The act of abortion is a site of tension, and represents a locus of transgression against society, law, and “morals.” Theatre can also be considered a site of transgression, especially in the context of mediatized entertainment. The appearance of abortion on the live stage thus becomes a doubly confrontational act. This dissertation is about abortion and the complex web we have woven around abortion—as a medical act, social statement, and personal transgression. This study is also about the illumination of that web by the light of abortion’s public appearance on the theatre stage through six American plays that premiered in the decade 1997-2007, which all feature abortion prominently: Keith Bunin’s The Credeaux Canvas, Elizabeth Heffron’s Mitzi’s Abortion, Wendy MacLeod’s The Water Children, Dominique Morisseau’s Retrospect for Life, Suzan-Lori Parks’ Fucking a, and Paula Kamen’s Jane: Abortion and the Underground.

Cultural discussions of abortion are usually associated with public political, legal or religious perceptions. However, this dissertation is about the private implications of abortion. I will explore the relationship between abortion and three ideas: safety/concealment, visibility/confrontation, and ambivalence. My argument begins with the idea that women’s personal, varied experiences of abortion are largely distinct from the ideologies presented in law, politics and religion. I am calling these experiences lived experiences or lived realities. I will align lived experience/lived reality with the act of abortion in order to hone in on actual experiences (of the act) rather than ideological experiences.

When reader-viewers are kept “safe” from the act of abortion, they are also distanced from the lived realities of reproductive women. Conversely, when the act of abortion is staged, the reader-viewer is given access to reproductive women’s lived experiences in a more open way. Thus confrontation with the act of abortion in real space and time on the stage represents American women’s experiences rather than American cultural ideologies—and the distancing of the act of abortion from the stage reflects our desire to submerge women’s private abortion realities. Finally, I’ll look at the relationship between lived experiences and representations of ambivalence on stage, which also makes women’s abortion realities visible.