An object of recent discourse has been how good Linksliberale talk about reproduction – pained, conflicted, guiltily. Claude De Demo and Jorinde Dröse intervene in this hetero- and repro-pessimistic discourse to remind the audience we’re only thinking about part of the equation. What, asks #Motherfuckinghood, does it mean to become a mother?
Claude De Demo first takes the stage in a trench coat covering a stained shirt, hassled and harried, a frazzled bundle of nerves ready to explode at her child, who should have called their dad. Shifting from screwball to deadly serious, De Demo channels a collage of texts from the writers Antonia Baum and Mareike Fallwickl and the theorist Emilia Roig, which explore the realities of motherhood obfuscated by Germany’s longstanding cult of the mother.
Moving through indignity after indignity and broken up by a facetious game show about gender gaps, De Demo has transformed by the piece’s end into a punk Wonder Woman, imagining civilisation destroyed if women were to stop being mothers. The final monologue turns to bell hooks for inspiration and attempts to imagine raising a son who is soft and caring, in a world that wants him to be anything but. Yet, what I couldn’t shake off was the impassioned speech that De Demo delivers about giving birth – as a traumatic experience of powerlessness and voicelessness. Indeed, #Motherfuckinghood might reach for humour, but it is always in earnest, and, indeed, quite serious.
- Berliner Ensemble, Bertolt-Brecht-Platz 1, Mitte, Sep 8, 25, German with English surtitles, details.
