Joanne Ryan, the writer-performer behind the new one-woman show Eggsistentialism, has told RTÉ Entertainment that sharing her dilemmas about parenthood onstage has helped her to find "a place of peace".
The show, which opens at the Belltable in Limerick on Friday and is at the Tiger Fringe Festival in Dublin next week, mixes comedy, animation and 3D as the 36-year-old tries to decide whether she wants to have children.
"It's the only decision where you can't change your mind afterwards either way," she explains. "You can leave a relationship or a marriage, or sell a house or a car or end a friendship. I was interested in that - the absoluteness of it and the scale of it. Comedy for me was just the obvious vehicle for all of that stuff. In a show, if the balance is right, the light makes the dark darker and the serious stuff makes the comedy more hilarious."
As Ryan wrestles with her biggest decision she turns in numerous directions for advice - with even her mother appearing as a character through real-life audio recordings.
"Obviously, I spent a lot of time on the internet in the process too," she laughs. "I'll never get those hours back! The internet plays a big part in the show - how we go to the internet so quickly and the rubbish it gives us back and how that can feed into decisions - but I also went to some sensible people too like doctors and fertility clinics. And I got conflicting information there as well."
Two years in the making, Eggsistentialism was brought to life during a warm-up exercise at a theatre workshop Ryan was attending.
"We had to take a minute to have a rant about things we were angry about or afraid of," she recounts. "So I went off on my spiel and the end of it, kind of as a joke, I said, 'And I don't know whether I want to have a baby!' Everyone burst out laughing and then the room just went quiet. And I thought, 'That's it'. I'd never really thought about kids. All the fellas I ever went out with wanted weddings and babies and I was never really interested and thought they were all mad."
Now, with opening night almost here, Ryan is keen to stress that the show isn't as gender-specific about becoming a parent as some might think.
"There's a part in the show about when I told my now-boyfriend," she says. "We'd only just met at the time and I had to tell him, 'I'm writing a show about my eggs - but I'm completely normal and still go out with me!' His reaction was great because he said, 'Well, that's really interesting. It's really important [but] people don't talk about it. As a man, maybe I don't have the same time pressures as you, but I still have to make the decision at some point. And I have no idea what the answer is'."
As for her own answer, Ryan is giving nothing away before taking to the stage.
"I had a lot of anxiety around the decision and what the show has helped me do is come to a place of peace about the whole thing and realise that whatever happens, life will be great and awful. And that's ok."
Eggsistentialism previews at the Belltable in Limerick on Thursday and runs until Saturday September 10. It then moves to Dublin's Smock Alley as part of the Tiger Fringe Festival from September 12-17.
