Call Me Mother explores gender, parenting and identity in a candid monologue by Scarlet Rose. It unashamedly explores birth trauma and the medical profession’s treatment of people with uteruses as birthing vessels. There’s something for everyone with uteruses to get mad at!
From the moment you walk into the theatre, the washing line, baskets of clothes and clam paddle pool with a bath mat in front of it with “get naked” written on it set a blatantly domestic foreboding scene. There were clever moments of movement throughout such as the inevitable Aphrodite pose that they find themselves in while standing in the clam paddle pool.
Call Me Mother. Photography by Tashi Hall.
While it was thematically unambiguous, the delivery was not as sharp and opening night jitters perhaps disjointed the components on stage from folding completely into the story. The feminist rage was loud and punchy regardless. Whilst my initial reaction was that its appeal was limited to those all too familiar with the message, further reflections came to me while writing this review the next day. Like why do we continue to tolerate these attitudes towards uteruses and the humans attached to them? Oh that’s right we don’t, as evidenced by fierce shows like this.
Call Me Mother is on at The Blue Room Theatre from Jan 27-31.