Writer: Aylin Rodoplu
Director: Elise Xiaqi Eriksen
The Womb is an absurdist space where three women are trapped to try and understand what happened that put them there. The mystery bounces around in every scene as fast as the dialogue does. This is one-act contemporary theatre at its best: fast dialogue, clever physicality, and just barely enough information is drip-fed to allow the audience to come to its own realisations about the characters’ past and the social meaning behind it all.
The Womb is one of those rare pieces where the liveness and togetherness of the audience truly feel like a critical enhancement to the experience. Aylin Rodoplu’s ambiguous dialogue is brought to life with childlike embodiment by the ensemble of Aylin Rodoplu, Tara McMillan, and Gabriela Mahé. All three actors along with Elise Xiaqi Eriksen’s direction choose to have characters react with a surface-level confusion but a lingering understanding of other character’s pain. This allows the social message, the story, and the emotion to coalesce in the mind of the audience. What makes this particularly special is how the collective laughter or silent tension of the audience helps everyone else find what is ironic, clever, and funny about the social commentary or what is dark, serious, and traumatic about the women’s pasts.
Aylin Rodoplu’s music also serves this dual atmosphere of the absurdly serious with its engaging beat hovered over by emergency sirens. While lighting, set, and costume are straightforwardly simple, they all serve the piece as a whole and echo the wider themes well. At times the writing teeters on the verge of spoken word, and this is not where The Womb’s strength lies. Its strength really lies in the absurd becoming serious and the serious becoming absurd. For such an intelligent piece, its virtue is largely in the humour and the great interplay between the actors.
Aside from that, The Womb’s only major flaw is that it felt like it had so much more to give and at 45 minutes there is more ambiguous absurdity to explore. However, as it stands, this is one-act contemporary theatre at its finest.
Runs until 3 August 2024
Camden Fringe runs until 25 August 2024
