cunnicularii
by sophie mcintosh
“cunnicularii is a swiftly cinematic marvel under Nina Goodheart’s impressively balletic direction. There’s a dreaminess to the production, which Goodheart directs with a fantastic sense of stagecraft, featuring fluid transitions and reveals that move the plot forward, and the play towards its intended daze… an impressionistic portrait of women’s dystopias amid men’s picket fence paradises.”
“cunnicularii is a sly, shoestring-budget cabinet-of-wonders… Nina Goodheart's production happens in a space not much larger than a glassed-in porch, but Umoff's precisely calibrated trembling — the sheen of one tear in each eye, the way she blinks at her doctor's rudeness — is seamlessly naturalistic, even from only a foot or so away.”
— Helen Shaw, theater critic for The New Yorker
Mary is an expectant mother. Mary gives birth to a rabbit. Mary must adjust her expectations.
A piercing fable about the wonder and brutality of motherhood, cunnicularii interrogates the crushing pressure new parents face and questions how much of ourselves we can truly give to our offspring.
cunnicularii was presented as an Equity Showcase at Alchemical Studios, 50 W. 17th Street, New York, NY in the summer of 2024.
CAST
Mary: Camille Umoff
Howard: Juan Arturo
Gladys: Jen Anaya
Doctor / Greg: Benjamin Milliken
PRODUCTION TEAM
Director: Nina Goodheart
Producer: Good Apples Collective and Esmé Maria Ng
Assoc. Director & Assoc. Producer: Gabrielle Niederhoffer
Stage Manager: Cori Diaz
Movement Director: Willow Funkhouser
Lighting Designer: Paige Seber
Costume Designer: Saawan Tiwari
Scenic & Props Designer: Evan Johnson
Sound Designer: Max Van
Assistant Stage Manager: Caro Klureza
Dramaturg: Mo Holmes
Composer: Maria Shaughnessy
Public Relations: Emily Owens PR
“Nina Goodheart’s direction is immensely precise.”
— Theatre Beyond Broadway
“Director Nina Goodheart‘s crisp and attention-grabbing production is part social commentary, part fantasy, part bedtime story, fully engaging.”
— Theatre Pizzazz
“A bold new play that asks uncomfortable and essential questions about the expectations placed on mothers… wildly funny as well as deeply serious… relentless… painfully realistic… the audience is swept along entirely. In the end, there is great hope and even greater love, found when Mary can accept without shame her own brutal and magical experience of motherhood.”
— Plays to See
