A Life’s Work

Mother-baby is how Cusk refers to the hybrid being that only splits into two during the course of the child’s first year. Suffering from lack of sleep, Cusk becomes engrossed in the depths and dark corners of her current state. In 2001, she was one of the first to develop a way of writing about becoming a mother. Between advice and handbooks, she finds that often all she can do is try to remain true to herself, with the immanent risk of failure.

In her production, Ruth Mensah embraces this period and the experience of the “mother-baby”; and just in time, according to Cusk, for soon knowledge will inevitably give way to non-remembering. Mensah juxtaposes existential fear with the banality of everyday life and its objects, and in this way mirrors the contradictions that the beginning of life brings with it. A poetic and sensual study of the expansion, loss, and regaining of the maternal body.

The new TEATA in der Gumpendorfer will perform this production at Theater Nestroyhof Hamakom.