A community-centred production in this year’s First Fortnight mental health arts festival promises “an ambitious participatory performance project created in collaboration with a diverse cast”.

According to the Outlandish Theatre Platform, Womb “explores birthing and women’s rights from a futuristic perspective”.

The story follows woman forced to migrate to protect her mystery unborn offspring in a dystopian future Dublin 8. The theatre performance was co-created by OT Platform’s Maud Hendricks and Bernie O’Reilly with local women, and “investigates the evolution of woman in a future world that is globally governed into constituencies in an attempt to save the planet and halt its human destruction.”

Hendricks and O’Reilly asked questions of space in relation to the womb, the mind and the city through a series of recorded interviews with community participants, the responses of which inform the imagined world of Womb.

“We invite the audience to journey with us, contemplate this dystopian world and imagine its effects on all aspects of our sense of self and, by contrast, to also consider what the opposite might be; what are the ideal conditions needed to create a caring, responsible civic society which promotes well-being,” they said.

Womb will be staged with two professional performers, five amateur community participants, and design collaborators Craig Cox (sound), Ger Clancy (set), Sabine Dargent (costume) and Dara Hoban (lighting).

OT Platform is first theatre company in residence at the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital and is supported by the Arts Council and Dublin City Council.

Their production of Womb runs nightly at 8pm in the Dance Studio at Samuel Beckett Centre from Monday 14 to Saturday 19 January, with a matinee at 2 pm on 19 January.

Tickets at €15/€12 can be booked at FirstFortnight.ie