MatreSCENE - the messy play of motherhood / writer, performer / Cork Midsummer Festival (work in progress) Sunday 15th June 2025
MatreSCENE - the messy play of motherhood, is a contemporary performance inspired by the concept of matrescence – the period of hormonal, physical, environmental and societal change a woman undergoes in becoming a mother. This under-researched phenomenon is further stifled within the neo-liberal context. With the erosion of community supports and a shift in family structures, motherhood has become a private, conflicted affair: how to be a mother and a professional; how to ask for help; how to mourn our past selves and embrace the complexity of what we have become?
Matrescene - the messy play of motherhood is the search for a new ritual. Through dismantling the structures of performance, it questions the roles we ask women to play and examines our participation in cultural narratives, stereotypes and falsehoods. It features a cast of three artist-mothers – Siobhán Donnellan, Caroline Lynch and Ró Stack – who last worked on a play together in 2012 when both Caroline and Siobhán were pregnant for the first time.
In a mix of memory, mimicry and musing, they explore what it means to perform mother(hood).