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.