Camden Fringe Festival 2017: Motherlogues at Etcetera Theatre

Beautiful, complex, comforting, painful, life enhancing – our conversations and interactions with our mothers are essential to our sense of who we are as women. Devoted to the subject of motherhood, Camden Fringe’s Motherlogues at Etcetera Theatre is not only about that core relationship, but about how maternity affects our sense of self, our lives and how it functions in terms of societal pressure: the fact that as a gender women are still defined by and trapped within rigid roles that have traditionally been foisted upon us. Exploring the concept of reproduction, the piece honestly confronts contradictions between those heartwarming aspects of bearing offspring and the often dreaded birth process itself.

In a piece about being female in the 21^st century, the question is – with our gained emancipation, rights and choices – why are we still so oppressed by judgement, particularly in the realm of procreation – whether to have children or not, how many children, by what method, with whom, at what age, within what context, etc?

Motherlogues features five women delivering monologues on the theme of mums and being a mum. Honest and raw, they speak to thoughts and feeling every woman has likely experienced, but that are not often expressed. The trauma of birth is examined with a story of a horrifyingly difficult delivery; infertility, miscarriage, surrogacy, IVF, adoption, single motherhood, refugee mothers – every aspect of maternity is explored.

Created by Forked Theatre, the work is very fluid in that it evolves with each new production, continuing to include original stories gathered about the very important topic of motherhood – one that is a huge issue for all women. As the show focuses on the immediacy of real feeling and experience, the monologues are partly read from scripts. Stephanie Wickmere, Lauren Reed, Colleen Prendergast, Kailing Fu and Rose Collis play various women who have been interviewed, presenting real-life accounts from mothers and daughters and brilliantly achieving the nuances of their stark emotion, humour and anguish.

A strong political and feminist piece, Motherlogues is also a tender, informative, fascinating look at perceptions, feelings and concerns we have about a highly emotionally charged subject.

Catherine Sedgwick

Motherlogues is at Etcetera Theatre from 23^rd until 27^th August 2017. For further information or to book visit here.

For further information about Camden Fringe Festival 2017 visit the website here.