This past Saturday night, instead of going out to Sixth Street, hitting the frat houses, or even opting for a quiet movie night in with my girls, I did something completely out of character. I watched a play. About an abortion.
Truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of plays in the first place. Maybe it’s a side effect of thousands of hours of TikTok shortening my attention span, or on-demand streaming letting me press “pause” almost constantly, but I hate live entertainment – usually. So when my boss at Planned Parenthood texted me and told me that tonight’s assignment for my internship was tabling outside a play called Funny, Like an Abortion, I was less than excited, to say the least. And when I got there and she offered me a chance to watch the play, I was skeptical that I’d enjoy it. Boy, was I wrong.Â
At first glance, the name of the play, Funny, Like an Abortion, turns you off a little. At best, it seems a little awkward. At worst? It seems insensitive and in bad taste. After all, abortions aren’t funny – not by a long-shot. But as you start watching the play, you start to understand why it’s called that – it’s part of the appeal.Â
But before I get into the play, I need to rave about the venue for a hot minute. Funny was hosted in The VORTEX, an underground, avant-garde community theater situated a little east of I-35 and smack-dab in the middle of a quaint little neighborhood with teeming greenery.Â
At first glance, the VORTEX looks like just another house in the neighborhood, and the entrance itself makes you feel like you’re stepping into your best friend’s backyard. The corrugated iron on the side of the yard fence gives off the impression of a shed, and the wooden patio reminds you of outdoor barbecues from your childhood. It’s all beautifully offset by large red umbrellas that cover the outdoor restaurant seating – that’s right, the VORTEX has a restaurant in its own backyard, literally! It’s called Patrizi’s and has the most delicious mushroom-and-pesto pizza.Â
But once you get over the awe of the backyard restaurant and step inside the actual building, you start to see the true character of the VORTEX. It’s decorated like it’s perennially October, with small, warm lamps and spooky string lights hanging from the exposed pipe in the ceiling. The adorably-named indoor Butterfly Bar is made of grand mahogany wood with Baroque-esque carvings, and customers grab their drinks while a projector plays episodes of Pokemon onto the adjacent wall. It’s a charming, eccentric juxtaposition – Pokemon in a bar-room that has the makings of an Irish pub – and it only adds to the venue’s character.
It was definitely the quirky intimacy of the venue that softened me to the idea of the play. I mean, it’s hard to hate a play if you’re so charmed by the theater it’s being performed in, right?Â
So, I bought a $3 bag of popcorn and sat down in seat H-3 of the VORTEX’s theater, a little more hopeful that I would enjoy the play.
Now, I don’t want to spoil too many details of the play, but I will say that Funny starts with a song. It’s a parody of “God Save the King” lamenting governments’ attacks made on bodily autonomy, replacing verses like “send him victorious, happy and glorious” with “a state of dystopia, with religious myopia”, reflecting how the merging of church and state blinds the government to the issues of the people.
The premise of the play is a party. An abortion party, that is. It’s set in a dystopian world in the near future where abortion and birth control are illegal and citizens are constantly surveilled by the ubiquitous government through technology and smart systems. Protagonist Monroe (played by Kat Adams) invites her best friend Jade (Daniela Recabarren) over to her house under the guise of a surprise birthday party, only to reveal a different surprise – Monroe’s pregnant, and there’s no way she’s keeping the baby.
The play takes us through Monroe’s quest for abortion as she opens up twenty “gift bags” in game show style, all filled with risky, at-home, and definitely illegal abortion methods (think mugwort, coat hangers, and Monroe’s personal favorite, Drano). Although it starts out funny, with Monroe humorously playing the part of a game show host as she picks out different bags, you start to feel the gravity of the situation as horrified straight man Jade points out the absurdity and danger of each of the methods.
As you watch the play, you start to see both Monroe and Jade’s sides. Abortion is incredibly serious, but if Monroe doesn’t laugh about it, she’ll cry, while Jade is incredibly worried for the health and safety of her best friend. As the play goes on, it starts to become clear that none of the at-home abortion options will work, and you can feel the characters’ panic as they scramble to find a gift bag with a viable option.
Amidst all this panic, Monroe suffers a mental breakdown and launches into a powerful monologue about how she feels stupid for not keeping up with her cycle and stupid for not following the news and doing something about abortion rights while she still could. It’s compelling. In such a high-tech world where we have an endless and constant stream of mindless content, news, and funny cat videos at our fingertips, it’s hard to find the capacity to care and to keep up. There’s always so much going on, and we never really realize that our rights are gone until the law impacts us personally – until it becomes more than just a news headline.
It’s disillusioning. And for a moment, you start to feel despondent too. Is this what we’re destined for? Becoming victims to a world oversaturated with useless information where the real news gets hidden? Becoming slowly apathetic to issues that should, in reality, make us want to rise up in anger and protest for justice? These are all questions I found myself thinking while watching Monroe lament the structure of our society.
But finally, Jade and Monroe find what might be the holy grail that will solve all of their problems – a mystery abortion pill that Monroe bought from the online black market. Just as Monroe takes said pill, the play pauses, commencing an impressive, but disturbing tap-dancing and juggling sequence that reflects both her inner bodily turmoil and the struggle of keeping up that Monroe described in her monologue. As the sequence goes on, Jade and Monroe become increasingly exhausted with keeping up the performance, until they finally stop, calling “Time Out!”.
The lights brighten and the actors break character, snapping you and the audience back into reality. Daniela Recabarren, Jade’s actress, and Kat Adam, Monroe’s actress, then begin a shared monologue that effectively breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience, imploring them to fight for reproductive justice now while they still can, and before the dystopian world in Funny becomes a reality.Â
Amidst all of this, we never actually do find out what happens to Jade and Monroe. Do the government’s surveillance methods reveal what Monroe did? Do the two best friends get arrested? Does Monroe die from the dubious mystery pill? In a post-play conversation with Bonnie Cullum, the play director, I learned that this anticlimactic wasn’t a cop-out, but it was intentional.
Cullum said that it was meant to mirror the experiences of so many women who do engage in illegal abortion methods – they don’t know their fate when they ingest the pill. So, neither will we.
At its core, Funny, Like an Abortion is a cautionary tale. It reminds us that we are not so far off from a world where not only abortion, but any form of reproductive healthcare, is banned or strictly regulated. It reminds us of the realities that many women in the United States are facing right now, remind us of the many “mystery pills” that are being ingested across the country as reproductive rights begin to wane, state by state.Â
Instead of leaving you disillusioned and directionless, Funny gives you a call to action that’s pretty hard to refuse. They shout out Planned Parenthood and their efforts to provide reproductive health services and fight for a world in which abortion is safe again, and encourage audience members to go volunteer with them, as well as a range of other organizations fighting for reproductive rights all over the nation. And it’s inspiring.Â
So please, dear reader, get involved. Fight the good fight. Make a difference, before, in Monroe’s words, “abortion parties become all the rage”.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/get-involved