Githa (York)

It is not difficult to understand the success at last year’s Edinburgh Festival of writer/performer Hannah Davies’ one-woman play, Githa, directed by Peter Darney for the Flanagan Collective. Running at little more than an hour on a bare stage, with only a chair and a chest for furniture and minimal props, it’s simple, stylish and intelligently done. Away from festival time, it also comes over as rather slight, though, in the Theatre Royal’s enterprising programming, it provides a perfect complement to Githa Sowerby’s Rutherford and Son, running simultaneously in the main theatre.

Davies’ text picks up the life of Githa Sowerby at the point where she and her sister Millicent have moved to London and are breaking through as writer and illustrator of children’s books. Her triumph with Rutherford and Son is followed by marriage and the neglect of her next major play and Githa ends with her pregnancy and the implication (not strictly true) that imminent maternity spells the end of her literary career.

The play is well-researched and offers a convincing portrait of Sowerby, but without exploring the vexed question of why her career as a playwright stalled so soon after she had been hailed as a genius. Hannah Davies conveys well the mixture of poise and shyness, the skilled observation and the sly wit, but Githa Sowerby remains elusive. Davies’ instant, sharply understated characterisations of her sisters, her husband and assorted businessmen and men of the theatre are skilfully and amusingly done.

Githa continues at York Theatre Royal until 1 June. For further information visit www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk