AMPHIBIAN: a lyric play
AMPHIBIAN is a lyric play confronting the dissociative experience of unwanted pregnancy and the vital, but often uncomfortable, reality of abortion. Drawing on personal experience, it is a poetic and original meditation on what it is to be embodied, to be in love, to be whole.
‘Looking for Love’ Georg Wilson
Tick, Tick - I imagine it, the size of a newt, turning somersaults in the swamp of my womb.
Vida Adamczewski was awarded the UEA New Forms Award 2022 for AMPHIBIAN by the National Centre for Writing. Her debut collection of short stories, Amphibian and Other Bodies, features the entire play text and is published by Toothgrinder Press. You can get a copy here.
First staged at the King’s Head Theatre as part of the Playmill New Writers Festival 2021, AMPHIBIAN was staged a second time at the Hannah Barry Gallery space in 2022. In light of the reversal of Roe v Wade and abortion rights in the US, ticket sales from this second performance went to abortion providers across the UK and US, raising over £4500 for The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) and The National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF).
The live performances of AMPHIBIAN featured sound design by Louis Grace, light projections designed by Dan Light, and artworks by Imogen Allen and Georg Wilson. They were directed by John Livesy, and starred Natalie Quarry, Stephen Hagan, Max Cadman and Vida Adamczewski.