Galway International Arts Festival 2025: The Baby's Room

The Baby's Room by Enda Walsh. Image by Emilija Jefremova

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Enda Walsh clearly has a soft spot for Galway, and Galway clearly has a soft spot for him. It’s not just the shows he’s premiered in the city of the tribes, there’s his enduring relationship with Galway International Arts Festival which this year features his twelfth 'Rooms' immersive theatre installation. Designed by Paul Fahy and featuring the voice of Kate Gilmore, The Baby’s Room reframes a familiar space encouraging you to notice what you may not have noticed before. Offering fresh perspectives on yourself as much as on the room in question as Walsh's audio tale unfolds.

Fahy’s hallway with child proofed stairs, hung coats and reproduction paintings speaks to middle class aspirations. The main space a living room adapted to accommodate a newborn. The sanitised changing area, the soft furnishings and toys, the tinkling mobile over an empty cot all speak to a defining presence felt despite its absence. Victorian ideals of children represented by several Beatrix Potter styled images and three paintings of young girls similiar to those adorning Dickensian Christmas calendars. Juxtapositions between the idealised and the real emerging after a poltergeist flashing of lights introduces Kate Gilmore's disembodied monologue about a thirty-two year old woman recounting her life forward and backward. Delivered with the relentless urgency of a coked up Miss Lonely Hearts on a three day bender bemoaning the self-inflicted misery that is her half lived life. Dull job, cheap hopes and cheaper sex; the line between self-discovery and self-pity blurs beyond recognition. Narrative flipping as lights click between paintings whilst Gilmore outlines her lack of chances in life. Softer insights leading to the piercing cry of a newborn child. But is it Gilmore herself or her child we hear? Either way, the sentimental legacy continues as the illusions underscoring the Victorian fantasy remain: children are a second chance at life. A chance to redeem yourself. To get it right this time. Hmm. Ever wonder if your children weren't about you at all?

It’s a stretch to call The Baby's Room immersive. You may walk around the space and touch things for the whole of two minutes, but for its fifteen minute duration you’re essentially a spectator. But Walsh as director is superb at marshalling the ingredients at his disposal and maximising their effectiveness. Ensuring the juxtapositions of the idealised and the real, of life lived and life imagined, of Walsh’s own superb writing and Gilmore's deeply impassioned delivery cohere into something quietly powerful. The final moments closer to Rosemary’s Baby than a happy ever after.

The Baby’s Room by Enda Walsh, runs as part of Galway International Arts Festival 2025 until July 27.

For more information visit Galway International Arts Festival