My favorite new theater company of 2022, The Birth Play Project, is back, this time with a new twist on a classic. Their new play with music Mary’s Wondrous Body, based on a so-bizarre-it-must-be-true story of a woman who claimed to give birth to rabbits, was indeed wondrous. Now this company whose mission is "to place birth in public memory by developing representational practices for staging reproductive stories" is presenting Shakespeare's Measure for Measure. If you're wondering, "what does this play have to do with birth?," you're not alone. I've seen this play a few times before, and it's always been Isabella's story, a soon-to-be nun who is offered a chance to save her brother Claudio from death, if she sleeps with his accuser Angelo. But so far in the background that I even forgot she was there, is Juliet, Claudio's not-quite-wife, who is pregnant with his child (the crime with which they're both charged). This adaptation by Madeline Wall and William Edson, who also direct the piece, puts the focus on this forgotten woman who is quietly (or not so quietly) giving birth while the other actions of the play swirl around her. It's an engaging and entertaining take on this classic that explores a hidden side of it, and makes one wonder what other birth stories are hiding in the background, waiting to be told. Click here to find out more about The Birth Play Project and to purchase tickets to one of their two remaining performances at Saint John the Evangelist Episcopal Church and Elision Playhouse.
The play starts out fairly traditionally, except that all of the characters (except Claudio) are played by women and referred to as women. But at some point they break out of the Shakespearean language and structure, and that's when the play really takes off. It begins with an incredible, poetic speech about childbirth by Juliet (Gillian Constable) as she's giving birth in the prison, attended to by the Provost (Joni Griffith). I'm pretty sure Shakespeare never wrote this eloquently about childbirth, in fact I'm not sure any man has written this eloquently about childbirth. As Juliet is in labor, her earthy guttural cries are a contrast to the ideas of justice being debated by the other characters. Angelo (Madeline Wall), Isabella (Isabella Dunsieth), Claudio (William Edson) are discussing the ethics of the choice and what to do to save Claudio's life, while Juliet is only concerned with the life she's bringing into the world. Nothing theoretical about that, it's very very real. The story starts to get heavy, which is when the character of Lucio (Gillian Ness) breaks into the narrative, assures us everything is OK, and gives us a short summary of where we've been and where we're going. In this way they're able to skip through some of the plot points and get to the heart of the story they're telling – that the body is not a sin. Pregnancy and childbirth are not a crime, they're the stuff life is made from.
The play is being performed at various locations; I saw it in an event room at A-Mill Artist Lofts, with two rows of chairs set up as corridor seating. Everyone in the cast (also including Sarah Broude, Eva Gemlo, and Eliana Meyerowitz) is fantastic, observed up close and personal - present and playful. Isabella is particularly impressive with her impassioned pleas, as is Gillian in her depiction of childbirth. They're dressed in modern chic clothing, with white veils and skirts for the nuns. As in their previous work they've included music, nuns chanting to begin the play, and a moving song about the body to end it. They're accompanied at times by a couple of cast members (Joni on violin and Eva on cello), and recorded audio is also used on a few occasions. It's a pretty bare bones production (the only set piece is a kneeler with a cross that gave me the urge to genuflect upon entering), but everything is thoughtfully and well done.
I'm excited to watch these young artists continue to bring us birth stories, which are women's stories, which are human stories. Both through original works, and finding birth stories in classics that we thought we knew.