Lullaby
Since a small Scottish tour of my last show Lullaby was cancelled April/ May 2020, due to the global pandemic, I have been looking at re-working the project and touring UK and Ireland.
Lullaby follows on from Rutherford’s projects KIN and Broth, and looks at family, ageing and the children she never had. Adding the voices of other middle-aged women who never reproduced, this film and live performance explores the personal and public aspects of this emotionally loaded terrain. Fair Isle musician Inge Thomson has created an intricate soundscape of voices and music based on a series of lullabies (traditional and newly-penned). Lullabies are a space to sing the unsung, a place to say the unsayable. You’re alone. Nobody is listening, and you can express the feelings that are not okay to express in society.
In bringing this under the wire topic of childlessness at the stage of menopause into the spotlight, it allows a true depiction of an almost taboo subject.
Safe space is provided directly after live performances for honest discussion around this area of contemporary life.
Not only women already in middle age but also women approaching that age and still in two minds about procreating, are able to reflect on their future decisions.
People with their own family will also get an insight into the unspoken experience of their childless friends or siblings.
Comments from audience written feedback at Glasgow Women’s Library
- “Loved the concept, the honesty, the stories, the composure, the humour and the presentation."
- "The fact that life just happens and you wake up one day at 50 without kids. It wasn’t planned."
- "Frank, heartfelt, witty, authentic, bittersweet, uncomfortable, comforting, moving. Most powerful when Donna speaks unscripted."
- "Women who chose deliberately to remain childless but who have nurturing instincts towards children."
- "Donna’s witty autobiographical bits especially about ambivalence. Great to laugh about a serious issue dealt with in a profound and thoughtful way.”
- “The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo.
Ursula K. Le Guinn.” ‘The Space Crone’
Theatre Review - The Tempohouse by Lorna Irvine
“Donna Rutherford has always written in a lyrical, earthy way on family, ageing and what it is to be human. Lullaby, which follows on from her previous works Kin and Broth focuses on an arguably more taboo subject- that of middle-aged women who are without children. As the film plays, Rutherford has cheekily provided jelly babies for the audience to munch. This sets the tone for all of the inherent contradictions of the piece- sweet, humorous, but with bite.
Using a selection of voices, while narrating her own experiences live, Rutherford examines the impact on women, who through choice or circumstance have found themselves without a family. Some remain anonymous; others appear on screen and talk frankly, wittily and movingly about this. The stigma is addressed- the fact that people see fit to inquire ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and ‘Why not?’ of women who haven’t become mothers, yet who do not approach men in this way. The equation of motherhood as being something synonymous with femininity, almost an obligation, is voiced. One woman speaks of a school reunion where she felt like an outsider, as everyone there was a parent except for her, ‘and all they did was talk about their children- I wanted to hear about them‘ she says, and her frustration is palpable. So many people’s identities are, after all, bound up in their children’s lives.
An elegiac, beautiful soundtrack by musician Inge Thomson accompanies the film- folk songs given a new rhythm like a heartbeat- fragile and tentative. Rutherford sings along with ‘Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird’, and discloses her own reasons for never having a baby. She simply states that ‘a darkness’ enclosed her whenever the subject came up, and that her friends always expressed surprise at her choice. She does not knock people who have kids, but laments how child-focused the western world has become, and the almost saintly nature of kids and motherhood within society. She refers back to historical texts from 17th and 18th century France, where children played less of a role in adult life, often raised by nannies- and, as the old maxim went, were seen and not heard’.
Reproductive rights, capitalism and shifts in modern living, where the man may not necessarily be the breadwinner anymore, are contributing factors for a childless couple, or single woman. Even the semantics of not having kids is discussed: ‘Child-free sounds like a brand’, Rutherford quips. Ultimately, Lullaby is an even-handed yet powerful and brave paean to womanhood, feminism and choice. Rutherford hopes to bring the project back- after the huge success of this performance, it seems a given.”
MORE PERFORMANCE WORKS
Lullaby
Since a small Scottish tour of my last show Lullaby was cancelled April/ May 2020, due to the global pandemic, I have been looking at re-working the project and touring UK and Ireland.
Lullaby follows on from Rutherford’s projects KIN and Broth, and looks at family, ageing and the children she never had. Adding the voices of other middle-aged women who never reproduced, this film and live performance explores the personal and public aspects of this emotionally loaded terrain. Fair Isle musician Inge Thomson has created an intricate soundscape of voices and music based on a series of lullabies (traditional and newly-penned). Lullabies are a space to sing the unsung, a place to say the unsayable. You’re alone. Nobody is listening, and you can express the feelings that are not okay to express in society.
In bringing this under the wire topic of childlessness at the stage of menopause into the spotlight, it allows a true depiction of an almost taboo subject.
Safe space is provided directly after live performances for honest discussion around this area of contemporary life.
Not only women already in middle age but also women approaching that age and still in two minds about procreating, are able to reflect on their future decisions.
People with their own family will also get an insight into the unspoken experience of their childless friends or siblings.
Comments from audience written feedback at Glasgow Women’s Library
- “Loved the concept, the honesty, the stories, the composure, the humour and the presentation."
- "The fact that life just happens and you wake up one day at 50 without kids. It wasn’t planned."
- "Frank, heartfelt, witty, authentic, bittersweet, uncomfortable, comforting, moving. Most powerful when Donna speaks unscripted."
- "Women who chose deliberately to remain childless but who have nurturing instincts towards children."
- "Donna’s witty autobiographical bits especially about ambivalence. Great to laugh about a serious issue dealt with in a profound and thoughtful way.”
- “The menopause is probably the least glamorous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo.
Ursula K. Le Guinn.” ‘The Space Crone’
Theatre Review - The Tempohouse by Lorna Irvine
“Donna Rutherford has always written in a lyrical, earthy way on family, ageing and what it is to be human. Lullaby, which follows on from her previous works Kin and Broth focuses on an arguably more taboo subject- that of middle-aged women who are without children. As the film plays, Rutherford has cheekily provided jelly babies for the audience to munch. This sets the tone for all of the inherent contradictions of the piece- sweet, humorous, but with bite.
Using a selection of voices, while narrating her own experiences live, Rutherford examines the impact on women, who through choice or circumstance have found themselves without a family. Some remain anonymous; others appear on screen and talk frankly, wittily and movingly about this. The stigma is addressed- the fact that people see fit to inquire ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and ‘Why not?’ of women who haven’t become mothers, yet who do not approach men in this way. The equation of motherhood as being something synonymous with femininity, almost an obligation, is voiced. One woman speaks of a school reunion where she felt like an outsider, as everyone there was a parent except for her, ‘and all they did was talk about their children- I wanted to hear about them‘ she says, and her frustration is palpable. So many people’s identities are, after all, bound up in their children’s lives.
An elegiac, beautiful soundtrack by musician Inge Thomson accompanies the film- folk songs given a new rhythm like a heartbeat- fragile and tentative. Rutherford sings along with ‘Momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird’, and discloses her own reasons for never having a baby. She simply states that ‘a darkness’ enclosed her whenever the subject came up, and that her friends always expressed surprise at her choice. She does not knock people who have kids, but laments how child-focused the western world has become, and the almost saintly nature of kids and motherhood within society. She refers back to historical texts from 17th and 18th century France, where children played less of a role in adult life, often raised by nannies- and, as the old maxim went, were seen and not heard’.
Reproductive rights, capitalism and shifts in modern living, where the man may not necessarily be the breadwinner anymore, are contributing factors for a childless couple, or single woman. Even the semantics of not having kids is discussed: ‘Child-free sounds like a brand’, Rutherford quips. Ultimately, Lullaby is an even-handed yet powerful and brave paean to womanhood, feminism and choice. Rutherford hopes to bring the project back- after the huge success of this performance, it seems a given.”
MORE PERFORMANCE WORKS
