Awni Abdi-Bahri, Afsheen Misaghi, Lanna Joffrey, and Niousha Noor Photo by Maggie Hall

Golnar (played by Abdi-Bahri) comes to Laguna Hills, California, to help mark the one year passing of her father. Omid Akbari provides a set design that includes a small bed, piano, and some kitchen items. As the play opens in her mother's house, Golnar is asleep and experiencing quite a dream. Nasrin (Niousha Noor) mourns the loss of her husband (which happened only one year before) and tries to understand the ways of her daughter, who brings many possessions into her mother's home. Nasrin has her own conflicts. Golnar is a tightly wound young woman who, while recently New York, penned a novel. Golnar's relationship with her mother is testy, but that is nothing compared to the complexity Golnar experiences with her grandmother, Mamani (Lanna Joffrey), who also lives in the house.

Mamani is brashly outspoken and highly political. She misses the time when the Shah was in power in Iran, an era when her life was better. Mamani had five children and she doesn't hesitate to speak about sex. She is the play's richest character, the one with the most comedic lines, and Joffrey maximizes each of those opportunities.

It takes a while for Shayan (Afsheen Misaghi), the only man in the cast, to appear. One immediately wonders if he will become Golnar's love interest. Nasrin wouldn't mind if her daughter would partner with Shayan since perhaps Nasrin is feeling that Golnar is preoccupied with herself.

Abdi-Bahri has appeared on and off Broadway and her Golnar, through her enactment, is audacious, sometimes confused, but still driven. Niousha Noor resides in Los Angeles and she is featured in the Netflix movie The Persian Version. She plays Nasrin, a woman who is caught, so to speak, between her daughter and mother. There is an enlarged photograph of Nasrin's deceased husband toward the rear of the stage. If any one character evolves as the production concludes, it is Nasrin. Lanna Joffrey has performed extensively in the United States and the United Kingdom. She makes the most of Mamani's moments, absolutely carrying the play with a kick-ass depiction of this life-force of a woman. Misaghi, playing Shayan, is persuasive in many of his scenes and, if anything, Abdi-Bahri could expand his role.

Director Dalia Ashurina explains in her program notes, that Three Tall Persian Women began as a ten-minute piece. The current version, expanded to around two hours, features some fine, individual dialogue and actor exchange, and evocative monologues. At times, however, it's difficult to discern the performance's primary focus even if each actor adroitly captures their character.

The women in the play do not, when one sees their faces, appear to be of varying generations, but each each actress is splendid and that aspect does not matter. Abdi-Bahri writes sharp dialogue. There's a great deal of material here but it is not only difficult but distracting to determine a major through line. The Shakespeare & Company presentation is high on spirit but it could use to great advantage a specific artistic nucleus if fine tuning continues.

Three Tall Persian Women runs through October 13, 2024, at Shakespeare & Company, Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, 70 Kemble St., Lenox MA. For tickets and information, please call 413-637-3353 or visit Shakespeare.org.