Writer: Lianne O’Hara
Director: Liam Halligan
Bewley’s Café Theatre presents Lianne O’Hara’s one woman play and 2024’s Winner of the Dublin Fringe ‘Little Gem Award’, BABY.
At her kitchen table, Camilla is baking a cake for her friend’s baby shower. This will be Maureen’s fifth baby and our resentful chef gives “the eggs a really good beating” as she tells us “she’s done with celebrating life”.
Camilla is a 36 year old single nurse and all she wants is a baby. Everyone around her is pregnant and while she’s happy for them, she’s “sick with envy”. Does this make her “a monster”?
The persistent longing has manifested as a dark shadow in her psyche. She places a hand on her belly…if she “rubs it hard enough, wishes it strong enough, something might stir”. Camilla pretends to be pregnant. She makes herself sick in the morning and browses baby aisles in supermarkets. An elderly Lady on a bus has to stand while our ‘childbearing’ protagonist takes up a seat. She joins a Facebook group for single mothers, hovering in the background as ‘Linda’.
“No baby is not an option” and with the pressure of passing time on her aging reproductive capabilities, Camilla considers the alternatives. Lacking the funds to travel to Columbia to ensnare an unsuspecting male she contemplates a trip to Cavan. Searching through images of potential donors on a sperm bank website is akin to fertility Tinder.
Eventually, Camilla settles on freezing her eggs. It is the best insurance policy. A female voice on the radio warns that “IVF is not an easy journey. You have to really want it. There will be a lot of stress and a lot of tears.” We are surprised and disappointed to learn that single women and same-sex couples cannot avail of publicly funded IVF in Ireland in the same way that heterosexual couples can.
But in the best tradition of gallows humour, Roseanna Purcell as Camilla treats us to a hilarious jaunt along the rocky road of fertility clinics, hormones, and harvesting procedures. In the end a full dozen eggs are retrieved and Camilla, poignantly, asks for a photograph of them…just for herself.
O’Hara’s BABY is a searingly honest portrayal of the physical and emotional trauma of being unable to conceive. Purcell is flawless in the role. Under the purview of Liam Halligan’s direction she commands the entirety of the stage and captivates the audience with her story. Everything about the production including lighting, sound, and stage management is impeccable.
Fred Astair’s sings us out with “I’m putting all my eggs in one basket” and although it is a cake rather than a bun that comes out of the oven at the denouement of the play, Camilla is content that her own eggs are in the freezer and she will have her baby when she is ready.
Runs Until 3rd May 2025.
