“cunnicularii” at Alchemical Studios (Photo: Nina Goodheart Photography)

Sophie McIntosh’s cunnicularii has an intriguing premise. Mary (Camille Umoff), soon expecting her first child, is a mixture of nerves and excitement. But she doesn’t give birth to a baby; she has a rabbit. While her husband, Howard (Juan Arturo), and the doctor (Benjamin Milliken) quickly accept the unexpected, Mary has trouble adjusting. Even Howard’s overly-critical mother, Gladys (Jen Anaya), welcomes baby/rabbit Josephine into the family. Disappointed Mary faces judgment from all directions over things like her failure to breastfeed (Josephine has fully developed teeth) and her lack of affection.

The indirect way in which the play tackles its premise is exciting. No one ever says “postpartum depression,” though the parable is clear in the minutes after Mary gives birth. The problem with McIntosh’s drama is that it never progresses past that point. Once bunny Josephine is birthed, one scene after another pits Mary, and her unhappiness at her situation, against the play’s four other characters.

And it doesn’t help that three of those characters are written as caricatures.  Gladys very quickly demonstrates all the negative stereotypes you might expect from a mother-in-law. She takes her son’s side, doesn’t empathize with Mary, and wants things done her way without any understanding of the situation. In a play that seems to tell us we shouldn’t judge mothers, it’s counterproductive that Gladys becomes such a cartoonish antagonist by the end. We are encouraged to hate her because of the type of mother she is. Also stereotyped is the doctor, who seems designed to stand in for the patriarchal medical system. He doesn’t listen to Mary’s issues (especially when it comes to mental health), but follows his own agenda blindly. He’s a bad doctor from 1950, unaware that women are people. There is bad medical care to be sure, and postpartum depression often goes undiagnosed, but these characters stand in the way rather than facilitate understanding.

The direction is partly at fault here. Nina Goodheart seems to want the visuals to mirror the poetry of the writing, but, like the text, so much is unmotivated or unexplained. There is a lot of time spent hanging laundry on a line or taking it down. Perhaps it is a metaphor for something; if so, it went over my head. In any case, like the script, it goes nowhere. It’s just the same action repeated throughout. There is no texture or progression to Mary’s suffering, just her reactions to the constant gaslighting.

There are a couple of moments that it seems we are going to see something new and creative, like when the lights come down and Mary makes a shadow puppet of a rabbit. But it’s just a beat; it doesn’t add to the play, it doesn’t go anywhere. Similarly, Umoff becomes a puppeteer and brings the rabbit to life when it first breastfeeds, but it only lasts a few seconds.

Also, the metaphor doesn’t hold up: Mary can accept the rabbit but we still know it is a rabbit. By the end of the play I don’t feel as if I know anything more about postpartum depression. What insight the creative team is trying to impart is beyond me.

There are a few bright spots in the otherwise drab production. Ms. Umoff is terrific, expressing so much and sharing what Mary is feeling throughout, whether it’s the anticipation before birth, the confusion after, or the ambivalence she knows she shouldn’t be feeling in the weeks that follow.  Playing her understanding husband, Juan Arturo also does a nice job, though he isn’t called on to do that much. But one senses judgment at Mary’s inability to love the new addition to the family.

I’ll give props to the props department (that is to say Evan Johnson), which found a cool futon couch that serves as the play’s set.  Otherwise there isn’t much else and the space isn’t interesting to look at. Paige Seber uses the lighting to create interstitial moods, but they don’t do much for the play.

I don’t like coming down hard on young creatives. I know how difficult it is to write a play and to mount a production. And it is even harder when you are starting your career as an artist and have limited lived experience to draw from. Young artists have to learn to harness the experiences they do have and to use emotions they understand to extrapolate. Part of the process is trying and failing. I hope the next effort is more of a success.