In a claustrophobic space on a tiny black stage with black curtains and a white table, a rattled but congenial Nessa meets professional and terse Val. Is Val a medical specialist? Are they still at the hospital? Whoever she is, it’s clear Val has no patience for Nessa’s confusion.

“I’m here to represent your baby,” she finally says. “My baby’s dead,” replies Nessa.

After fainting on a flight from California to New York, Nessa’s plane was diverted to Texas, where she was rushed to hospital and told she’d lost her baby. The situation is more than tragic; it’s a matter of precedence. Nessa’s unborn baby, although it is no longer alive, is considered a citizen of Texas, so the foetus remaining inside her has rights. And if she leaves the airport to abort it, she’ll be charged with a felony for interfering with a corpse.

This new law will stick it to the pro-choicers and make the right-to-lifers sing “God Bless America”. Sound absurd? If only.

In 2022, the US Supreme Court overruled 1973’s Roe v Wade ruling, which legalised abortion and gave women the right to choose what to do with their own bodies. Each state was then given the power to decide whether they’d allow the procedure. Today, abortion is banned or severely restricted in 21 states; Texas is among those with a total prohibition. It’s a felony to terminate a pregnancy, carrying the possibility of a life sentence.

More than backstory to Arlene Hutton’s seemingly dystopian play, this is the truth, so it’s more immediate than the terms “Kafka-esque” and “Atwood-esque” imply. This is post-Trump, meaning Blood of the Lamb isn’t a dystopian tale of warning about who we might become, but one of open-your-eyes-because-this-is-who-we-are.

Hutton’s scenario is terrifying for all parties. Dana Brooke embodies grief in visual and verbal bursts as Nessa because, as she says, “It’s been a long day”, while Elisabeth Nunziato’s Val is steadfast to her God and the state’s patriarchal higher powers, and her frustration with her counterpart is consistently on point. I’m not sure either of them could’ve been any better. Nor could Lyndsay Burch’s direction. Her use of the stage is modestly and practically intense.

The two actors, the director and playwright all hail from B Street Theatre in Sacramento, California, which teamed up with producers Fringe Management LLC and Adelaide’s Joanne Hartstone to deliver us this taut gem on a minimalist platter. Smashing it with four- and five-star reviews at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Fest, Blood of the Lamb makes its Australian premiere at the Adelaide Fringe, and if word-of-mouth carries any weight, I’d get a ticket fast. Shows like this should sell out.

Blood of the Lamb is in The Gallery at The Courtyard of Curiosities at the Migration Museum until March 17.

Read more 2024 Adelaide Fringe coverage here on InReview.

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