The
Flea Theater in New York has been presenting a new drama that we are supposed to believe is controversial because it's about abortion. "IT'S A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE! OR IS IT?" says the postcard for
"Girls In Trouble" by Jonathan Reynolds. And then the card self-describes "an infuriating new play."
I wish I could get that worked up about it. The enduring image of the play is a guy in the first act who sits in a car masturbating. Aside from really nice acting by a young group of actors, the play is so manipulative and detached from reality that it's hard to generate concern, let alone agitation.
What's clear is that the writer has only an eye-dropper's worth of knowledge about women. One of the male characters in the first act, a college student -- the same one who was masturbating -- asks his buddy what a "uterus" is. I have the feeling that the playwright is still trying to figure that out. By the second act, where the big argument about abortion is supposed to infuriate, it's clear that the playwright hasn't a much of clue about pregnancy or abortion. That's too bad, as he's a well-produced, albeit conservative, writer. (Decidedly underscores how much education is needed out there in the world.)
For example, he presents an adult woman who already has a child as not knowing that she is pregnant in the 25th week until she has a bicycle mishap. He thinks that an abortion at 25 weeks -- which is a 2 or 3 day procedure -- takes fifteen minutes (true of first trimester, but not late term, as this would be.) He thinks that abortions at 25 weeks are readily available, when, in fact, they are highly restricted and rare -- limited to situations in which rape and incest are involved or the health or life of the mother is endangered. AND, in the location of the story -- New York -- abortions at 25 weeks are
not even available, although the character is supposedly popping into the local hospital on the next day. New Yorkers have to travel long distances for later-term abortions. [
Fact check: 89 percent of abortions are in the first 12 weeks; less than 1 percent are after the 20th week; and less than
one-tenth of one percent are after the 24th week. In those situations, they are sad and
tragic cases of severe fetal abnormalities and women who are likely to die.)
So by the time the big surprise ending comes -- an anti-abortion woman drugs another woman and slices out the fetuses Cesarean-style with two carving knives -- you know that you are being "gamed." (I couldn't help but think how much the 25-week prop "babies" she waves in the air look like the plastic fetuses that anti-abortion protesters wave around outside clinics.)
The director friend who traveled to the play with me thought that the whole thing should have been played as absurdism. Sadly, it's not.
Okay, here's the full synopsis. There are three story lines set in three different eras. The first, set in the 1960s, features two guys who are driving a woman to get an illegal abortion, after having liquored her up. The only character for whom one could have any feeling during the entire play is this woman. She gets to speak about two sentences in the play, and the guys do all of the talking. The college student who impregnated her and is driving her to get an abortion is such a jerk that if a woman had written the character, she would be said to be male-bashing. So let's say the male playwright is good at stereotyping men.
The cad, who claims to have ambitions to be president, spends most of the act describing to his buddy -- in a junior high way -- how to get to "second base" with a woman. This sexual manipulation and objectification is not what makes him a jerk. He's been sleeping with the pregnant woman to make another coed jealous; he screams at her when she says she doesn't want the abortion and says that he will not be forced into marriage by her family; he has sex with her on the side of the highway on the way to the abortion ... not sure why; he asks her for half the money but then tricks her into paying more than half; and he starts kissing the woman who conducts the abortion. The abortion, we later learn, turns out badly. Oh, and while the woman is getting an abortion, a seven-year old girl, daughter of the woman giving the abortion, kills a kitten by strangling its neck ... not sure why.
The second half of the first act features the daughter of the woman who gave the abortion, now a teen. In a sudden shift of style, the whole scene is a rap-monologue as if she is performing at a club with text of not very high quality, but finely delivered. The daughter is pregnant by a man she has been sleeping with for several months because he brings her gifts. Or something. Since this play is really about manipulation (both of characters and the audience), she says she's going to have an abortion to teach her sex partner a lesson. That's because he's disappeared but wants to have the child and hasn't said that he loves her. She's going to make sure he doesn't get what he wants. "See, I kill kittens," she says.
Act two is the present, and yet another style. These characters talk to each other but also turn out and talk to the audience on occasion. A New York cooking show host is the pregnant woman who has decided upon an abortion, and an anti-abortion crusader talks her way into her apartment.
The crusader is none other than the kitten-killer, who we now learn never had an abortion, but married the man who impregnated her; the man started a business and became a millionaire; she had five other children by him and became a dedicated Christian; she went to college, went to medical school for two years, and now devotes her life to harassing people about abortion. She apparently no longer kills kittens. The cooking show host is the one who accidentally discovers that she is pregnant in her 25th week, and promptly and unrealistically schedules an instant abortion.
They have an argument -- this seems to be what the play is working its way up to --that takes the chief talking points of the anti-abortion side, and bats them around a little with pro-choice talking points. Yawn. Oh, and the anti-abortion woman strips and parades around naked for awhile -- don't know why. (If this is a woman who is supposed to have had six children, they could have given her one stretch mark -- but, then, that might take some knowledge about the uterus.)
The most interesting moment in this scene is when the estranged husband of the cooking host begs her to bear the child, presumably from his sperm, and she says she will if he promises to be the full-time caretaker. He quickly backs down, and once again, the playwright shows he is good at writing jerks.
What's real clear is that the playwright can repeat the arguments of the anti-choice movement, and occasionally create a fencing back-and-forth. But if you haven't seen it before, you've been sleeping on the couch. His main argument seems to be that the only difference between a fetus and a baby is "air." Oops. Did he forget about the uterus? The placenta? The WOMAN?
This is the trouble. He hasn't a clue -- or a concern -- about the difference between an argument and the real world consequences for women. They are one and the same to him. He cannot imagine the panic and terror that affects women who are facing an unintended pregnancy. He cannot imagine a woman from the inside. He cannot imagine himself as a woman whose life will be forever changed. He cannot imagine that the arguments fade and even antis have abortions when they know that they are unable to bear a child. He cannot conceive of trusting women.
After the twin fetuses are cut out in a 30-second operation on the floor and a lot of stage blood is used up, the final scene is a tableau with the cooking show mom holding the two (plastic) babies. She looks at them and screams. And that is a fitting end to this play.
If you want to read more, here are three reviews that I thought did a good job of capturing
Girls in Trouble:
nytheatre.com and
TimeOut and
Backstage.Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above: Image from "Girls in Trouble."
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