Women Who Kill Children: Mistrusting Mothers in the Work of Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw, Beatrix Campbell and Judith Jones, and Dennis Kelly

Abstract

Having explored the sounds of Scottish voices in the wake of devolution, the negotiation of norms by black voices as they were included in mainstream space, and the pressures on young voices to participate under New Labour’s empathetic regime, this final chapter turns to the theme of betrayal, a climate that began to pervade public discourse in the latter years of Tony Blair’s period as Prime Minster. It does so by attending to the representation in theatre of women who have killed children — or been accused of this — and thus violated what society perceives as a fundamental human relationship based on intimacy and trust. I argue that in the construction of the voice of the female child killer in the voicescapes of theatre in this period we can hear ‘cultural evidence’ for the shift from an empathic inclusive context for otherwise stigmatised individuals to a climate of betrayal in response to the perceived lack of transparency in the political representative process. This betrayal was articulated in the deceitful voice of the murdering mother, whose seductive or transparent language traditionally disguises evil intent.