Un-M-Othered: A Story of Adoption & Patriarchy
Liz DeBetta is an interdisciplinary scholar-artist-activist for whom understanding adoption is a personal and vocational mission. In Un-M-Othered, she explores adoption culture and the intense impact that closed adoption has on adoptees physically, emotionally, and developmentally throughout their lives.
Using a combination of narrative, movement, and lyrical poetry, DeBetta takes the audience through her long and difficult journey from birth, through decades of looking for her birth mother, to finally meeting her in her forties. Moving through the darkness, confusion, anger, loneliness, and uncertainty, DeBetta portrays what it’s like to get stuck on this journey physically. She then lyrically loops the narrative back on itself, frequently returning to the darkness, which is the adoptees’ constant companion.
DeBetta reveals that her adoptive family was loving and supportive and that she had a good life, but as adoptees know, the displacement and isolation of being removed from one’s mother at birth leaves a psychic scar no matter where the child winds up. It’s difficult to describe this solo show. Suffice it to say that if you enjoy movement and poetry or connect to the world of adoption, you will undoubtedly have a rewarding experience with this piece.
"Un-M-Othered: A Story of Adoption & Patriarchy"
Written and performed by Liz DeBetta
November 18, 2022
The 13th United Solo Festival
October 4- November 20, 2022
Theatre Row
410 West 42nd (btw 9th and 10th Avenue)
STEPHANIE EAGAN is a professional writer based in NJ. A fan of every type of live performance imaginable, from taiko drumming to political performance art, she travels the tri-state area and beyond in search of music, art, theater, and excellent coffee.
https://1depositcasinolist.net aside, the part about her adoptive family being loving yet the psychic scar of separation still persisting really stayed with me, since it pushes back on the idea that a good home cancels out the loss. The image of her looping the narrative back to darkness as an adoptee's constant companion feels like a powerful way to stage that unresolved grief. I keep thinking about how rarely adoption stories make room for both gratitude and pain at once.