From the very beginning, the show feels carefully tuned. The music sets a mood that hints at a female perspective without spelling anything out, and when Labuschagne enters, she has an immediate physical presence that draws you in. The staging is minimal but alive. Movement, balance, and a few well-judged visuals carry the story with confidence. One striking image is her drawing appearing behind her as she works, a simple device used with real elegance.
The piece moves between personal confession and social commentary. Fin’s story is intimate but never sealed off from the world; questions of work, responsibility, faith, and social pressure keep pressing in. There are moments of humour, including playful audience interaction, that offer real warmth and relief, and then the tone turns sharply to grief, fear, or resolve. A cramped bathroom scene around a pregnancy test is especially poignant, and the later moment in the cemetery, speaking to a statue of the Virgin Mary, sharpens the loneliness rather than softening it.
Labuschagne’s performance feels brave and authentic. She shifts between characters—the midwife, the receptionist, the boyfriend—with clarity and wit, and the physicality is impressive: dancing, perching, and inhabiting the space with ease. The design supports her rather than competing with her, and the music threads through the piece, tying it together.
If there’s a limitation, it’s that the male characters feel a bit too uniformly useless—more symbolic than fully human. It’s a small crack in a work that otherwise feels nuanced.
Overall, this is a lyrical, humane, and resilient piece of theatre. It holds the audience, plays the full range of emotions, and leaves you with images and questions rather than answers. It’s reflective, emotionally honest, and technically assured—a strong four-star experience.
