.)

The second act opens by turn­ing the entire concept on its head. In lieu of dreaded spoil­ers, I won’t delve too much into how exactly that hap­pens, but the act itself is a poignant coda to the wild energy and man­i­cism of the first half. The Bed-In – and the women of his­tory – become more than just a simple protest against life’s little issues, and grow into sym­bols of one woman’s inab­il­ity to come to terms with her grief.

It’s a unique and power­ful premise if I’ve ever seen one.

One does won­der if the fre­quent (and some­what grat­ing) col­lo­qui­al use of the word ‘actu­ally’ in Ally and Pet­ra’s speech – pre­sum­ably to mim­ic the way young people talk (or maybe even sat­ir­ise it) – is entirely neces­sary, but it hardly detracts from the strength of the piece after a while and is quickly skimmed over.

Mod­ern Girls in Bed is a won­der­ful tale of sis­ter­hood, strength and sad­ness. While it is not exactly what you’d expect from the onset – and fre­quently has moments that don’t quite make coher­ent sense – it’s an intensely strong script per­formed by just as strong act­ors and abso­lutely should be seen while you can.

Mod­ern Girls in Bed is being per­formed at Circa Theatre from now until the 22nd of Septem­ber 2018. Vis­it Cir­ca’s web­site for more details.