The Beach House will premiere at Park Theatre having been shortlisted for Liverpool Hope Playwriting Prize. A tender new play that explores the fragility of female relationships as three women grapple with motherhood, sisterhood and distractions.
Conceived against an ever-changing coastal backdrop, Jo Harper’s play explores the crisis of becoming a parent, knotted bonds between two sisters and the endurance of familial and romantic love.
The cast comprises Gemma Barnett (Offie winner Best Actress for A Hundred Words for Snow) Kathryn Bond (Breach Theatre’s It’s True, It’s True, It’s True) and Gemma Lawrence (A Dead Body in Taos)
Moving out of the city to raise their baby, the old house by the sea is supposed to be a peaceful new start for Liv and Kate. But Liv, the stay-at-home mother, is a songwriter in crisis who’s too distracted to write, while Kate, who’s just had a baby, needs to go back to work to get some order back in her life. And then there’s Liv’s sister Jenny who, despite wanting to distance herself from her overbearing sibling, finds herself being drawn back to the beach house time and time again.
Writer Jo Harper said “I am thrilled to be bringing these three complex female protagonists to the stage with all their individual quirks and flaws. The play is inspired by my own experience of new motherhood, by women I know and by my ongoing fascination with female sexuality and relationships. At the heart of the play is an intense and rivalrous relationship between two sisters. A relationship I know from my own experience. I wanted to write a play about love between women that is challenging and complicated and enduring.”
