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| Joanne Ryan in Eggsistentialism Photo by Ken Coleman |
Irish performer and playwright Joanne Ryan doesn’t know if
she wants to have children. Don’t get her wrong, against the backdrop of
Ireland’s history of restrictions on reproductive rights, she loves having a
choice, she’s just having a hard time making a decision.
Eggsistentialism
is a funny and frank look at a series of questions that must occur to all women at some
stage in their lives. Do I want to have children? And what will that mean for
my life? And what will it mean for the child?
Joanne knows that women from her mother’s generation had
less choice in the matter; another woman her father got pregnant had to carry
the child, only to have it taken away and given up for adoption. Her own mother
would have been in the same situation, but she ran away to London and slept on
a friend’s couch. That was in 1980.
One woman, one couch, a phone, a multi-media presentation
and a brilliantly blunt voiceover from her mother, Joanne’s show is simple in its presentation and
powerful in its execution. It explores her relationship with her parents and
with a relatively new boyfriend. It explores the role of men in the household,
both traditionally and how things mostly haven’t changed. It’s deeply personal
and aggressively political.
The history of Ireland’s laws relating to contraception and
abortion is tied closely with the Catholic Church and on these issues it was a
particularly regressive Western country even up until this year. Placing Joanne’s
decision-making against this backdrop gives elevates the show, although the
writing itself and her laid-back Irish demeanour can make you laugh and cry
without the oppressive history that comes from the country where she was
raised.
Eggsistentialism
is a beautifully-formed autobiographical show that Joanne Ryan has given birth
to. I’m glad she’s taken this baby of hers out into the world.
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