BWW Reviews: BIRTH Labors to Show Engaging View of Delivery Process

Only the most oblivious could miss the symbolism of a play about birth being delivered on Labor Day weekend. "Birth," Karen Rachel Brody's dissection of popping out a baby, labors under the belief that audiences want to hear eight sometimes gut-wrenching stories about childbirth. Maybe we do.

Presented as reading with some stagecraft, the play delivers (sorry, the puns write themselves!) a straightforward message. Women, namely pregnant women, are the only ones who have the right to decide what to do with their bodies.

"Birth" was part of a weekend of awareness-raising events around Southwest Florida (and the nation), including a health fair in Lee County and rally in Collier County. Florida Gulf Coast University associate professor of theatre Michelle Hayford, who specializes in this type of ethnodrama, directs her cast of amateurs with a keen eye toward honesty and emotion. I love the addition of drums and percussion.

"Birth" narrows its focus to just the birth process, highlighting issues with modern medical care, male gynecologists, for-profit hospitals, resistance to alternative medicine and more. I wish Brody could have shaped a stronger narrative, rather than railing so strongly against corporate medicine. "Birth" also comes off skeptical, if not outright hostile, to Caesareans and much of the medical establishment in general.

Some tales, culled from the playwright's interviews with women, do touch on genuine issues. Lenise Joseph, a recent FGCU theatre graduate, brings the confusion and fear facing minority women in an increasingly faceless hospital system to life. Chris Ghali and Megan Nickel-Martin, both true amateur actors and mothers themselves, give startlingly realistic performances as women facing various issues during childbirth.

"Birth" devotes significant time to the almighty epidural, although the play hedges on whether epidurals are a good thing (take the pain away!) or a bad thing (I can't feel my body!). In contrast, the "No Caesarean" belief Brody backs scores hit after hit.

More a screed against unnecessary medical procedures than the medical establishment, "Birth" preaches for the right of women to have a child on their own time, on their own body's schedule. Heartless, uncaring doctors who rush beatific women into C-sections come off looking rather unkind. So do the robotic nurses, counting out "one, two, three, four, push!"

In moments like these, I'm rather thankful I'll never give birth, whether it be squatting in a rice paddy or swathed in acres of white cotton and ensconced in a private hospital room. Miracle of life and all that, but the process looks ... unpleasant?

I do wish the play delved more into the role of doulas and alternative medicine in general, instead of simply raking doctors over the coals. Brody offers a perfunctory dictionary definition, then sprinkles the word throughout the play without educating audiences on the role doulas play in the birth process. Different from a midwife, doulas are non-medical individuals who support pregnant women during their labor. "Birth" even includes several real-life doulas in its cast.

Finally, a note on the presentation of staged readings. Any amount of stagecraft, however well-intentioned, ultimately distracts from the playwright's words. If theaters intend no full production, present the work as simply as possible, with chairs, lecterns and little else. Readings are a place for thespians to explore characters using voice, tone and inflection. Audiences should be able to appreciate an author's words without being distracted by actors flipping the pages of a script while trying to move into position.

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