Award-winning Popelei celebrate their 10th anniversary by returning to Edinburgh with the world premiere of PUSH – a darkly comic and provocative show performed by one increasingly knocked up performer.
What do you do when you’ve made the brilliant decision NOT to have children and then, at age 38, you find yourself pregnant? This daring new play takes a playful and feminist look at motherhood through the lens of one woman, infused by her Anglo-Latinx heritage and her apparent lack of maternal instinct.
Interlaced with punchy choreography and featuring an electrifying original soundtrack by acclaimed Chilean composer Santiago Jara Astaburuaga, this is an engaging, expressive performance…a show that captures the blizzard of feelings parents have for their as-yet-unborn children (The Guardian).
Co-creator and performer Tamsin Hurtado Clarke comments, At its heart, PUSH is about the ongoing impossibility of deciding what you want to be when you grow up – a parent, not a parent, just like your mother, the complete opposite of your mother, a dancer, a lover, an astronaut. It’s about suddenly realising the last couple of years got eaten up, you’ve just turned 38 and you’re not quite sure how that happened. We’re excited to get on stage and challenge preconceptions of what a pregnant woman can do in front of an audience, whilst also challenging the myth that all women are born maternal.
PUSH previewed at VAULT Festival and was runner-up Show of the Week (2020). In response to theatre lockdowns, PUSH was reimagined for the screen, winning Best Experimental Short at theCult Movies International Film Festival and Official Selection for the Bristol Independent Film Awards (2021); and Finalist for Best Theatre OffFest (OffWestEnd Awards 2021).
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Popelei is an ongoing collaboration between writer-performer Tamsin Hurtado Clarke and writer-director Scarlett Plouviez, supported by producer Penelope Saward. The company are known for their international hit show Manuelita, winner of the ThreeWeeks Editors’ Award and Top Ten Shows of Fringe 2014 – as well as PAPAYA Fest, an Anglo-Latinx arts festival launched in defiance of Brexit and the rising tide of toxic nationalism, and The Popelei Naked Podcast, an intimate and cheeky look at women and nudity.
