Anne Zander in Mother: A Postpartum Comedy at Orlando Fringe Credit: Courtesy Photo

In the beginning, there was darkness upon the face of the Green Venue. Then, there was grunting, as clown-faced writer-performer Anne Zander slowly dragged a bucket across the stage, sloshing water onto a tarp, in what was to be the last clean moment of Mother, a “Postpartum Comedy” that’s Fringey with a capital F.

Scooting herself across the floor for audience assistance with her agonizing labor, Zander eventually expels a backpack, then proceeds to mime the physical and psychic humiliations that accompany childbirth in explicit detail. The result is groan-inducing gross-out comedy but also incisive satire on the worries shared by all working moms, even the Virgin Mary. 

Zander’s taboo-tackling performance reminded me of a one-(white)-woman version of Japan’s Theatre Group Gumbo, only with an undercurrent of existential exhaustion instead of anime exuberance. Some of her bits don’t develop much beyond their initial school value, and there’s often awkward dead air surrounding the nuggets of natal nuttiness, but that all may be purely intentional; if Andy Kaufman had a clitoris, he might have made a show like this.

Those who have personally given birth may find that watching someone eat their own placenta, struggle to get some sleep, or express breast milk to pumping bass beats resonates more with them than it did with me as a child-free male. To quote Elizabeth Maupin’s Orlando Sentinel pan of a Fringe play I produced decades ago, “I am not the target audience for this show.” However, at least two women watching the press preview with me had intense emotional reactions that prove Zander is achieving her creative objective. So I’m recommending this one to patient parents with a strong gag reflex who appreciate gonzo performance art.

Le Why Not Productions (Portland, OR)
Green Venue, Orlando Family Stage
60 minutes; 18 and up
Tickets: $15

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This article appears in Orlando Fringe 2026.