Baby
New Theatre, Dublin
★★★★☆
“When did my body become the object of pity?” Camilla, the sole character we see on stage in Lianne O’Hara’s play, cries midway through a breathtakingly vulnerable 60-minute set. It’s a thought she repeatedly returns to – that her body is letting her, or indeed someone else, down – in a spiral of thoughts that thousands will relate to: she is single, and she wants a baby.
Baby begins with curtains already drawn. On the stage sits a table with the ingredients of a cake: eggs, flour, vanilla paste. It’s soon clear that Camilla is baking for her friend’s fifth baby shower, which grates and irks her in equal measure. Aisling O’Mara shines as Camilla, in all of her fury, heartache and scorn.
At 36, Camilla faces the anguish that so many do. It consumes her to the point at which she pretends she is pregnant – she holds her belly, takes priority seating on public transport – between attending fertility clinics and events at which her friends are suddenly not drinking.
She persists, despite all the unwanted advice – in a particularly cutting moment a friend who is a mother complains about a lack of sleep, remarking that Camilla wouldn’t understand – because the desire is too great not to.
Baby teeters into dark humour regularly – a defence mechanism for Camilla, surely, but one that at times feels jarring alongside the play’s more sombre moments. But it does a masterly job of exploring the kinds of feelings you want no one to know about.
Although this could be a hard play to watch if your own dreams have been shattered by fertility issues, it’s one that so many people should see.
Continues at the New Theatre, as part of Dublin Fringe Festival, until Saturday, September 21st
