Live and in person at the Factory Theatre, 125 Bathurst St., Toronto, Ont. A Nightwood Theatre Production in association with The Howland Company. Playing until March 8, 2025.
Written and performed by Rachel Cairns
Directed by Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster
Production, Lighting and Projection Design by Julia Howman
Sound and composition by Cossette “Ettie” Pin
A deeply personal one-person show, with a minutely rigorous exploration of the many issues surrounding the choice of actor Rachel Cairns to have an abortion, when she finds she’s pregnant, and is not emotionally or financially ready to be a parent.
NOTE: I first saw this production at the Tarragon Theatre Extra-Space in 2023 when The Howland Company produced it. At the time when I reviewed it, I was struck by all the prodigious research writer-performer, Rachel Cairns did for the show. She had a sense of humour and what I thought was a disarming quality to draw the audience in. I thought positively about the production and considered the deep-thinking Rachel Cairns invested in the show.
Now, in 2025, the show is being remounted with Nightwood Theatre Company in association with The Howland Company. And in the second viewing, my observations and assessment of the show are not as accommodating. What changed? Well, the world for one. And so did I.
The Story. In 2019, just before Christmas, actor Rachel Cairns learned she was pregnant. She was careful but the IUD device she wore slipped and that compromised her protection. She wanted a baby eventually but not now. Her reasons were many: not the right time; she didn’t make enough money as an actor to bring a child into the world; what kind of a world would that be; what about the issues of climate change, etc. Her boyfriend of five years did not voice a strong opinion. It was her choice. Cairns was in Toronto when she got the news. She was going to Vancouver to see her mother over Christmas and needed to arrange the abortion to be done immediately in Vancouver.
The Production. The set (no credit-no programme to check) is a raised platform with a screen hanging down at the back, onto which will be projections (no credit there either) of facts, figures, graphs etc. What follows is Cairns doing copious Google searches about the various questions about giving birth, abortions, etc. that bothered her. At times the bombardment of facts, figures, graphs and computer screen information projected on the screen, felt like information overload. The statistics of the number of women who have abortions; how some women can’t afford to raise a child; how some ethnicities do not have the choice. Is that the point of Cairns and Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster, her director, to put the audience right in the middle of Cairns’ fact-laden experience? Rather than forcing the audience to deal with all this information, perhaps a re-think on why they need to know all this information at all? It was important to Cairns, but being bombarded with all this information, alienates an audience.
In Vancouver, Cairns went to the doctor’s office with her mother as support. Cairns wondered why the room had to be so small and claustrophobic. She wondered why the pills she was given that would start the abortion process were so expensive. She wondered why she had to answer so many questions. She was upset that not once did her boyfriend call to see how she was or how the process was going.
I note in this second viewing how judgmental Cairns was about so many things and how so many things were questioned. Cairns was given some pills that would begin the abortion process. Cairns’ mother said that in fact she, Cairns, would go into labour because of the pills. We learn later in the show why her mother would know such details. True to the information Cairns doubles over in pain at the cramps (her word). Cramps are one thing—labour pains are something else. I wonder why Cairns doesn’t use the more accurate descriptor?
While Cairns began her solo show by focusing on the personal, she then broadened the scope of her observations by noting how lucky she was to have health-care and the means to make the decision while others: Indigenous women, disadvantaged women; women from other countries not as prosperous as Canada, do not have that advantage.
That said, Cairns notes an evening she and her boyfriend had when they went out with a Pakistani couple who were friends of her boyfriend. Cairns didn’t seem to check her privilege at the door. The couple had children. Cairns, taking on the voice of the Pakistani wife, calmly yet pointedly explained how culture and societal dictates present an entirely different situation for women. They don’t have a choice about having children; are under the thumb of their husbands, or might be abused. The speech was chilling because Cairns wasn’t aware of this inequity in this case.
Cairns explored the question of when life begins by having a kind of imagined debate with an on-line guru on abortion. It was extended, thought-provoking and even had the guru question Cairns about why she gave this person so much credence. The opening-night audience was roaring with laughter. I was aware of how stony-faced I was this time.
Again, what’s changed from the first viewing to this one? We have a huge neighbour to the south of us in which it’s illegal for any woman, it seems, to have an abortion. If a doctor in the States gives a woman an abortion, the doctor can go to jail if found out.
I saw a play in London, Eng. in August called The Years by Annie Ernaux. She is one of Frances’s most celebrated writers and won the Nobel Prize in 2022. The Years is a chronicle of a woman’s life (Ernaux) through the years, as played by five actresses of different ages; from her sexual awakening as a teenager, to marrying, having children, divorce etc. In one of those years she has an abortion. She is given pills and three days later she is crippled with labour pains. She is writhing and there is blood. The actress playing the one with the abortion stands up at the end of the scene, covered in blood, and the other actresses wash dry her off, almost like a ceremony. The scene is stunning. People faint.
I’m not comparing The Years and Hypothetical Baby, but The Years and any other play I’ve seen is at the back of my memory, hauled up for consideration. That’s the nature of experience and memory. This second viewing of Hypothetical Baby, more than a year after I saw it the first time, left me underwhelmed. I can appreciate that Rachel Cairns and her director Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster chose to have Cairns race through the facts, figures and personal musings. I just don’t know why you would do that, unless to overwhelm the audience. This leaves few chances to let the play, the performer and the audience to breathe.
And Hypothetical Baby also made me think of Universal Child Care also produced a year or so ago by Nightwood Theatre Company, a show of facts, figures and statistics on child care around the globe. While both shows have a personal aspect to them, both shows seem more like lectures, perhaps even hectoring lectures, than theatrical endeavors.
Rachel Cairns is an accomplished Indie actress. Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is also a gifted director who have done good work before. Rachel Cairns’s abortion has obviously been a huge point in her life. She has been working on Hypothetical Baby for five years….she keeps on adding statistics etc. it seems. What she doesn’t seem to have worked on is a viable ending to her show. Time to find that ending and move on.
Comment: There was no program. We could take a picture of the QR Code and that would get us to a digital program. I don’t bring my cell phone because we have to turn it off, so why bring it. I would like the company (who ever is producing) to provide a program. It can be one sheet of paper with the pertinent information. It can be a link somewhere on the website to the digital program (nothing was available like that). I was told by the theatre “we’re saving the planet.” HUH? Not providing a program saves the planet? Have you seen the state of the world lately? Providing a program will not doom us. It will inform your audience. Get a donor to underwrite the cost of the program. Thank you.
A Nightwood Theatre production in association with The Howland Company
Playing until March 8, 2025
Running Time: 90 minutes (no intermission)
www.factorytheate.ca
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