Becoming Mothers
Looking for Lilith
Devising and Production Direction by Jennifer
Thalman Kepler
Review by Rachel White
Entire
contents are copyright © 2013 Rachel White. All rights reserved.
I’m not a mother myself, but I have known many
mothers, have many friends that are becoming them, I have my own mother, and I
have my own curiosity about motherhood.
Becoming a mother is a textured, nuanced thing it would seem – humorous,
physical, medical, spiritual for some, romantic, and quirky for others. Becoming Mothers, Looking for Lilith’s
devised theater piece on the process of motherhood, is trying to express those
unique experiences, and in many instances it succeeds. The play falters,
however, in pulling these voices together to make a clear thematic point and
story.
The first act of Becoming Mothers is a mosaic of women’s voices speaking on the joys
and woes of having a baby, from dealing with the news of pregnancy to telling
your partner, etc. These voices come from interviews with real women. The style
is fun and flashy; and the performers, all women of course, are confident and
for the most part grab your attention. There is a great deal of movement and
miming, which gives the play an abstract quality that works quite well and
helps to demonstrate the universality of the themes. A woman sits on a toilet
with a take-home pregnancy test, and when she finds out it's blue, she downs the
rest of her beer. The fact that she had a beer at ready for this moment was
interesting to me. In another instance, a Japanese mother in an American
hospital is unable to understand what the doctors are saying to her. Another
woman, devastated when she finds out that she is pregnant with twins, cries
into the elevator and all the way home. Many of these stories were very
intriguing; but as the voices piled on, I began to feel a little lost. I wanted
to know about these individual women to follow their different stories on a
deeper level.
Act II deals with labor and birth and the actual experience
of being a mother once the baby is born. The second act seemed to have a little
more focus, maybe because fewer characters were introduced and the actual event
of labor is inherently dramatic. There is also in this act a beautiful story
about a mother who adopts a seven-year-old girl from another country and wakes
to find the girl touching her and calling her mother. I wanted to know more
about her.
Part of the bombarding nature of the piece is due
to the subject matter itself. The play is getting at something about the
culture of modern motherhood that I don’t think the authors quite understand or
know how to deal with. Modern motherhood with its enormous responsibilities,
its absolutely ridiculous expectations, its obsession with finding the right
diaper, must be an extremely overwhelming thing to experience. The question
becomes, Where are all these pressures coming from and what do they mean for
women? Looking for Lilith is a women’s theater company, and I think it could go
further in getting at these issues, at turning them over, and opening them up. The
play feels a little too self-assured right now, a little indulgent; but the
issues it brings up are extremely important and worthy of exploration.
Becoming Mothers
May 9, 10, 11, 16, 17, 18 7:30PM
May 12, 18 2:00 PM
Looking for Lilith Theater Company
at the Victor Jory Theatre
Actors Theatre of Louisville
316 West Main Street
Louisville, KY 40202
502-584-1205
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