Woman in Mind - History and Influences

History and Influences

Woman in Mind was the last play written by Ayckbourn before his two-year sabbatical at the Royal National Theatre. Most of it was written while Ayckbourn was on holiday in the Virgin Islands. Influences for the play include the film Dead On Arrival in which the narrator is revealed to be dead at the climax. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks is also said to be an influence. There were also similarities to Just Between Ourselves, which also followed a woman, Vera, breaking down with neglect. But unlike Just Between Ourselves, where the audience sees the breakdown from the point of view of those surrounding Vera, in this play, everything was shown from the point of the view of the increasingly deluded Susan.

Another theme was Susan's relationship to her son who joined a cult that forbids communication with parents, in what play critic Michael Billington considered to be an attack on organised religion. In his words, the play "not only about an emotionally neglected middle-aged woman’s descent into madness but also the failure of the orthodox Christian morality to cope with individual unhappiness."

Unlike most of Ayckbourn's earlier plays, which were often completed the day before rehearsals began, Woman in Mind was completed a week earlier than he expected. Ayckbourn himself was conscious that this play was radically different from his earlier plays by expecting the audience to engage with a character whose perceptions are unreliable. His agent was sceptical as to whether an audience would accept such an unconventional play, and as the publicity went out before Ayckbourn had begun writing, an unusual brochure note was issued:

At the time of going to press a high wall of secrecy surrounds this project. Some have the theory that the reason for this is to protect such highly original comic material from the risk of plagiarism. Others, more cynical, suggest that it could be due to the fact that the author hasn't started on it yet and is anxious not to commit himself.

Originally intending to have a male central character, Ayckbourn found that a woman's voice was emerging, and felt that the public would be more sympathetic to a woman, and therefore he changed the sex. Ayckbourn has also commented that he did not want the central character to be a man in case audiences took it to be autobiographical. Nevertheless, Paul Allen, Ayckbourn's biographer, believes that Woman in Mind is Ayckbourn's most personal play and that a major influence on it may have been a breakdown suffered by his mother in the 1950s. He also suggested that Susan's relationship to her son may have been influenced by Alan Ayckbourn's relationship with his son Steven, at the time in a community in California (albeit not a non-speaking cult). This view is not shared by everyone, but it is generally agreed that Woman in Mind is a very personal play to Ayckbourn.