“I grew up in a single parent household and this play is a love letter to my mom and all birthing people, without whom all of us would literally not exist.”
– Lillian Isabella, NYU Tisch alumni, half-Cuban Bronx-raised playwright
Primordial, up Feb 1-25 off Broadway at The Tank NYC deals with pregnancy, childbirth, patient advocacy, maternal health, birth without violence, birth equity, and celebrates this innate connection we all share – having been born – while encouraging the audience to talk more openly about it. It’s documentary theater, created verbatim from diverse lived experiences.
Tragedy, comedy, and social commentary all in one, the performance and talk-backs after Primordial that follow are also an urgent call to action. The play features the talents of Jordan Mosley, Paula Sim, Rebekah Rawhouser, Marisela Grajeda Gonzalez, Nina Fry and Adrianna Mateo pictured below.
“This play hits on a deep physical level. As someone who has given birth twice, it evoked visceral memories of the experience for me”
– Meghan Finn The Tank NYC Artistic Director, co-director of Primordial
For the new play that premiered in NYC this month, Primordial, Lillian Isabella conducted structured, in-depth interviews with 50+ Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, disabled, trans and other birthing people. She’s a new playwright, and she’s also my daughter.
As a scientist and public health advocate myself, I might have turned this impressive body of research into a journal article to spark debate in US healthcare systems. But when I first read her Primordial play script, distilled verbatim from her 1,000+ interview transcript pages, I saw what emerged was magical. A talented cast, composer, choreographer and director bring it all to life in the safe space of live theater at The Tank.
Why Primordial, the Pregnancy and Childbirth Story Matters Now
The production Primordial points toward how centering pregnancy and birth could shift us – as people and as a society – and had generous support from Centering Healthcare Institute along with 100+ other individuals and organizations. It’s a story based on those who lived to tell the tale – too many don’t.
Somehow, rates of maternal deaths spiraled upwards the last few years in the US instead of decreasing. We all need to understand why.
“The death of a woman during pregnancy, at delivery, or soon after delivery is a tragedy for her family and for society as a whole”
– Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC
The childbirth experience can be magical, transformative, but it’s also dangerous – and especially here in the US. A scathing report on birthing people’s self-reported experiences came out last summer, from the US Centers for Disease Control, CDC. It showed 20% overall – and even more, 30% of birthing people who identify as Black, Latina or multiracial – had endured mistreatment by health workers providing their care in the hospital.
That’s a lot.
If I hadn’t been there myself, I would be shocked by these statistics.
Abuses people recalled were some of the same things I experienced while giving birth: health care providers ignoring birthing people, actually refusing their requests for help, or not responding; shouting at or scolding them; violating their physical privacy; aggressive physical contact; refusal to provide anesthesia; threatening to withhold treatment – in addition to forcing them to accept treatment they explicitly stated they did not want during childbirth.
Some of the highest rates of mistreatment were of people with no health insurance at childbirth – the circumstance I was in when having my own two daughters while still in grad school.
These same abuses are reflected in personal memories within the Primordial play performance at The Tank NYC, from the in-depth interviews that formed the script. They’re the kinds of medical errors that could lead to fatal complications being overlooked, ignored, or mistreated by the hospital staff. I feel lucky that I came out of childbirth alive. Twice.
The rate of dying from pregnancy and childbirth is three times higher in the US than in any other high-income country worldwide. Maternal death rates from the latest data in the US, 2022, were about the same here as they were in Lebanon, The West Bank, The Gaza Strip, Malaysia, Antigua and Barbuda at the time – and actually worse in the US than in 60 other countries worldwide including Egypt, Russia, Romania and Turkey.
The World Health Organization, WHO, last month called for lasting health systems changes to right some of these wrongs, globally. Power-related drivers are behind this mistreatment, WHO notes: A lack of knowledge about our rights when we go into labor; hierarchy between patients and healthcare workers; discrimination against birthing people who are indigenous, people of color, or who lack health insurance; pressure for health systems to reach performance goals; and a dangerous lack of accountability for pervasive human rights violations during birthing. The WHO study authors conclude that change will need all of us – birthing people, community, health workforce and policy-makers.
As the Primordial playwright asks about birthing, “Why are we not talking about this all the time?”
I think the people who see the show Primordial are about to. Let’s make some noise.
Benefit Event: Feb. 15, 2024 is a special benefit theater night for Mama Glow, a wonderful group who offer doula support at every stage along the childbearing continuum. I hope you can catch this performance if you’re near NYC.
Production of Primordial is made possible by Centering Healthcare Institute, a grant from Cherry Lane Alternative (Angelina Fiordellisi, Founding Artistic Director), and 100+ additional supporters and organizations. Conceived and created by Lillian Isabella, Primordial is co-directed by Tank Artistic Director Meghan Finn (Mahinerator) and Grammy-nominated choreographer/director, Leslie Galán Guyton, with music performed live by solo violinist, singer-songwriter and composer Adrianna Mateo, within an immersive installation.The cast features Nina Fry, Marisela Grajeda Gonzalez, Adrianna Mateo, Jordan Mosley, Rebekah Rawhouser, and Paula Sim. Costume design by Patricia Marjorie and projection design by David Pym, Linda Jones is the Dialect Coach, and Max Mooney is the Stage Manager.
J.J.Brown Author 