The Beast, The Mother, & The Kid” Performed by æthaus

Tonight—June 30, 2025, at 8PM—I attended a gripping and unsettling performance by the theater troupe aethaus titled The Beast The Mother & The Kid. The show took place at a small theater on Christopher Street in the West Village, near Hudson River Park. One of the lead performers was my friend Gabi.

The cast consisted of four or five young women and one man. The women wore flesh-toned briefs and sports bras, their attire evoking vulnerability and rawness. The man, by contrast, spent most of the performance in a doctor’s white coat, complete with stethoscope—embodying clinical authority.

There was no linear plot. Instead, the performance conveyed emotional and physical suffering through guttural sounds, wailing, heavy breathing, and intensely physical movement—bodies hurling to the ground, rolling, and writhing in a style that felt almost primordial. The effect evoked early human attempts at expression—dance as protest, dance as truth-telling.

The performance explored the historical and ongoing pathologization of women by institutional systems, especially through the lens of male-dominated medicine. Women were portrayed as being “treated” for behaviors deemed unacceptable: refusing monogamy, rejecting motherhood, saying no to sex. Elements of dominance and submission—leashes, gyrations, power games—dramatized a society still locked in an unresolved gender struggle. One silent character remained blindfolded throughout, bearing quiet witness to the chaos.

In a chilling final scene, this woman sits across from another, who asks: “Why did you ask them to cut off your breasts?” She replies, “To not be a mother.” The performance drove home the message: bodily autonomy is still contested, and refusing motherhood—once, and perhaps still—can be seen as deviant or in need of ‘treatment.’

Some might dismiss the performance as vulgar or chaotic. But I saw it as an urgent provocation, especially in our current climate—with Roe v. Wade overturned, in a world where violence against women is often met with silence. For me, it was a haunting reminder: we’re not as far from our past as we think.