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WOMB is an experimental theatre performance which studies a multitude of human experiences such as the housing crisis, individual crisis, mental health, childbirth and women’s rights, as well as environmental issues through the lens of a semi-futuristic perspective– in Dublin 100 years from now– as part of this year’s First Fortnight Mental Health Art and Culture Festival. The play was written by Maud Hendriks and co-directed with Bernie O’Reilly, a Trinity graduate. Hendriks and O’Reilly are also the founders of Outlandish Theatre Platform.
The theatre company was founded in 2010 with the goal to explore social engagement, human suffering and experience, and to extend their focus to the context of arts, health and youth through the active participation and collaboration of diverse communities. With this goal in mind, Outlandish Theatre Platform became the first theatre company in residence at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital in Dublin, where they had many conversations and interviews with midwives and staff members of the hospital. They also spoke to members of the community about giving birth, struggles with medical systems, and bodily autonomy. The work also touches on birth control in the future as one of their goals as a theatre company is to ‘open up more necessary conversation about equality for women, the sustainability of our planet and the significance of freedom of movement and a safe place to live.’
WOMB portrays some contemporary issues in our society, such as the consideration of physical and mental healthcare in our daily lives and how it may affect an individual; the contextual feature of the performance was intriguingly combined with a semi-futuristic mise-en-scène; it was entirely black and white with two small televisions with videos of trees and plants, the performance demonstrates the distance between humanity and nature. Besides, it encourages the audience members to use their imagination (set costume: Sabine Dargent and set design: Ger Clancy). This combination subtly emphasizes the urgency to examine some basic human rights, and to think about human conditions on Earth for future generations.
Hendriks and O’Reilly explore a perspective of what it is to be pregnant by dehumanizing the main character, 9208 whose real name is Alice (performed by Venetia Bowe) as it is unfolded in the course of the play. To conclude, Outlandish Theatre Platform achieves its goals which are to promote and collect communal experiences as forms of documentation by combining arts and health through innovative, experimental theatre performances.
Womb ran from 14th January – 19th January at the Dance Studio at Samuel Beckett Centre
