Push! Full score

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Push! consists of 6 main scenes, each centring on a woman who is in labour. Each scene captures something of the interior life of the woman as she goes through this extraordinary process. Whilst several scenes do have an ‘external’ narrative, much of what goes on is viewed through the eyes of the mother. Inevitably, as the intensity of the labour sets in, so the ‘visions’ we are presented with become more vivid and extreme.

In the first scene, Nimmy is in labour but is listening on a pocket radio to a football match, as is her boyfriend Ram. Her mind is not where it should be. Nimmy’s overbearing parents don’t help and it is only resolved when the midwife takes charge of the situation, leading Nimmy onto the imaginary pitch in front of the cheering fans to ‘take the kick’.

Cara is in her birthing pool. One by one, she is confronted by three separate lovers who each ask if they are the father. She angrily sends each of them on their way, before sinking into an underwater world of despair. It is only when she hears the voice of her baby calling her that Cara rises triumphantly to the surface.

Where the surreal elements only appear later in both Nimmy and Cara, in Maddy we are instantly plunged into a strange and terrifying world. We learn that Maddy is in prison and is going to give the baby up for adoption. Her prison guard Fletcher taunts her and finally reveals her terrible secret. There is no escape for Maddy and the scene ends in despair as the midwife screams a metaphorical ‘catch’ to waiting adoptive parents Ben and Angela.

After the interval, Mary is probably the most surreal of all the scenes. She is expecting quintuplets after IVF treatment and is going for a Caesarian. In a somewhat hallucinatory state she talks with her babies about their future life together.

Angela already knows her baby is dead but she shows an incredible dignity in the way she deals with it.

Each of these scenes so far has been interspersed with scenes between the Cleaner and Caretaker, on our maternity ward. In the first scene we see nothing but them cleaning, oblivious to the terrible screams in the rooms around them. The second cleaner scene starts similarly, but then a brief flirtatious conversation develops between the two. Caretaker tries to ask Cleaner out but it is too late, she has already left. In the third scene we see Caretaker at the side of an incubator, tenderly watching a new born baby who is ‘not expected to last the night’. Cleaner enters and sits quietly alongside him. With no words spoken between them, their love for each other is sealed.

In the final scene of the opera, it is Cleaner’s turn to give birth. The drama and colour of the previous labours is here stripped away and we are presented with a raw picture of an ‘ordinary woman’ going through one of life’s most extraordinary processes.