Latest news with #Matrescence
NZ Herald
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NZ Herald
Tama Jarman stars in Red Leap Theatre's crime thriller ‘Wrest' in Whangārei
The murder at the bus stop relates to the 'death' of the person she was before becoming a parent. The cast includes Tama Jarman, 38, who lived in Whangārei from the age of 5 until 20. After attending Whangārei Boys' High School, where he took drama, he wound up at South Seas Film and Television School in Auckland, from where his career flourished. 'I was working at Killer Prawn for a while after I left school and, after work, we'd head across the road to Bacio, which was owned by Des Wallace who'd done a bit of acting. 'I used to be a bit of a break dancer and I'd show my moves off and one day he said, 'What are you going to do Tama?' He'd gone to South Seas and had success as an actor from it and then bought the bar so I decided to give it a go – Des started it all!' Jarman has been working as a freelance actor since, with TV stints including Shortland Street and Westside, multiple ads and loads of theatre. He has been involved with Red Theatre since its inception in 2008 and undertaken many roles. In Wrest his main role is as a detective. Wrest came about when acclaimed performing artists and Kiwi mums Ella Becroft and Tor Colombus decided to combine their two worlds to create a new theatre show which explores motherhood's hidden darker side. The crime thriller is centred on a missing woman and a doppelganger with the unfolding mystery laying bare the mundane and sometimes monstrous reality of early motherhood. When the original woman mysteriously disappears, an uncanny doppelganger emerges. Stalked by detectives seeking answers, the doppelganger hunts visions of her original self, determined to rebuild. Becroft, who also directs the show, explains: 'When having a baby, women are expected to transition with ease – to transform into a completely new self that can seem at odds with who they know themselves to be. I felt like I became a stranger, a doppelganger of my child-free self. 'What we have come to accept as 'normal' birth can be deeply disturbing for many women. The transformative experience of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood doesn't match pervasive cultural narratives.' The project combines the cast and creative teams' personal experiences of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood with scientific, medical, and psychological insights to illuminate this often hidden experience. The main piece of text used as inspiration for the show was the book Matrescence by Lucy Jones. Jones, a scientific writer, has pieced together science, medicine and psychology in her book to explain what a woman experiences. From there, the team further researched processes and changes. Colombus, who is also the choreographer, says: 'In the rehearsal room for Wrest, there were moments where a parent would tell a story about the unexpected struggle of motherhood, the moments of rage, and the physical pain of it, that they had never spoken out loud before". 'There is a power to a woman sharing her authentic experience, and we hope this show will empower others to do the same.' The show encourages audiences to re-evaluate their perceptions of motherhood and to support women in their journeys. Jarman describes it as a dark and moody surreal crime thriller using devised physical theatre. 'We're given a rough story outline so we had a thread to follow. We've got a setting, now we've just got to build the story and physicalise what happens,' he explains. 'There's bones and we create the body and the flesh. For example, we might be asked to show five ways you could disappear into a portal. Then we all piece together the moments of gold amongst the many, many bad moments.' Although he returns to Whangārei often to visit family and has brought shows there in the past, he's looking forward to performing there next week. 'I'm just stoked to be doing what I do in my hometown. I'm excited to bring it up there and get some of my mates that are still there along and hopefully parents have a moment where they feel heard.' He equates Wrest with a David Lynch film and says audiences can expect excitement, tension, along with some dark moments among a well-constructed story. 'It's quite mysterious but when you do work it out, it's very satisfying so hopefully the audience has a satisfying experience.' Wrest runs from May 29-31 at 7.30pm-8.30pm in OneOneSix Bank St, followed by shows in Auckland in June. Tickets from Eventfinda.
BBC News
31-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Funding boost for new mother support group
A community group that provides mental health support for new mothers has secured six-figure funding to continue the project for three more Matrescence is a six-week programme which provides a safe space for all new mothers in Warwickshire who are between six to 12 months by a local donor and supported by The Parenting Project will mean the group can go on supporting women until aims to run six groups a year for free in various locations, including Kenilworth, Stratford, Rugby, Nuneaton, Bedworth, Leamington Spa and Warwick. In 2023-24 NHS England estimated that perinatal mental illness - defined as significant stress, anxiety and depression - affected 57,000 new mothers."Becoming a mother, is a unique time of change in a person's life, affecting every part of their experience; physical, psychological, social, economic and existential" , said Helen Davies, psychotherapist and Project Matrescence lead."We know that community support, psychoeducation, open and shared conversations around the realities of motherhood, and its individual impact, are incredibly helpful."Groups are limited to 12 participants, and include group discussions and activities such as clay-work, drawing, collage, journaling and poetry.A free creche has also been provided for attendees. Follow BBC Coventry & Warwickshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Guardian
12-03-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Maternity Service by Emma Barnett review
Something is rotten in the state of British motherhood. It starts during pregnancy: in September, a safety watchdog found conditions at nearly half of NHS maternity units to be inadequate. It continues after childbirth: last year, the UK's maternal death rate reached a 20-year high; when babies are between six weeks and a year old, the leading cause of maternal death is suicide. It carries on at work: in one survey, 52% of women said they experienced some form of discrimination while pregnant or on maternity leave. But reading Maternity Service, a slim new volume from BBC Today programme presenter Emma Barnett, you wouldn't gather that anything was seriously amiss. At least, nothing a new mother armed with the right polo neck, stretchy trousers, hip playlist and a stiff beverage couldn't gamely tackle. Off the back of her second maternity leave, Barnett has set out to document the strange period of dislocation this time away from work represents. Her aim is to give new mothers advice and companionship as they cycle between feedings and naps and the steady drip of body fluids. 'We need to make it easier to talk honestly about what the process of parenting – and specifically this initial and intense probation period – actually feels like,' she writes. She is right about this, which is why it is all the more disappointing that Maternity Service is such a meagre offering. Let's begin with the title: Barnett thinks maternity leave needs a rebranding. It's not 'leave' – it's a tour of service, a commitment to collective duty, she writes. Is that quite right? Those 12 months of employment protection are regarded as a sacred resource in the UK but, in reality, benefits vary vastly by employer. I was surprised, when I moved here from the US, to discover how common it is for women to deplete their savings – or go into debt – in order to stay at home during the first year of their child's life. 'We couldn't really afford it,' one friend told me, but, she said, it was what she felt she was supposed to do. Barnett writes with a chatty candour; this book has the easy intimacy of a WhatsApp group fired off between nappy changes. She's looking to build rapport, confide, validate, and offer survival tips. The problem is her steely commitment to the status quo. Barnett notes that social expectations around maternity leave are out of sync with the realities – financial and otherwise. But she isn't interested in what it might take to revise those expectations. And even as she acknowledges the prevalence of maternal rage, she depicts it as just one more thing to be managed. Reading Maternity Service, I was reminded of a line early in the 2023 book Matrescence, when Lucy Jones describes her initial struggle to articulate the reality of her experience of early motherhood: 'I acquiesced. I used the language I had been given: the official lexicon for talking about motherhood. I fell in line.' The pressure to fall in line is immense. But what would it take to make the experience of early motherhood a little less punitive? NHS maternity units could be better resourced. Laws protecting pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace could be strengthened. Childcare could be better subsidised. Fathers get just a passing mention in Maternity Service, but, critically, men could step up, noticing that the old models for bringing the next generation into the world need an overhaul. Barnett often interviews powerful women but, strangely, any substantive insights they might have about early motherhood are missing, save a brief reference to a conversation about motherhood's impact on the brain with writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. 'In the interview, we did the best we could to communicate from this far-off land,' Barnett writes, 'popping our heads above the trench to try to explain the unexplainable.' Motherhood is gruelling and awesome. But is it 'unexplainable' – or simply undervalued? Perhaps some new mothers will find succour in the brave cheer of this pointedly pink book. For me, reading Maternity Service was a bleak reminder of how far we all still have to go. Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion Maternity Service: A Love Letter to Mothers from the Front Line of Maternity Leave by Emma Barnett is published by Fig Tree (£12.99). To support the Guardian and the Observer order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
