NPX Weekly Round-Up: Postpartum by Jillian Blevins

An extremely effective short horror piece, plus three other plays I added to my NPX library this week.

Jun 17, 2024

I was really in the mood for a horror play this week. Not really sure why—perhaps it’s because I spent most of the past few days watching Bridgerton and I needed a mood change. All I knew is I wanted something creepy, perhaps with a well orchestrated twist, or maybe just something with those tell-tale tensions and steadily building stakes inherent in a well orchestrated horror story.

I searched through my now-enormous NPX library and happened upon Postpartum by Jillian Blevin.

Now, I am not a mother, but one of my best friends is. And I recall how awful a lot of her pregnancy was, and I was privy to a lot of details of the elusive “fourth trimester”, the first three months after the child is born. My niece is an absolute treasure, and her mother will tell you she’d suffer a million times over for her, but that doesn’t erase how terrifying those three months afterwards can be. While my friend was extremely prepared (that’s just who she is), not all birthing parents are. I learned a lot about postpartum depression, anxiety, and even psychosis, from her preparations. That’s right—psychosis. A new parent can literally be driven to psychosis from all the hormone changes, lack of sleep, and more.

That thought alone is enough to keep me from ever birthing a child, that’s for damn sure. I don’t know about you all, but psychosis is probably one of my top three fears.

It’s this postpartum depression and/or psychosis that Postpartum so terrifyingly illustrates.

Here’s the official summary from NPX:

The Mother had a baby a month ago. Her Husband knows something is wrong. And the baby monitor keeps making these weird noises...

That’s really all you need to know to dive in. It’s best with horror to not necessarily have all the information!

The play opens on the roof of an apartment building. The Mother is up there with the baby monitor, presumably to get a moment of quiet while the baby sleeps. However, the baby monitor makes a strange growling noise, and the Mother seems terrified. She reassures the baby that she didn’t go anywhere, seemingly scared of the child. Luckily, the Husband comes in not too long after, apologizing for working late. The two have a fairly normal discussion until the Husband suggests she take a calming bath, to which the Mother reacts that it would wake up the baby. The Husband says he’d put the baby back down but the Mother reacts, horrified, refusing to do anything that would wake the baby early.

This leads into the Mother talking about how the baby only wants her…that the baby is consuming her. And not in a “my life is being overtaken” way. Almost in a…spiritual or cannibalistic way. The Husband is worried, and suggests that she needs to do something for herself, such as girls night with her friends, and that they’ll go to the doctor in the morning. The Mother falls asleep with her head in the Husband’s lap. Eventually the baby wakes up, and before the Mother can race downstairs, the Husband beats her to it. He locks her on the roof so she cannot follow, wanting to prove that he can help with their child. The Mother panics, pleading with the baby monitor to please not hurt the Husband. We hear what seems to be a normal interaction between father and child. After a moment, the Husband returns to the roof.

This seems to calm the Mother, and she opens up to the Husband about some of her experiences lately— a lot of which sound like psychosis. She talks of hearing voices that aren’t hers, that she insist come from the baby. The Husband merely comforts her. When she falls asleep again, the Husband once more goes down to take care of the baby— and what happens next is horrifying.

I won’t spoil it in case you would like to read this play. But you can probably make a well educated guess as to the ending.

This play expertly uses the structure of a horror story to execute an effective one in 10-15 minutes with little to no extraneous information. There is the set up— the beginning where we hear the Mother reassuring the baby, as if she’s terrified of it; the build up, where she talks to the Husband about what she has been experiencing; the fake out, where the Husband goes to the baby when she cries and nothing bad happens; and then the ending, which hits us with the horrifying reality the Mother has experienced.

The structure and tropes associated with horror are well studied in the mediums of film, literature, and theater, and they exist for a reason. When a writer knows how they work and why, they are able to utilize them to the fullest extent. It’s just like writing any other genre, though I believe some would argue that horror is a little more hyper-specific than some other genres. When you know the rules, the ins and outs, the whys and hows, you can create something that works inherently. And that’s exactly what Jillian Blevins does in this piece— she clearly has studied how horror stories work and why, and used that information to create a story that not only is effective in the horror sense, but also effective in making a statement about the hardships of early parenthood.

I find the best and more enjoyable horror stories are the ones that have something like this to say, when it’s not just about scaring the audience or something. Films like Get Out or Jennifer’s Body aren’t just gore-y or terrifying, they have a clear message that the medium of horror serves incredibly well. The horror amplifies the violence inherent in the topics— racism, sexism, etc— to make it all the more potent. From listening to my friend and the experiences of other birthing parents like her, I have heard of the violence that can be inherent in that fourth trimester; sometimes from others, sometimes from within, always exhausting and a lot of times scary. This play heightens the stakes through horror to showcase this.

These things are so helpful to analyze and take in as a playwright who experiments with horror elements. It’s so illuminating to see a simple example of the mechanics of the horror genre working to create a phenomenal piece! It’s one thing to read about them, to take a class on SkillShare or whatever, and quite another thing to see it in practice. I will be returning to this piece whenever I need a refresher!

Here is my official recommendation on NPX:

A phenomenal example of the horror genre! This play uses the typical structure of a horror story to illuminate the terrifying emotions, and perhaps real life experience, of birthing parents that experience postpartum depression/anxiety/psychosis. A deeply effective piece that I don't think I'll ever forget.

Have you read this play? Let me know your thoughts by replying to this email, commenting, or messaging me on SubStack!

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