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Guest post: "We put a baby on stage for half an hour - here's why"

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MumsnetGuestPosts · 25/08/2016 16:11

Every parent or carer has experienced it – you take your baby into a cafe or restaurant, and people start staring, smiling, sometimes waving and saying hi, sometimes even coming up and pinching the cheek of your baby. All without even looking at you.

There is a strange dynamic in public about how we look at babies, and what is OK or not. Everyone has different views. Some parents are very happy to parade their child, and many babies love the attention. Parents might be proud or flattered that people think their baby is cute, or aggravated if they'd prefer people to mind their own business. What's most interesting to us, as theatre makers, is why the coo-ers often don't even think about their behaviour.

This year we put on a piece of anti-theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to encourage just that – making people think about how they look at babies in public. We took a very normal behaviour and formalised it in a stage environment, to encourage people to see it in a new light. It was called Come Look at the Baby and was exactly that: a thirty-minute show of a seven-month-old baby, with its Granny, on stage playing with toys and gurgling. Members of the public could come for free or pay in advance to watch the show.

We knew from the start we wouldn't make money – we paid out of our own pocket and we pledged to give any profits we made to charity (though with 1500 shows a day rivalling for attention and average audiences reputed at around seven people, that was always unlikely). But we thought it was an important thing to do, and waited to see if anyone else thought the same.

We were overwhelmed with the press coverage. Nearly every broadsheet ran a story, and broadcast, press and radio coverage came from Canada, Switzerland, Qatar. In a festival known for pushing the boundaries of theatre (for better or worse) it was billed in many places as one of the "quirkiest shows to see at the Fringe this year".

Audiences were varied. Some were curious, coming to just to see if it was a real baby or not. Some came for an "eccentric fringe experience"; young couples came on a date; grandparents who missed their grandchildren came to gaze; exhausted performers came to be somewhere quiet for 30 minutes. Audiences were varied, very respectful, and came out beaming – surprised at how not boring the show was. Regardless of why they came, we found in talking to them afterwards that they were moved to think about how they interact with babies.

It helped that the Granny and Baby that we found for our show were a great double act. Baby was comfortable, sociable and smiled. True to the 'anti-theatre' nature of the show, the attention was definitely turned on to the audience, with Baby spending most of the show inspecting and watching the audience carefully. Any sneeze, cough or movement from the audience would instantly attract the baby's attention.

Even with a calm and outgoing star, we designed the environment very carefully to mimic the baby's usual play environment with rugs, lights, and hangings in the community centre we used as a venue. Everything was designed to keep the experience, for the baby, as close to its home life as it could be.

There was one thing we couldn't do, however, and that was ask the baby itself permission. Just as in film, TV, or modelling, which follow the same rules and regulations, we had no way of asking what the baby wanted. That's why we took the decision to keep the baby anonymous – so that later, when he or she grows up, the baby can choose to 'own' the experience and link themselves with the performance, or not. The issue of consent runs through every interaction we have with children these days. Children, after all, cannot consent to be on their parents' social media feeds – and we are still navigating the ethical consequences of a world in which their entire lives will be documented essentially in public.

We hope that every time our audience now see an ad campaign or clothing catalogue featuring an infant, they remember those babies have been in big studios with stylists and flash lights, strange smells, and costume changes - a far cry from fairy lights and quiet music with granny. We hope that next time they come to play with a baby in public they think whether to check in with the parent or carer first. We hope that as well as consolation and a chance to reflect for a handful of people each day, the show in its own small way will have started conversations.

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AndNowItsSeven · 25/08/2016 18:41

" own the experience " great now we have corporate speak for babies.