Tatty Hennessy and Maud Dromgoole’s last collaboration, Acorn, was a hit in 2016. Now, as her own play A Hundred Words for Snow continues to critical acclaim at Trafalgar Studios, Hennessy again dons her director’s hat for Hennessy’s provocative new drama Mary’s Babies officially premiering tomorrow at Jermyn Street Theatre. Watch our videos with Tatty and her stars below – and then get booking!
Mary Barton, a pioneer of fertility treatment, thought her husband was perfect. And doesn’t every child deserve the perfect father? So Mary used her husband’s sperm to impregnate up to a thousand women, and then burnt all the records. A thousand resulting children, the ‘Barton Brood’, with no idea about their shared father. Meeting each other. Making friends. Having babies.
Emma Fielding and Katy Stephens star in Mary’s Babies, a fictional tale inspired by the true story of Mary Barton and the Barton Brood. Provocative, comic, and compelling, Maud Dromgoole‘s new play imagines a series of encounters between these unknowing half-siblings.
Mary’s Babies reunites playwright Maud Dromgoole and director Tatty Hennessy after their 2016 success with Acorn, at the Courtyard Theatre. A co-production with Oak Theatre, Mary’s Babies has set and costume by Anna Reid, lighting by Jai Morjaria, sound by Yvonne Gilbert and casting by Matilda James. Mary’s Babies is part of Jermyn Street’s Portraits Season, celebrating the venue’s 25th birthday as an independent theatre in the heart of the West End.
Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This work has not been authorised by the estates of Mary Barton or Bertold Wiesner or any of their beneficiaries, family members, relatives or other representatives.
Videos
Who exactly do Emma Fielding and Katy Stephens play in Mary’s Babies? See if you can keep up!
Director Tatty Hennessy discusses Mary’s Babies: “It’s a really brilliant exploration of family and genetics and how those two things interact.”
Hennessy is a playwright herself, with her play A Hundred Words for Snow currently running at the West End’s Trafalgar Studios. We love to see how Dromgoole and Hennessy support one another’s work.
ADORED seeing #HundredWords @TrafStudios again. Lovely Q&A with @nabbycat @TattyHennessy we struggled a bit navigating the stage. Not sure how we’d fare in the arctic pic.twitter.com/uHfAj6txoe
— Maud Dromgoole (@mauddromgoole) March 13, 2019