A lack of sleep can be an illness. I drifted off and woke into a completely different version of myself,’ is the observation of Mother as she attempts to remember events that led to her imprisonment.

Sophie Swithinbank’s unflinching monologue about post-natal depression delves deep and raises uncomfortable questions about individual and collective responsibility.

Mother does not present as a victim. She is self-deprecatingly witty and attractive; an aspiring actress and single parent with a part-time office job.

Under Nancy Medina’s direction, Phoebe Ladenburg [who also co-directs] brings an impressive, edgy charm to the lippy, one-time party girl.

The complexities of Mother’s character are laid bare right from the start when she has a visit from her estranged, now teenage daughter for the first time since she was imprisoned. Endlessly apologising, she promises to explain what happened. Trouble is she can’t because her memories fail her.

Ladenburg bristles with pent-up energy in a series of fragmented scenes spliced together with some hauntingly sharp sound and lighting shifts. Did she prioritise her professional success over her baby’s safety when she left her alone and went to an audition or did that never happen, after all her favourite coat she thought she lost is still in the flat. So how did the baby go missing?

Part jigsaw puzzle mystery, part kitchen-sink drama, the elusive layers in Swithinbank’s writing keep you guessing. Intriguingly, no back story about Mother’s own family history is given.

Scant details about her rivalrous relationship with her censorious mother-in-law and some wistful musings about her absent ex flesh out perspectives a little, but pinpointing any real causes and reasons for her actions after years of being trapped in a damaging penal system is not the point.

Rather, Swithinbank’s criticism of the materialist world surrounding baby-care is crystal clear. Mother’s confession that she shoplifted to create an illusion of perfect parenting to impress her social services worker is achingly sad.

Taking Kate’s final monologue in The Taming of the Shrew as creative inspiration, guilt and shame are ultimately overridden by pure love, but the push for that particular literary resonance about female surrender of the self is strained.

Surrender runs at Arcola Theatre, Hackney until July 13.