AFTER BIRTH

Meat Suit is a carnival of motherhood
that mistakes provocation for revelation

Meat Suit, or the Shitshow of Motherhood, a Second Stage Theater production which opened last night at the Pershing Square Signature Center, dares its audience to linger in a clownish carnival of motherhood while serving up the glaringly obvious. Written and directed by Aya Ogawa, it stands on a simple premise: our bodies get old. Five women navigate “meat suits” that insist on aging, craving, sweating, and grieving, transforming from hot, clueless girls into old, decrepit mothers. Unfortunately, the characters themselves are forgettable, delivering lines that are mostly predictable.

Maureen Sebastian and the cast

Given the limitations of the text, Marina Celander, Cindy Cheung, Robyn Kerr, Maureen Sebastian, and Liz Wisan, all talented actresses, move through the piece like a quintet of lost souls. At the beginning, we see Sebastian as Krystal, a parody of a hyper-feminine influencer dressed in over-the-top 2000s glamour with exaggerated fake breasts. She waits at a restaurant for her friends before ordering a pitcher of white peach mimosas. Kerr plays Robyn, a swaggering, hyper-masculine lesbian clad in aggressively boxy shoulders and a rigid, oversized camouflage jacket. The exaggerated padding shrinks her head to comic proportions, and she struts about like a discount Tony Manero—a tribute to the perils of testosterone. Cheung, who plays Banana, arrives in a long, flowing magenta patterned robe with a small dog (a hand puppet) named Schnuffins. She is the eccentric one.

 Liz Wisan and the cast

They are waiting for one last friend before starting lunch. The waitress, played by Celander, patiently stands by as they go from “We should have a spa day!” to “Can I get a small bowl of room-temperature water for my dog?” When the last friend finally arrives, everything shifts: Momo, played by Wisan, has just had a baby. The show launches into the voyage of motherhood—sleepless nights, leaking breasts, vaginal trauma, and more. The first song includes lines like “My nipples stretched like fingers,” “My vag is loose like a tent-flap,” and “I’m in the mood for murder.” You get the gist.

Maureen Sebastian, Cindy Cheung, and Robyn Kerr

The next scene presents two mothers trading another list of problems: breast milk or not, breastfeeding versus formula, constipation, coping with Vicodin or Wellbutrin, sleep training, daycare, returning to work, cloth diapers versus disposable ones, vaccination—all delivered in rapid-fire exchanges that feel like a litany of anxieties. This is followed by a bedroom sketch in which a man is obliviously horny, children bounce across the bed, and the mother is exhausted—broad, trite, and amateurish.

Marina Celander, Cindy Cheung, Maureen Sebastian, and Liz Wisan

As the children grow, the play trudges forward, yet nothing truly shifts; the script remains as predictable as the original songs by Leyna Marika Papach—not bad, just unexciting. Only the set and costume design by Jian Jung stands out. To create visually distinct, comedic personas, Jung outfits the cast first in mask-like costumes, then in anatomical bodysuits complete with protruding organs and errant private parts. The small stage resembles a cave where stalactites and stalagmites take the form of elongated breasts, intestines, and other body parts, all rendered in shades of pink.

Maureen Sebastian, Cindy Cheung, Robyn Kerr, and Liz Wisan

It would take a very long time to list every ache, fear, panic, hope, upheaval, and identity crisis that motherhood entails, including the acrobatic feat of functioning while profoundly exhausted. One can certainly stage it as a clown show, as Ogawa attempts. But because motherhood is such a widely shared experience, recounted and debated, it takes uncommon wit and precision to make a comedy about it feel fresh. This circus is lively—but the tricks never quite astonish.

Cindy Cheung, Marina Celander, and Robyn Kerr

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photos by Joan Marcus

Meat Suit, or the Shitshow of Motherhood
Second Stage Theater
Irene Diamond Stage at Pershing Square Signature Center, 408 West 42nd St.
95 minutes, no intermission
ends on March 15, 2025
for tickets, call 212.541.4516 visit 2st

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Maureen Sebastian