Not Your Superwoman – Bush Theatre, London

Not Your Superwoman at the Bush Theatre is a moving new play by Emma Dennis-Edwards (co-created with director Lynette Linton), exploring the bonds and fractures between three generations of Black women, and what it means to carry or resist the weight of inherited expectations.

Not Your Superwoman

You know you’re at a powerful piece of theatre when you can hear people quietly crying before the curtain comes down. Not Your Superwoman, by Emma Dennis-Edwards (director Lynette Linton also shares a creator credit), had just that effect on the audience. Not tears of sadness, necessarily, but of recognition, of feeling seen.

The play is a two-hander about a mother and daughter, and what it means to be a Black woman trying to carry expectations that feel endless, while also wanting to break the cycle for the next generation. Golda Rosheuvel plays mother Joyce, while Letitia Wright is her daughter Erica. Both also take turns embodying Elaine, Joyce’s mother, whose ashes they travel to scatter in Guyana. That return (first-time for Erica, long-delayed for Joyce) brings up grief, memory, and unfinished business.

The trip is the perfect stage for the bigger questions the play asks. Did Joyce’s efforts to give Erica what she never had really make a difference? Can therapy and reflection help Erica take another path? Or is she still bound to repeat what came before, all the way back to that Obeah woman who cursed the family? As one line from the play puts it plainly: “Maybe the cycle can never be broken.”

Linton’s time at the Bush Theatre has been characterised by programming that champions new writing, unheard stories and underrepresented voices. That sense of making space runs right through Not Your Superwoman. It’s about giving Black women’s lives, struggles, and joys the room to be seen fully, not squeezed into the “strong Black woman” stereotype.

Putting Black Women’s Stories Centre Stage

The production keeps things simple but effective. Alex Berry’s set and costumes are clean and stripped back, which puts the focus firmly on the performances. Gino Ricardo Green’s projections help move us through time and memory. They’re sometimes dreamy, sometimes unsettling. I did wonder if the curtain device around the stage could have been used a bit more, but overall the design supports the honesty of the piece.

And honesty is what lands hardest here. Linton’s directing style shines through, with a balance between genuine humour and raw emotion. By the end, as Rosheuvel and Wright circle through grief, humour, and love, the theatre was full of quiet sniffles. When Black women’s stories are given centre stage, unfiltered, it’s a powerful thing.

The Bush Theatre has built a reputation for exactly this kind of work: vital, moving, and necessary. With two brilliant performances anchoring it, Not Your Superwoman is another one to add to that list. No wonder the already-extended run is sold out. I look forward to seeing the theatre’s excellent legacy continue under the leadership of Taio Lawson.

Salterton Arts Review rating: 4/5

Not Your Superwoman runs at the Bush Theatre until 1 November 2025. More info and tickets here.