Review: "cunnicularii" Births a Captivating Magical Realist Look at Motherhood
cunnicularii Written by Sophie McIntosh Directed by Nina Goodheart Presented by Good Apples Collective and Esmé Maria Ng at Alchemical Studios 50 West 17th Street, Manhattan, NYC June 28-July 13, 2024 Camille Umoff. Photo credit: Nina Goodheart Photography In 1726, an English laborer named Mary Toft who lived in Godalming, Surrey, convinced doctors (male, of course), both local and called in from London, that she was giving birth to (dead) rabbits (and some other assorted non-human animal parts). Although this unusual reproductivity was eventually determined to be a deception, Toft's story throws into relief not only the apparatuses of power and knowledge surrounding women's bodies but men's ignorance of those bodies, compounded by patriarchal moralism, joined with their ignoring evidence that maybe these bunnies originated elsewhere than Toft's womb in favor of their own self-advancement. With her fantastic–and fantastical–new play, cunnicularii , Sophie McIntosh, a...