08/08/23

Assembly George St (The Front Room), Edinburgh

Arlene Hutton’s Blood of the Lamb pulls no punches: it’s a searing indictment of recent changes to abortion laws in the USA. Since Roe v Wade was overturned in June 2022, many Americans have lost their right to bodily autonomy: abortion is now illegal in many states, and history shows us that women will pay the price with their lives.

In this harrowing drama, Nessa (Dana Brooke) is on a flight from California to Illinois when she falls ill. The flight is diverted to Dallas, and she is given the devastating news that the much longed-for baby she is carrying is dead. But that’s not all. New state laws dictate that she must remain in Texas until the deceased foetus is born; the fact that this poses a serious threat to her own chances of survival is neither here nor there. The state has appointed a lawyer to represent ‘the baby’ and Val (Elisabeth Nunziato) is determined to follow the law to the letter. Even if the ink that wrote the letter isn’t quite dry…

Directed by Lyndsay Burch, this play feels claustrophobic: it’s like we’re all trapped inside the closed minds of the (male) lawmakers, like we’re all sharing Nessa’s grief and outrage, unable to escape from the small room she’s confined to. The Assembly’s ‘Front Room’ is a shipping container, and it’s the perfect venue for this stifling narrative.

Brooke plays the everywoman’s anguish very well, aghast at the preposterous nature of the situation she’s in, while Nunziato imbues the implacable lawyer with a believably awkward demeanour, caught between her almost fanatical faith and her desire to be a good person. It is to the actors’ and writer’s credit that this heartbreaking and powerful production also manages to make us laugh at times, though generally in disbelief.

I’m trying to resist calling Blood of the Lamb ‘Kafka-esque’, although it is, because that shifts the focus to its literariness. Instead, I want to call it ‘urgent’, because this kind of thing is actually happening in the real world. Now.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield