Ensemble member Rebekah Ward-Hays has been spending the past few months in a terrific new play produced by About Face Theatre and Chicago Dramatists called The Kid Thing. Sarah Gubbin’s play raises important questions about the difficulties that couples face when deciding to have a family. Since BSTC is dedictaed to the exploration of the idea of family, I asked Rebekah if she would blog about her experiences in this lovely play. Enjoy.
–Matthew
My experience with About Face and Chicago Dramatists Theatres performing in playwright Sarah Gubbins’ The Kid Thing has been a phenomenal three months of storytelling. This play asks all kinds of questions about family – when to start one, why to start one, how to start one, do we have enough money, do we really have that much left to figure out, will having a baby help us “solidify” what we’ve already got?
But more than figuring out when to do “the kid thing”, I am struck by the play’s even stronger message about our responsibility of why to do it – if we so choose. The central character, Darcy, chooses not to become a parent because of how she is perceived in the world, being a lesbian who is often mistaken for a male, and is paralyzed by her fear of how that would impact a child on a daily basis. But deeper than that, is her concern of what her own child might think of her – or rather – how. With Shame. Embarrassment. Confusion. And then there is the intense pain of coming to terms with the reality of her own self-loathing.
One of my lines in response to Darcy’s argument as to why “gay people who look like me, shouldn’t have kids” is that it “takes two, maybe more adults in a child’s life, to give them comfort. To help them learn how the world works.” And if I’ve learned anything, it is that family is a broad, broad umbrella with a very specific function – to love, nurture and grow the next generation. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to subject yourself, your family, to the effects of change. But the why – the reason it is worth doing – is so critical. I think the responsibility we have as human beings is to move through our fear, and all of the limits we, or our predecessors, have created because of fear. To continuously evolve, living in our most loving and truthful capacity. We have made great steps in tearing down the structures in our society built from fear and ignorance. And I can’t think of a greater responsibility and joy for families than loving a child, and one another, so much that you bravely introduce them to a world you are committed to changing.
-Rebekah Ward-Hays
*The Kid Thing plays through October 16th. For more information, please visit www.chicagodramatists.org
