I love you, bitch
You’re sitting in a room upstairs, waiting to hear the approaching footsteps of your mother on the stairs. But her steps sound more hesitant with each passing day until they eventually stop altogether. What happens when, one day, your mother simply doesn’t return? Will you feel grief… or rather, relief? Julia Fidelus' monodrama 20 DEN explores the life of a daughter reflecting on her relationship with her mother and the question of whether she can still call herself a daughter when her mother is gone.
On stage, there is only a single metal bathtub, turned upside down. Tense silence fills the cellar stage of the Goose on a String Theatre, broken only by muffled screams calling for the mother's reply. After a moment, the tub flips over, and from it emerges the daughter, taking a deep breath for the first time since her mother's death, ready to tell the story of their relationship—one fraught with contradictory emotions. But who is the true parent and who is the true child in this relationship?
The mother succumbs to alcohol, drugs, and makes sudden reckless decisions—like taking lessons to get her tractor driving permit, which she never bothers to pick up. Just six weeks after giving birth, she’s already in the arms of a new partner— that’s the time it takes for her wound after the c-section to heal. The daughter seems to exist only to help her mother with technology problems or for buying cigarettes. Her appearance is constantly being criticized: for her unattractive looks, or her unibrow, with which her mother seems to have a strange obsession, comparing her to Frida Kahlo or even Godzilla. And yet, despite all this, the daughter cannot bring herself to hate her. She defends her mother in front of everyone, insisting that no matter what she was like, she definitely wasn’t crazy.
Even after death, the mother remains with her, because “mothers don’t leave, they just die.” Her spirit, which is always around, is embodied by a puppet head made of nylon stockings, with more stockings hanging from the neck to suggest a body. To clearly distinguish between the characters’ lines, Fidelus gives the mother a deeper, raspy voice—most strikingly during their duet of Total Eclipse of the Heart by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, a song whose lyrics further explain their complex relationship.
When the mother is diagnosed with cancer, the daughter takes full responsibility for her care, symbolically reversing their roles. She finally steps out of the shadow of her more beautiful and successful mother, something visually shown in the funeral scene by transforming her plain outfit (consisting of just a black turtleneck and no bottom) by the addition of black tights, a blazer, and glittery heels. Her speech is packed with unspoken emotions, and Fidelus's excellent acting sent chills down spines and drew tears from many eyes. The fourth wall collapses, as if we’ve all become direct participants in this funeral. Her mother may not have always treated her tenderly, but she was willing to sacrifice her studies and life to give one to her daughter. Torn between resentment and love, the daughter concludes her monologue lying on the coffin—once again an overturned bathtub—with her final line: “I love you, bitch.”
