Taking Care of Baby

by Dennis Kelly

None of this is the truth. It’s just people saying things. It’s all subjective. There’s the truth, and there’s what people think is the truth, and it all depends on how you slant it…’

Taking Care of Baby tackles the complex case of Donna McAuliffe, a young mother convicted of the murder of her two infant children. In a series of probing interviews the people in this extraordinary story, including Donna herself and her bewildered mother Lynn, reveal how they may have harmed those they sought to protect.

Dennis Kelly’s ambitious new play uses the popular techniques of drama-documentary and verbatim theatre to explore how truth is compromised by today’s information culture. It opens at the Hampstead Theatre in May 2007.

Genres: Plays

100 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

THEATRE INCLUDES: Debris (Theatre503/BAC); Osama the Hero (Hampstead); After the End (Paines Plough/Traverse/The Bush/UK and international tour); Love and Money (Young Vic/Royal Exchange); Taking Care of Baby (Hampstead/Birmingham Rep); Orphans (Paines Plough/Traverse/Birmingham Rep/Soho). Plays for young people include: DNA (National Theatre) and Our Teacher is a Troll (National Theatre of Scotland). He also co-wrote the comedy series Pulling (BBC3) and wrote and created Utopia (Channel 4).

His plays have been performed in over thirty countries worldwide and translated into twenty languages.

Reviews

[Georgia_May · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this play interesting and confusing all at once. Dennis interweaves his storylines really well, and occasionally leave storylines incomplete.

This play is about truth and lies. What to believe and why we believe something. It has lots of political and moral ties when it comes to the truth. The play is quite difficult to picture when reading and I found catharsis when certain moments or characters appeared. BUT, you couldn't truth the play, your couldn't trust the form it was written in and whether it was also telling the truth - I found this both interesting conceptually and frustrating.

I don't know if I'd like to see it or not.

Favourite line: "The only reason you have all that intelligence is to work out what the other f***er is thinking."

[Lauren Rickards · Rating 5 out of 5]

About: Donna McAuliffes a young mother accused and imprisoned for the murder of her two infant children. Through a series of word for word interviews we explore why someone could hurt the ones they love the most.

Opinion: this play was so good, I couldn’t put it down. I love verbatim theatre it’s one of my favourites because it’s always rooted in truth and in this case each interview was word for word. The characters are raw and relatable. I think the play raises so many good questions about love, pain, motherhood,the world as a whole, truth and selfishness. It unfolds at a beautiful pace too so you’re always interested and asking questions about what’s happening. My favourite play I’ve read in a long long time.

[Victor Morosoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un beau moment que je viens de passer en compagnie de la pièce de Dennis Kelly, description minutieuse et presque prophétique d’un monde paranoïaque et plausible. Hommes politiques, infanticide et une enquête journalistique prenante qui donne droit à la parole libre, à l’hésitation, à la folie, au regret. 4,6/5

[Francesc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolument prenant.

[afonso abreu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Isn't that crazy? Working with mothers who've tortured their children has restored my faith in humanity.

[Sophie Causer · Rating 2 out of 5]

I mean it was cool and interesting… but just difficult to read. The style of the play made it hard to follow. I’m sure it would be great on stage but I didn’t enjoy reading it

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A play with a lot of questions and no answers; the main concerns here are character and drama.
Stylistically the play adds an additional question of what is real and what is fiction