Banish baby blues with laughter in Hilton Head theater’s virtual ‘Cry it Out’ production
“… Having a baby cracks your life open …” — Molly Smith Metzler, playwright of “Cry It Out”
Amanda Sox and Libby Ricardo, both mothers of young children, love their kids. But they agree that those little bundles of joy can be big-time disrupters of life as they once knew it. Everything changes: Priorities. Schedules. Relationships – marital, familial, work and friendship. Finances. Lifestyle. Sleep.
Lean Ensemble’s production of “Cry It Out,” Molly Smith Metzler’s comedic take on new parenthood, draws on these changes. Beginning March 5, it will start streaming for two weeks.
Over a pre-pandemic coffee last spring, Sox, the director, and Ricardo, who plays one of the young mothers in the Lean Ensemble production, shared how they learned to juggle the demands of motherhood, marriage and career.
As the stories tumbled out, they laughed in recognition of the improv skills they use to cope with challenges the universe flings in their path. And they discussed how much this very funny show dovetails with their own insights on how giving birth alters one’s choices and identity.
“Cry It Out” takes place in a suburban Long Island backyard. The sparse patch of earth has become a refuge for two lonely new mothers who’ve just forged an unlikely friendship. Ricardo portrays Jessie, a lawyer grappling with mixed feelings about having stepped off the company fast track to go on maternity leave. Taylor Harvey plays her pal Lina, a blue collar hospital worker who can’t afford to stay home with her baby. Happily, she’s got daycare figured out. Unhappily it’s in the hands of her partner’s mother who has a certain fondness for bottles, just not the baby kind. Eventually, a wealthy couple stops by and pulls up lawn chairs: A father (Thomas Azar) is at his wit’s end trying to wrest his fashionable jewelry-designing wife (Lindsay Ryan) out of her postpartum funk.
Below are some excerpts from that pre-rehearsal conversation.
What drew you to “Cry It Out?”
Amanda Sox: I’d worked with Molly [Metzler] on a previous play, and I’d been entertained and also amazed at how raw and honest her characters were. Then she had a daughter, and a year later I had a daughter, so when I saw she had written “Cry It Out,” I got a copy and read it. The characters were raw, funny and open. Being a new parent myself, I found it an honest portrayal of the fourth trimester stage of being locked inside with a baby.
Libby Ricardo: Blake [Blake White, Lean’s artistic director] gave me this script when I was pregnant with my second child. And after having gone through the experience of being a first-time mother, I found myself gestating another human being and having a hard time finding a “mom tribe.” That’s why the relationship between Lina and Jessie in the play resonated with me. I, too, had been desirous for this kind of bonding.
Just how do you juggle your theater career with caring for and meeting the on-call demands of a small child?
Libby Ricardo: My husband [George Pate] and I run the theater at USCB. Sometimes, I would bring our baby Marlowe in when we were doing exploratory work, because I wanted my students to have that childlike sense of wonder. They’ll actually play when there’s a child around. So Marlowe became the TA [teaching assistant] in those moments. ... A lot of my students worked multiple jobs and have concerns about the future and finances. But Marlowe has no concept of past or future. He only has a now. So the students were present in that moment with him.
Amanda Sox: When I got pregnant with Cordelia, I was in a show and everything was fine other than riding the city bus around dinnertime. [On cue, she demonstrates the look of a carsick woman sinking into a seat.] I would have extreme nausea and had to lie down and eat saltine crackers when I got to rehearsal. I had this feeling of, “Well, all right, I guess it’s been a good run with acting.”
But I when I did go back to work, it was great. I booked two jobs for that season and told myself I’m going to figure out how to make this all possible. Cordelia was a year old and breastfeeding, so she never took a bottle. It was a really long play, so I spent a lot of time in the dressing room with a breast pump so I could fit into my costume. And I remember the costume designer saying, “You’re not going to get breast milk on my vintage costumes!”
Libby, you were very pregnant a few seasons past while playing a character who wasn’t pregnant in Lean’s production of “The Underpants” so the show’s costumer Peggy Trecker White had to conceal your baby bulge with a voluminous dress.
Libby Ricardo: [Laughs.] I was 34 weeks pregnant! But after learning about that in a talkback afterwards, one audience member did come up to me and say, “Oh, I just thought you had a weird body.”
If you go
What: Lean Ensemble Theater’s virtual production of “Cry It Out”
When: March 5-14, available for viewing anytime
Where: Register and view at www.leanensemble.org
Also: Talkback with cast and crew on Monday, March 15, at 6 p.m.
Tickets: Free
More info: Go to the website listed above or call 843-715-6676