As a mother of two, whenever I learn that a family member or friend has just given birth, I often say “Welcome to the agony and ecstasy of parenthood.” And in many cases, it’s the mom who bears the brunt of it. If you want to experience what the worst of it looks like, you can get a crash course in Meat Suit, or the shitshow of motherhood.
The 95-minute play presents motherhood as a horror show, a state of existence in which “every birth triggers quiet deaths—the mother’s autonomy, sense of self, and personal desire—and whether anything of the person she was survives” as the press materials describe.
There’s a lot of food for thought in this play and yes, it hits a raw nerve for those of us who’ve gone through the challenges of bearing and raising children. But playwright/director Aya Ogawa does mothers few favors by framing motherhood as a grotesque nightmare from birth to death without any of the ecstasy that comes with it.
The term “meat suit” is slang for the human body; and when used in the context of motherhood, it implies that the woman is merely a vessel needed to produce an alien entity navigating the physical world and sucking her dry.
That’s pretty intense stuff. And in fact, the “bouffon-inspired” costumes and scenic designs by Jian Jung go to great lengths to resemble an otherworldly existence in which everything related to the female body is exaggerated and misshapen. Giant pink pendulous set pieces dangle from ceiling to the floor; and when the five actors enter, they’re all in unflattering bodysuits and headpieces featuring enlarged, distorted body parts.
The first character we meet, Krystal (Maureen Sebastian), appears as a vapid teen with bulbous, outsized breasts. She’s joined by three other bizarrely costumed friends (Robyn Kerr, Cindy Cheung and Marina Celander); and soon after, a 4th friend, Momo (Liz Wisan), enters, hideously outfitted with dangling snakelike tubes protruding from her chest. She’s just had a baby, explaining why she’s late and can’t join her friends drinking white peach mimosas because she’s nursing. At one point she complains of leaking breast milk while holding up the breast tubes as white streamers fly out into the audience.
The play proceeds with disjointed satirical scenes like that, revealing the misery of mothering. There are the young overbearing tiger moms who put their children through extremes to prove their superiority; the petty PTA mothers who compete to be the best while cruelly putting each other down; the overworked moms who give up their “beautiful bodies” to slave away for their kids and husband; and the exhausted sandwich generation moms squeezed by the demands of their young children and elderly parents. The larger point of the production is that to be a mother requires the abandonment of identity and true self.
It briefly hits home in a personal way when the actors break character to say that they’re all mothers themselves, and that the play was created after interviewing dozens of others. Leyna Marika Papach contributes original music which isn’t great. But her “Single Mom” song is a touching lament with the tender lyrics:
I don’t regret what I gave to you
what I give to you,
what I’ll keep giving to you
What I regret is all the time that’s gone,
since I lost the thread,
and turned away from myself
It’s a refreshing break from the buffoonery that dominates the show. And while I can’t argue with the unpleasant aspects of motherhood – (it is the hardest job I’ve ever had) – the play is relentlessly downbeat despite its efforts at cheap laughs. In satire, humor is essential to make its point, ultimately exposing a dark truth. In Meat Suit, the truth is readily apparent – motherhood can indeed be a shitshow – but the execution is neither all that funny or entertaining. And despite Ogawa’s best efforts to eschew convention with this piece (the audience is placed on the stage with the actors), the monotony and acrid tone of the staging quickly grows tiresome. Motherhood is rough enough without being constantly reminded how ugly it can get.
