Playwright and performer Stacey Vespaziani bares all in her solo show about the societal dichotomy between being a woman and being a mother. With nothing but a projector screen and a few sound cues to back her up, she walks onto a bare stage and launches immediately into one of the most uncertain and defining moments of a young woman’s life: her menstrual period. Aided by cheeky drawings, she weaves a nostalgic and humorous tale of a woefully unqualified “sexpert,” bloodstained corduroys and her introduction to womanhood and its intrinsic link to motherhood.
But almost immediately, Vespaziani turns that notion on its head. There is a moment where drawings projected behind her rapidly and comically transition from an educational diagram of the female anatomy to a stained-glass church window, a transition that ensures her audience knows that her story is not traditional.
The show has just two characters: Vespaziani plays herself and the museum lady introduced to us in the beginning of the play. The museum lady is our window to the current, traditional perspective on motherhood. Women don’t become “real women” until they become mothers. In her world, a woman who says she doesn’t want to have children now will surely change her mind later.
As “Stacey” faces opinion after opinion from everyone in her life but herself about motherhood and her place in it all, we begin to see this dichotomy between being a mothering person and being a mother. Although Stacey might view herself as motherly, in rejecting motherhood, she has become an “other,” someone on the fringes of society who refuses to assume roles based simply off the expectation of the status quo.
Through interactions with family members, back-and-forth quips with the unceasingly naive museum lady and life-altering Reiki yoga sessions, Stacey ultimately breaks free of motherhood and unleashes her soul. For her, motherhood simply “is not her work this time around”.
Some of the most raw and honest moments on her path to enlightenment felt rushed. Transitions between stories and emotional revelations were often quick. These were frequently the passages I wanted to savor the most, and moments I found myself yearning for reflection as Vespaziani delivered her deeply personal truth. But although her show suffered some problems with pacing, it offered a truly captivating narrative that left me pondering long after it ended.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 7, 2017.
