I was unsure what to expect going into this production. Push is a one-woman show by the dance-theatre troupe Popelei, performed by Tamsin Hurtado Clarke, exploring the potential pregnancy of a 38-year-old woman, also named Tamsin.

Clarke was trained at the Jaques Leqoq School in Paris, famed for its emphasis on physical theatre, and that is immediately apparent in this intensely rhythmic show. The staging was sparse, bordering on non-existent - a large white mat has been laid, covering most of the stage and reflecting the soft neon shades of light upward, which swaddle Clarke as she hurls herself around the stage in a candy-pink one-piece swimsuit adorned with zebras.

The music, lighting, dance and wordplay all feel completely enmeshed - the textual script would be unrecognizable without these elements. The sound and lighting work is masterful, deserving a particular shoutout. It also felt appropriate that a piece that deals with something so physical, intimate and ineffable as growing a life is told using a lot of movement.

Depending on how you interpret the piece, we are taken through three trimesters that may be entirely imagined in the endless three-minute wait for a pregnancy test result. Clarke is a fearless and charismatic performer, communicating so much in interpretive gestures and fully committing to a sometimes oblique and repetitive script. This repetition does seem to serve a purpose though, as though we’re viewing the piece from within her mind as she endlessly tosses the same worries around, holding them up to the light.

Upping the ante at one point, Clarke, very convincingly feigning morning sickness, solicited a drink of water from the audience. A woman complied and provided a bottle of water. Clarke began dry-heaving again about fifteen minutes later, and this time, she requested an increasingly alarming amount of beer and wine, polishing off two viewers’ full glasses. It’s a mesmerizing, uncomfortable set of moments, in which Clarke taps the fourth wall and explores boundaries and judgement.

We meet Tamsin’s mother and grandmother, the latter of whom is a generic but effective bit of comic relief, and learn a bit about her Italian heritage and familial history. Through their conversations, the piece nimbly explores the way prospective motherhood can dissolve your finely-pressed pill of self like an Alka-Seltzer in hot water from the inside out, from flaring hormones to societal stereotyping.

But beyond this, Tamsin’s background is left as blank as the stage space she spins on. I would have liked a bit more specificity and narrative to the piece - whether she’d be raising the child alone or with a partner feels like a crucial question to understanding her headspace, but is left unanswered. I understand the desire to stay wholly hewn to the moment and not bog down the show in exposition, but since external characters are included (and Clarke proves herself to be a dab hand at impressions) it would have strengthened and structured the piece to ground us further in this woman’s life.

Nevertheless, the show was fast-paced and moving, and whirred by on a current of adrenaline, stronger for embracing its ambivalence and multitude. This was a deeply felt, daring production that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.