It is important to inform any prospective audience members of 26 Cats Destroy the Patriarchy that the play’s title and marketing material are a little bit misleading. The friend who accompanied me to last night’s show was anticipating something more zany and irreverent, and was disappointed to discover that 26 Cats is a traditional kitchen-sink realist drama. Personally, I enjoy domestic drama, but must admit the cat-headed Kate Sheppard poster implies something a little more “radical”.

In some ways, this divide parallels one that plays out in the show itself, as a teenage daughter accuses her mother of abandoning radical feminist protest without realising that social justice can be enacted in more subtle ways.

Henrietta Bollinger’s script explores the relationship that three women of different generations have with feminism. Grandmother Joan has lived an unambitious but satisfied life as a wife and mother, despite dreaming of being an explorer as a young woman; her daughter Kate is a politician, whose youthful idealism has given way to a life as yet another bureaucrat keeping her head down; teenage granddaughter Emma is a recent feminist convert, mostly due to the influence of her older, cooler best friend Juliette.

Bollinger’s dialogue is witty and well-observed, particularly when it comes to communication and miscommunication across the generational divide. She approaches each of her characters with a great deal of empathy, and never permits them to fall into stereotypes; instead, the script shines in its specificity and detail, allowing each character to carry with her a sense of history and place.

Where the script could be developed further is in the plot. 26 Cats lacks a strong sense of narrative drive until the final moments of the play, and even then the stakes are informed rather than truly present. Multiple plot elements – Kate’s struggle to form a relationship with her daughter following her birth; Emma’s nascent romantic feelings for Juliette – go unresolved, and details that are important for the final scenes to have the dramatic impact they require are all introduced too close to the end of the play, rather than being teased out organically throughout.

Ultimately, the potential in Bollinger’s script is not fully realised by Zoe Higgins’ direction, which is mostly static; she could also have elicited more nuanced performances from some of her actors, particularly the actor playing Kate (unfortunately, I have been unable to find any programme or online material crediting the actors or designers) whose stiff delivery of many of her lines inhibits us from truly connecting with her emotional journey. The actor playing Joan, however, is a particular highlight, inhabiting her character with gravitas, warmth and moments of cheeky humour.

This is a play that would benefit from further work, and has within it great potential to be a moving family drama from an unapologetically woman-centred viewpoint. I hope that the production presented this Fringe season can be a foundation on which the production team can continue to build their show.

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