Two old women, sisters, live circumscribed lives, gradually withdrawing from the world, feeding the birds and communicating in repetitive, almost meaningless, sentences.

One day a stranger arrives – a man – whom the sisters do not recognise at first.

But his appearance rips open these quiet, fading lives and forces the women to recollect and reassess the past, to examine long held regrets and confront truths about their family, and the disappointments of their own lives.

It is the world premier of Another Door Closed, written and directed by Peter Gill and showing as part of the Peter Hall season at the Bath Theatre Royal’s Ustinov Studio till August 29.

The cast is three strong, with June Watson and Marjorie Yates as the two women (Jane Lapotaire withdrew from the production) and Sean Chapman as the man, three tremendously experienced and accomplished actors who hold together this short, intense play (one hour fifteen minutes).

The work is very much about women, and the lives of women: even the role of the nameless man is to offer a challenging mirror to the fictions and masks the two sisters have created for themselves.

The dialogue, which starts out in a stylised, repetitive manner, becomes almost hypnotic, luring the audience into the closed world of the two elderly women.

An exploration of denial, secrets, thwarted ambition and the tendency for human beings to settle for a safe option, the play isn’t exactly a very happy one, but nonetheless it is shot through with moments of unexpected humour.

Thought-provoking and touching, it is well worth seeing.