Review: LOBOTOMOMMY at CoHo Theatre
Julia Bray's newest solo show was part of the 2026 CoHo Residency Program.
Part interactive, part clowning, part not-so-distant dystopian future imagining, Julia Bray’s new solo show LOBOTOMOMMY, performed as part of the 2026 CoHo Residency Program, is dark comedy at its sharpest.
Rachel Johnson is a new mom struggling with typical new-mom problems, like lack of sleep. When she sees an ad for a tech-funded institute that surgically installs AI into mothers' brains, suppressing the inconveniences of their emotions and optimizing them for domestic life, she signs up. The result is what the institute calls a MomWell. Think a Stepford-wife type of creature that thinks only happy thoughts, does only pleasant things, always smiles, and never, ever raises her voice.
The first half of the show alternates between Rachel's intake interviews before the surgery and her progress through the program, which requires essentially erasing all of her memories and sense of self and rebuilding her from scratch to be a "perfect" mother. Problems arise, as you can imagine. The second half goes behind the scenes, of both the institute and motherhood itself, to dismantle the notion that a happy, pleasant, always-smiling, never-yelling, never-needing-anything mother is anywhere close to natural, or even desirable. An ancient deity makes an appearance.
The show runs almost two hours, no small feat for a solo performer. Fortunately, Bray is highly engaging. She’s an expert at getting the audience laughing, then coming in for the kill with an emotional gut punch. The show is smart, creative, and often hits just a little too close to home (even for me, and I’m not a mother), which speaks to the emotional resonance of the experience of society thinking you're broken and need to be fixed.
One of the things that struck me most is how frighteningly not-at-all implausible this scenario is. There are companies actively working on AI brain implants to cure medical issues, and it doesn't seem like a far stretch to think that women's emotions might be considered medical problems. They kind of always have been, right?
LOBOTOMOMMY refuses to flatten motherhood into something simple. Society still tends to expect women to disappear into the role. Bray's show pushes back on that, insisting that mothers get to retain their status as full, complete human beings, with all the gorgeous mess that entails. And that they deserve not just acceptance of that fact, but honor for it.
LOBOTOMOMMY played for just one weekend, so you've missed your chance to see it. But, after seeing two of Bray’s solo shows, I can say they’re definitely an artist whose work is worth watching. More info here: julia-bray.com
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