Holly and Lichen

6 women, One-Act. 

Holly and Lichen was the winning play in Radius’s 2024 playwriting competition, described by the judges as “a very fine piece of writing with challenges but also rewards for any group that stages it.”

The play opens in 2009 with Jane settling her 88-year-old mother Dorothy Fredrikson into The Hollies care home. The scene then changes to 1933 when Dorothy’s own mother takes her to boarding school for the first time. The story alternates between the two time-frames, with Dorothy interacting with two friends in both eras. One schoolfriend becomes a glamorous woman with three marriages, the other a war reporter and a lesbian. Dorothy herself is a retired professor who researched lichens and the light they throw on climate change. Throughout the play she is looking for the notebook that will provide contemporary scientists with important evidence they are lacking, but because of Dorothy’s confused state of mind the audience remains uncertain until the very end about the fate of the notebook and whether it even existed. Six women double up as the three friends, Dorothy’s mother/daughter and two staff at the care home/school. The main characters are seen at the beginning and end of their lives when they are dependent on others, but the dialogue celebrates the full lives they have led in the intervening years.

The changes between the two time frames would need careful setting up, but once that was done the movement between the two eras should be easy to manage. This would be an enjoyable and interesting play to produce, with a focus on the psychology of the characters underpinned by the narrative of the lost notebook.

You can see the preview here.