Baby friendly matinees in live stage show a theatre first

Now a Scottish theatre has followed the trend, with a baby-friendly matinee of a live stage play in what is believed to be a Scottish theatre first.

Roisin Stack's play, No Woman is an Island, will host a baby friendly matinee on Saturday at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh - complete with a buggy park, low level audience lighting and permission for audience members to walk around or leave during the performance.

Ms Stack, who has a four year old daughter, said: “I got the idea from cinema because they're really popular there. I had my own daughter and I was left thinking, ‘oh, it's a shame we don't have them for theatre’. It really struck me when I became a mother how difficult it was to get to shows. I think it's such a shame because you're left outside of that cultural conversation. People bring their kids to music festivals, you can bring them to galleries, or to the cinema. So it's really it's a very unique thing that stage plays are different, because theatre is about sitting down and being quiet.”

Ms Stack has already hosted a number of baby friendly matinees during runs of her show, which deals with issues of female solitude, in Ireland.

She said: “It's quite a unique enjoyable experience and the whole atmosphere is just so relaxed because when you have tiny babies anywhere it makes people smile and the performances tend to have a lovely quality to them because of that. Audiences are really appreciative because if you’re on parental leave, you're looking for things to do.”

She said while he had had one baby who had “gone for the projector” on stage, infants had caused little disruption.

She added: “It has been easy for me to incorporate it to some degree, because it’s a direct address to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, but it has worked really well.

“It was important that it is not just that babies are tolerated, but that they're actually welcomed and that they're part of the whole show. They're welcomed in verbally by me and they're also welcomed in terms of what we offer, which is all of the things you'd expect in a relaxed performance. One mother was taking her baby out of the venue in Dublin, and the little boy started shouting, ‘I want to go back! Take me back! I want to go back!’ And I was like, ‘yes’. That was the best review.”

She said the Traverse had been receptive to the idea.

A spokesperson for the theatre said: “Any new parent, especially new mothers, will resonate with Róisín's investigation of ‘woman's tireless pursuit of alone time’. Under this inquiry, a baby-friendly matinee becomes significant not only in terms of accessibility but also in terms of how an audience member with a young baby in tow presents deeper meaning to the piece itself just by attending.

“Stack tackles themes of isolation, identity and productivity, which, when framed through the lens of new parenthood, expand this exploration of the inner world and of female solitude to include those who one could argue may feel uniquely 'seen' when experiencing No Woman Is An Island, an experience they might otherwise have had to miss if programming happened without new parents in mind."