“To Carry The Child” takes its title from a poem by Stevie Smith. It’s also both a literal image and a metaphor central to the content of this new play. Ashley, a struggling young artist, finds herself confronted with cataclysmic events and abandoned by her lesbian lover, Diane. So Ashley decides to return from the big city to her family home on Carapace Isle, on the coast of North Carolina. She seeks comfort within the bosom of family, but there are frustrations: They’re all dysfunctional to one degree or another, perhaps none more so than Ashley herself.
There’s father Bo, more than a little rough around the edges; There’s mother Lib, who blithely tries to plaster a pleasant face on everything, regardless of the circumstances; There’s seemingly favored sister Sissie, who is pregnant and hiding the true origins of her fetus from her parents.
Ashley finds herself with a limited amount of time to mend all her broken fences before impending disaster threatens to overtake her. Can she find healing for all of her broken relationships? Will Carapace Isle become a safe haven for her once again?
A developmental version of this play was workshopped by Collaborative Artists Ensemble in 2009. The present production marks the World Premiere of the play as a completed work.
