Out of a sense of love and compassion, Claudia, an ambitious lawyer, decides to bear a child for her sister, Helen, but neither woman can anticipate the depths of their maternal feelings.

As Birthrights trips jauntily across 18 years of changing times in Australia, Williamson employs his characteristic wit to expose the potential minefields that exist when one child has two mothers on opposite sides of the ideological fence.

Ex University of Melbourne

Helen Claudia

      Martin
Claudia Helen Mark

A bittersweet Australian play, spanning eighteen years, which explores the dramatic situations and conflict inherent in the unique ties between mothers and daughters.
When Helen discovers that she is unable to have children, her career-driven sister Claudia, in an act of supreme generosity, offers to be the surrogate mother. However several years later, Claudia finds she is unable to have her own child and, unintentionally, begins to compete with her sister for their daughter’s affection.

Ex Cairns Little Theatre Inc.

Directors' Note

David Williamson is one of our favourite playwrights. He has an ability to get below the surface of the character to produce real and three dimensional people that all of us know. We saw Birthrights in its Sydney season in 2003. It remained in our minds and our hearts as we felt the pain and emotional upheaval that Claudia, Helen and Margaret experience. This play beautifully and accurately captures the hysteria, the hope, the joy, and the devastation of a woman who concentrated on her career and is now finding that it may be too late to have a child and must compete with her sister for the love of the only child she will ever have.

Helen
Mark Claudia   Margaret

Kelly

It has been amazing that in the process of directing this play, how many people - male and female have felt that on reading the script, that the subject matter and emotional intensity is so close to aspects of their personal experience.

We have been fortunate to have a very experienced and dedicated cast and their knowledge has meant that this has been a truly collaborative affair. Specifically to have an actor of the calibre of Sara Blackburn in the role of Claudia. Without minimising the input of the other actors, it is without doubt a tour de force for anyone to take on a role where they are rarely off the stage but must also go through the highs and lows demanded and to do it in such an extraordinary way that we are brought to tears.

Alan & Robyn Pope