Oh Mother at HOME
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
Following the success of the award-winning Three Sisters, RashDash return to HOME Manchester with Oh Mother, a brand-new performance all about motherhood.
Following their most recent works Look at Me Don’t Look at Me and the sell-out show Three Sisters After Chekhov – we’re super excited about the company’s new show, Oh Mother, which will see core members Abbi Greenland and Helen Goalen perform while Becky Wilkie provides the soundtrack.
This project has been being nursed and nurtured since March 2020 when the first lockdown halted all action and prevented the show from going into rehearsal. Since then, all three members of RashDash – Abbi, Becky and Helen – have had babies.
This new show is all about having – and becoming – a mother.
Created with a lot of love, exhaustion and chaos, this new show is all about having – and becoming – a mother. Posing radical and intimate questions about maternity and parenting, RashDash have made this show with and for their mums. Inspired by their own stories of becoming parents and the experiences of their friends and family, Oh Mother is recommended viewing for partners, mothers, friends, babies and anyone who is thinking of starting a family. The show is suitable for those over the age of 14.
Oh Mother aims to convey the plethora of emotions associated with motherhood. The transformative nature of parenting, the elation and wonder, and what it means to take care of somebody else, entirely. The piece also explores how it might feel for people who are yet to become parents and those that yearn for a child.
Additionally, and perfectly fitting for the theme of the show, the performance on Thursday 26 May at 2:15 pm is a Parent and Baby Performance/Matinee. Suitable for parents, carers and grandparents of babies aged 12 months and under. The show will be exactly the same but more of a relaxed affair with higher light levels – you can also dip in and out of the theatre as you wish. Each show runs for 90 minutes (with no interval).
Oh Mother is recommended viewing for partners, mothers, friends, babies and anyone who is thinking of starting a family.
Of the performance, Abbi and Helen of Rashdash said, “When we started making this show neither of us had babies and we were teetering on the edge of the cliff asking if we wanted to jump, how it might change our lives and how our babies would fit around our work. A global pandemic and two babies later (one each) we are now asking how our work will fit around our babies and contemplating how much our lives and our priorities have transformed. This show is a fever dream made in the heat of the love, the exhaustion and the chaos. In conversation with our mums, but very much with our own experiences now too, this show is about what a revolution motherhood can be”.
RashDash formed back in 2009 at The University of Hull and their work is a refreshingly raw combination of radical feminist ideas explored through a vivid physical style. Exploring, reinventing and exploding, RashDash are always pushing out against traditional narratives and patriarchal language structures – challenging cultural trends in a thoughtful yet anarchic way.
We’re big fans.
