© 1987 Lois Achimovich
Life Force, a play by Lois Achimovich, was commissioned for Deck Chair Theatre's Birthworks project 1987.
The scene is a large living room/kitchen with friendly wallhangings, ceramics, glass, thick rugs.There is a bench/kitchen table to stage left and a futon to stage right under window. Chairs at bench and a rocking chair.
A woman (Beth) is in labour on the futon. Another woman, Kelly, the midwife, is sitting next to her on the futon with her hand on her abdomen measuring contractions. Another woman, Marian, is cooking at the bench. Another, Dolly, is lolling in the rocking chair.
Enter Penny with a pram full of vegetables and fruit.
Penny: You wouldn't believe the markets! Full of tourists!
Marian: (peering into the pram)
God! Where's the baby?
Penny: (delves into pram)
He's okay, aren't you lovey?
Marian: He's turned green!
Penny: It's kiwi fruit. Give it to mummy darling. Give it to me, there's a good boy.
(She slops the green mess into the bin)
Dolly: Why can't you give him a crust like any self-respecting mother?
Penny: Metabolically it has been shown that fruit is vastly superior to.....
Dolly: Yeah, Yeah, I know, but you'll turn him into the jolly green giant if you're not careful. Give him to me! How are you, little petal?
(Penny gives baby to Dolly.)
Penny: Don't listen to her darling - she's a rotten influence. (To Marian) How's it going?
Kelly: I think she's almost in transition. Has anyone called Christopher? I sent him home for a rest.
Marian: I'll do it. He was really bombed. He's been rubbing her back all day.
Kelly: She's breathing beautifully.
Beth: Oh God!
Kelly: You're doing great!
Beth: Ta!
Kelly: Want some ice?
Beth: Yes please. Hello everyone. (She doesn't lift her head.) Where's Chris?
Marian: He's on his way.
Beth: I'm taking a long time.
Kelly: For a 38 year old geriatric you're doing great!
Beth: Oh, here it comes again!
Kelly: Come on, the transition breathing now.
Penny: (to Dolly) And what's your role, sugar plum?
Dolly: I'm meditating. (She reads a book as she holds baby.) I'm the resident priestess. I'm channelling the cosmic energy. I also get to bury the placenta under the blue gum - or cook it and eat it or something.
Penny: Don't be disgusting! Get off your backside and do something.
Dolly: I'm waiting for the call for hot water and then I'll zap into action. Anyway your baby needs me.
Penny: Story of her life! Do you want a cup of coffee while you're sitting there meditating?
Dolly: Yes please! I know what I can do. Select some nice music. An incantation of some kind. (Does so) That OK, Beth?
Beth: Lovely! Someone rub my back!
(Penny, Marian and Dolly all rush to do it. Dolly does so. Marian and Penny retire to the bench and, after serving coffee, drink some themselves)
Marian: She's game - having her first baby at home at her age.
Penny: She's so fit. And Jo will be here for the birth.
Marian: I wish she'd go to hospital, just for an hour or so.
Penny: Well she won't and that's that. I don't know why she feels so strongly but she does.
(Chris runs in half-dressed, runs to the futon and presses his head to Beth's abdomen.)
Chris: Still thumping away there - you little beauty! How are you love? Is it really awful?
(Beth grunts.)
Kelly: Course it's awful - and magic at the same time.
Chris: What can I do?
Beth: You've done enough!
(Chris looks confused, then smiles with the others.)
Kelly: Just sponge her face and encourage her - and keep the music going. I don't know about Beth, but it's soothing me. Where's the birthing stool? She wants to use it in second stage.
Dolly: What's that?
Kelly: It's when the neck of the womb is fully open and the mother can start pushing the baby out. The last stage is from the delivery of the baby to the delivery of the afterbirth. She can lie down for that part, but it's better if she's sitting up when the head is coming down the birth canal. Here we go again.
(Kelly and Dolly leave Chris and Beth together and sit at the bench.)
Marian: It's gone all religious in here.
Penny: I feel like lighting candles or something.
Dolly: Or making an offering to the Goddess.
Kelly: It's often like this at a birth - when we don't take all the wonder out of it.
Dolly: It's like you're in touch with the Beyond - whatever it is that stretches out there beyond birth and death.
Penny: Hope it's a boy.
Dolly: We've already got a boy in this house of women. What about a girl?
Marian: Yeah, I kind of worry about not having male figures for boys.
Dolly: Fuck male figures! Seems to me women spend their lives birthing and nurturing and growing up children and men spend theirs trying to think of new ways to knock them off.
Marian: Men don't hold the franchise on aggression you know.
Penny: The hell they don't!
Dolly: Anyway whatever sex little person pops out we're going to love it. I've knitted a jumpsuit at work. Brought it home to show you.
(Draws out a knitted jumpsuit in multi-colours with florid zig-zags and stripes)
Marian: Heavens! Don't show it to Beth - her labour will stop!
Penny: It's amazing! I want one!
(Enter Jo, the G.P.)
Jo: How goes it, all?
Dolly: Well we sure are glad you decided to drop by!
Jo: Come on, you could have paged me. How is she, Kelly?
Beth: I'm fine. I feel like I want to push.
Jo: Is she fully?
Kelly: I think so.
(They help Beth onto the birthing stool. Chris sits behind her supporting her back.)
Beth: I need to pee.
Chris: Get the screen someone.
(Dolly and Penny get it.)
Dolly: But then we can't see.
Chris: She doesn't want an audience for everything.
Beth: What audience?
(Jo and Kelly tend to Beth behind screen, Marian, Dolly and Penny return to table.)
Marian: S'pose she'll want to move in with Chris now.
(Penny nods.)
Dolly: I don't think so.
Penny: They've been lovers for six years - it's about time.
Dolly: She's got a thing about it.
Penny: Babies make jelly out of the strongest feminist.
Dolly: In her case, I don't think it's about feminism.
Marian: What then?
Dolly: Don't know - but don't look forward to blissful nights because Mum and the kid are likely to be here for the duration.
Marian: Great! I thought we'd sort of break up - you know - after the birth.
Dolly: "Those wedding bells are breaking up......."
Kelly: Shut up! The head's on view with the contractions.
(They crowd around. Screen is taken away - lower part of Beth's body is hidden by her shirt and the women. Beth leans against Chris. Kelly kneels in front - the lights are dimmed. Everyone is quiet as she pushes with a contraction. When she stops, everyone breathes and moves waiting for the next one. Kelly puts stethescope on abdomen.)
Jo: Heart OK.
Kelly: Like a train!
Jo: Great! (Gives Beth a hug.) You're marvellous.
Chris: Bloody oath!
Jo: You're terrific too, pal.
Chris: Is she OK? There's a fair amount of blood.
Jo: About normal. (Walks to stove and pours herself a coffee. Dolly follows her.) How y'doing?
Dolly: It's been hard work, but I think I'll make it. Is this all you do at a birth? Sit around and drink coffee?
Jo: Masterly inactivity, that's my motto.
Dolly: Aren't you supposed to give her an injection or a magic potion or something?
Jo: The best obstetric advice I ever got was from a shopkeeper in Florence. Bianca Bianci was her name. I wanted to cut short my Italian vacation to be with my sister when she was having a baby. "No," she said, "No need to go, baby will come whether you are there or not!" And that's pretty much true. Took me a while to learn to sit on my hands though.
Kelly: Only a couple more to go, Jo.
Jo: Gotcha.
(They all crowd around and move with the contractions. Finally Beth cries out and the baby is born into Kelly's arms.)
Chris: It's a girl. Marvellous. Oh, how marvellous!
(Beth leans back against him holding the baby and examining it as the others hug and kiss each other and then tend to the cleaning up of Beth. Chris and the baby move back to the futon as the others gradually leave. Kelly is last as she delivers the afterbirth and does the final clean-up.)
Need some way to move from this naturalistic scene to the dream sequence…? through music that becomes more and more insistent, or through a song or non-verbal notes as in Alice's workshop. Some aspects of the story could be told by slides flashing quickly on and off, especially the hospital sequence and the image of the parents with a girl in school uniform between them being marched off to boarding school.
DREAM SEQUENCE
Young boy and girl meet and dance. Dance becomes sexual. Girl is elated then ashamed - then frightened when she realises that she might be pregnant. Parents intervene - take her away, boy looks for her in vain. Girl obviously pregnant, alone in hospital, legs up in stirrups like the four other women in the labour ward. Writhes in labour, screams, nurse with mask on takes the baby away. The girl dances her grief, parents take her to boarding school. Boy looks for her for a long time. Cannot find her. Goes away. Girl figure fades into Beth.
MORNING
Penny, Dolly and Marian come in and quietly begin to make tea and breakfast. Chris wakes and gently puts the baby in the cradle. Dolly gives him a hug.
Dolly: You were great.
Chris: No, she was. I can't believe the whole experience. (They put on some music and quietly chat. Beth wakes suddenly, looks around and screams.) My God,what"s the matter?
Beth: Where's the baby? Where's my baby?
Chris: I put her in the cradle. What's wrong?
(Beth goes to the cradle and screams again. Marian and Dolly run to her.)
Beth: There are two of them tight together. I can't get them apart!
Marian: No, darling, it's just Celia, there's only one baby.
Beth: (clinging to Chris) I'll never get them apart.
Dolly: I'll call Jo.
(Marian picks up the baby and cuddles it.)
Marian: There's nothing wrong, love, it's just a bad dream.
Beth: Give me my baby. Give it to me. My little Celia. I was sure there were two.
Chris: Let's have a coffee. Jeez, you scared the shit out of me!
Beth: (to baby) No-one's going to take you away - not ever - beautiful baby.
Penny: No-one wants to take your baby away - what is this nonsense?
Beth: It's not nonsense.
Penny: Well, I can't make any sense of it.
Chris: That doesn't make it nonsense. She's still shivering. Penny, I've made some hot milo. Beth, are you interested?
Beth: No.
(Everyone tries to act as if nothing too extraordinary has happened. Enter Jo.)
Jo: Hello, little mother, what's going on?
Beth: I want to talk to you alone.
Dolly: O.K.
(All women except Jo make ready to leave.)
Beth: You too, Chris.
Chris: No way. I want to know what this is all about.
Beth: Please, darling.
Jo: I think it's better.
Beth: I'll tell you everything later.
Chris: I have a right......
Beth: Yes you do, but I want you to go right now.
(He goes reluctantly.)
Jo: What happened?
Beth: I saw two babies in the cradle.
Jo: You dreamt it.
Beth: No, I saw them, twined together tight.
(If this were a full length production, I would have Beth go upstairs with the baby and not come down for three weeks, while the stories of the other characters developed. As it's a one-acter, I think Beth needs to make the connection immediately.)
Jo: Two babies?
Beth: Yes. Celia - and my other baby.
Jo: What other baby?
Beth: The one I had when I was sixteen.
Jo: Does anyone else know?
Beth: Just my parents.
Jo: What about the father?
Beth: I didn't even get a chance to tell him I was pregnant. He probably wouldn't have cared. The baby was adopted. He was a boy. I never saw him. Last night I dreamt that the father, Tom, had looked for me and looked for me.
Jo: Didn't he come to the house?
Beth: My parents took me to the city as soon as they found out. We were only sixteen and they took my baby away. They said it was the best thing. I want to see him. I want to see my baby.
Jo: Beth, this isn't the time!
Beth: Yes it is. I have to know that the baby is alright.
Jo: You could put your name on the Jigsaw list I suppose. But you really don't need this hassle now.
Beth: I didn't need to be pregnant at sixteen either. Life is so inconvenient. And I must find Tom too.
Jo: Now I'm really worried. What about Chris? You've got a new baby. He wants to get married.
Beth: I can't marry him. Don't be silly.
Jo; Why not?
Beth: I'm already married.
(She takes the baby and exits.)
END
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