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.