Madame Ovary

Rosa Hesmondhalgh

• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781788503181
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

The heartbreaking and hilarious true story of the author's own experience of ovarian cancer.

It's January and Rosa is writing her resolutions. This is her year. She is going to stop going out with plonkers, start doing yoga and write some really good art. But before she's had time to delete her dating apps and get into downward dog, she's diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And it's spread. Suddenly faced with hospitals, chemotherapy and her own mortality, Rosa's new goal for the year ahead is to survive it.

Based on her own blog, Rosa Hesmondhalgh's play Madame Ovary is a life-affirming monologue exploring the typical struggles of a twenty-something-year-old to stay relevant, with the less typical struggles of trying to stay alive.

Madame Ovary was first staged at the Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh, in 2019, winning the VAULT Pick of the Pleasance Award. It was subsequently staged at VAULT Festival, London, in 2020, and toured the UK.

'Devastating and beautiful and true' Caitlin Moran

ROSA is jogging on the spot.

ROSA. This. Is my year.

The words ‘2018 RESOLUTIONS’ flash onto the screen.

This is the year I sort my shit out and become the person I have always known I could be.

The first resolution: ‘I WILL GET MY PRIORITIES RIGHT’ appears on the screen.

Passionate, dedicated, hardworking. Fully recognising my worth. Not responding to 3 a.m. ‘you up’ texts. Not composing 3 a.m. ‘you up’ texts. Work hard, call my grandma, spend time with my friends. And –

‘I WILL TAKE BETTER CARE OF MY BODY’ appears on the screen.

That means drink more water, drink less alcohol, exercise regularly.

Towards the end of last year, I gained a bit of weight. You know, it’s classic Christmas weight.

Mince pies and mulled wine. I’m just noticing I’ve got a bit of a stomach on me, and I want to tone up a bit. Nothing drastic. Just so I can see my Christmas pedicure when I look down in the shower.

SO, I’ve started jogging on the spot whilst watching TV.

I am planning on giving up alcohol for a whole month – just not this month, because I’ve got a Tinder date on Friday and I don’t want to be sober for that.

A video of a yoga instructor appears on the screen.

And I’ve started one of those month-long yoga plans. You know, the ones where no one can get past day seven.

She gets into position.

I’m up to day fifteen.

The video plays for a few seconds, ROSA follows along. Suddenly –

Ow. Feels like I’ve been overdoing it. Maybe those abs I’m after are growing. No sign of them yet.

But pain is good. I’ve read that that means muscles are breaking and growing back in a more Instagram-worthy fashion. One thing I’ve learnt about being a woman, is pain is usually an indicator of good things coming. Right?

The third and final resolution: ‘I WILL MAKE SOME REALLY GOOD ART’ appears on the screen.

Since graduating drama school, the phone hasn’t exactly been ringing off the hook with auditions.

I know that to shut out the little voice that tells me I’ve wasted twenty-seven grand plus maintenance on an Arts Degree, I have to MAKE my OWN art, and it has to be REALLY GOOD.

Something no one has seen before. Something fucking sick. Something that will make people go, ‘ooh’, but also, ‘ohhhh’.

I’ve been writing poetry since secondary school where the heartbreak of not being cast in Othello inspired me to write ‘I Want to Be Iago Moor than Aidan Braithwaite Does’.

The title appears on the screen.

Almost immediately, a Tinder notification pops up on the same screen. ROSA clicks on it and reads it. It says something like, ‘How about this pub? It’s halfway between us both.’

I met a long-term boyfriend on Tinder, so don’t knock it. We were together for two-and-a-half years. He was generally great, he just asked me to choose between him and acting quite a lot. In the end I wasn’t really choosing, because some of the best acting I’ve done was pretending I was still interested in him.

Resolution Number One: ‘I WILL GET MY PRIORITIES RIGHT’ pings onto the screen. ROSA impatiently swipes it away and replies to the message.

I’ve been single for about four months, depending on who you ask. If you ask the last guy I was dating he’d tell you I’ve been single a lot longer than that, because we weren’t actually in an exclusive relationship, we were more of a fluid meeting-of-minds. Who were allowed to sleep with whoever else he wanted. And I was happy with the fluid meeting-of-minds thing. Really happy. I mean I’d never heard the term coined like that, but he would sometimes leave crystals and wind chimes around my bedroom so I knew we had something special. I think it was a matter of just waiting until we were ready. Until we were ready to commit fully to each other. Until we were prepared to stop playing the field and just, you know. BE. With each other. Until we were in a place where we weren’t actually a free spirit who rides on the winds of chance and runs away from the bindings of romantic commitment and can’t actually give something that could be really good just a bit of a fucking chance. But yeah in the end I just think we might have wanted different things, so we went our separate ways and we’re planning to meet up for coffee as friends at some point when he’s less busy.

She goes back onto Tinder and swipes through a few dead-looking options.

Most people on these apps scare the shit out of me because I know they’re the type of boys who would have thrown my tampons around maths in secondary school, but have grown up into insurance salesman who live in Earl’s Court.

There was one guy whose opening line was ‘What’s your IQ?’ Which is nearly as gross as another one that said, ‘How many people have you slept with then?’ And actually the answer is the exact same number for both.

But this guy seems. Nice.

She rubs her stomach absently.

RESOLUTION NUMBER THREE APPEARS ON THE SCREEN ALMOST AGGRESSIVELY.

Twenty-three, F.

Long red hair.

Peeling the layers of my skin back to see what’s hidden there.

Don’t know what I should be yet

Nor do I know where.

Feels like playing life is hard and the rules are unfair.

Wish I could be more like those girls on the internet.

You know who you are and you have a voice there

Twenty thousand followers across your social media

You’re online all the time yet I come across a lot needier

The height of your standards is incredibly admirable

And the light of your enlightenment as bright as a candle

I follow you miles past your Twitter handle

My DMs left forgotten like a jelly sandal

Story of my life

Popular with kids

Quirky in 2011

Not really seen outdoors after half past seven oh for fuck’s sake no that’s shit.

Lights normalise.

It’s all shit.

I feel a bit shit.

Even if I could finish something, write a poem that’s talking about something important, or a short story or a play that meant something to people… I don’t think I could deal with anyone’s criticism.

Any one-woman show I write will be compared to Fleabag. And what would it be about? Lying on the floor with a stomach ache? The portrait of the artist as a whiny bloated woman who can’t get an acting job?

And actually I’m really struggling to know what story I want to tell, but I know I need to tell it.

It’s so important to tell your story.

Because otherwise people will keep asking you, ‘So what you doing next? You write, don’t you? Are you working on anything at the moment???’

And if you call yourself a writer, and don’t w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Contents
• Welcome to VAULT Festival
• Dedication
• Original Production
• Thanks
• Characters
• Madame Ovary
• About the Author
• Copyright and Performing Rights Information