Deborah’s Children
Past Work
“Having a kid is… just amazing. You can’t possibly prepare for how it feels. It was a bit how I imagine an LSD trip would be. Everything was sharper… just, more… it felt like every nerve in my body was firing at once. A real rush. Then it really kicks in… you get by on adrenaline for a while, but the midnight feeds… it took us so long to get here… and I still wasn’t ready for it.”
Deborah’s Children was the result of ‘storytelling’ between two friends/colleagues and the desire to make the stories known. It was Iain and Francesca’s first collaboration on a script. Our story revolved around an antenatal class, attended by 5 couples and a single woman prior to the birth of their babies. For most of them, it is a first time experience although two of the Fathers- to- be have other families. The play is topped and tailed with a reunion scene, split into two, and set in a pub. In between, the play tracks the progress of the characters, their hopes and dreams…. both within and outside of the classes, as they prepare for parenthood.
“As long as it’s a happy birthday… when the baby comes. We all feel differently about this… how we want to do things, how we see things. But no one can control everything. We need to do what we can to make it special… and it will be.”
The story examines the shift in attitudes and relationships within the class, especially when things fail to go to plan.
“Um, it was a bit bonkers really… She gave birth to her on the trolley as they were bringing her in! It was two days before the C-section was booked… you should’ve heard the row she made… but it was all over in a few minutes.”
Central to the aim of Deborah’s Children was an endeavour to find a way to convey the power of expectation and the impact of loss of expectation around a birth. This is, above all, the message of the piece: That we need to develop strategies for managing expectation within circumstances where sudden changes are common, if not inevitable. The physical and emotional impact of a birth experience which fails to meet expectations or worse still, ends in tragedy is profound and long lasting.
Glynne Steele, Director,
“What are you saying…. That we turn up with no baby? How can we be part of it? We have nothing to show. Look at me! I’m an empty shell… how can I talk to them when I will be so envious of what they have? I miss them too, you know…. but I will not be the object of people’s pity! You have to give me time….. In time, we will mend what is broken… but it will never be the same… and it won’t be with those people, however much we want it to be…… as if losing a child wasn’t enough. All our friends, all the plans we had… all the lovely times… all gone…”
There were three readings of Deborah’s Children. The second and third readings were professionally directed and took place in September 2015 and October 2016 respectively, using a cast of professional working actors and performed in front of a live audience, the latter at The Park Theatre. The 2016 Rehearsed Reading followed a full, three-day workshop of Draft 7 of the script, under the careful eye of Glynne Steele, Director, Actor and Coach.
