“Sometimes it feels like I’ve spent my entire life terrified of getting pregnant,” says Staceyann Chin at the top of her solo show “MotherStruck!” Born in Jamaica, Ms. Chin grew up in fear of becoming a “statistic” like her mother: young and pregnant, with no father to help support her child. But the subject of this engaging and often funny stage memoir, which opened on Monday at the Culture Project, is not, in fact, Ms. Chin’s valiant efforts to stave off motherhood, but her increasingly strong desire for, and her difficulty in, actually achieving it.  Ms. Chin has such a magnetic presence, with deep brown eyes that seem to give out light, that you might almost believe that she was unspooling her story for you alone, in your own living room or maybe hers. Wearing tights under a loose dress, her hair shaved on two sides, leaving a shock of red like an exclamation point in the middle, she bounds around the small, circular performance space with a wiry intensity. Nor does she confine herself to the stage: Often, the urgency of her story sends her flying out into the audience, or up the aisles at least.  Ms. Chin’s youthful fear of becoming mired in poverty, with no option of bettering herself, drives her to excel at academics; she wins a scholarship to the best girls’ school in the area, and goeson to a university. It is there that she makes a discovery that would seem to solve her pregnancy-fear problem: Her awe in the presence of a particularly passionate fellow student isn’t merely intellectual but romantic. Staring at the object of her admiration as the girl sucks on a pencil, the comic thought suddenly strikes her: “God, I wish I were that pencil.”  Being an out lesbian in Jamaica, however, even amid well-educated students, soon brings Ms. Chin serious trouble, when she’s verbally and then sexually assaulted. And so she moves to New York, and finds her vocation — performer, poet, storyteller — when she happens upon the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. (Ms. Chin was among the performers in “Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam” on Broadway.) She finds lovers and a grounding friendship, too, with a gay man, Peter, whom she marries to establish security in her new country.  Her story is not a simple one, however. “Even after I start writing graphic one-person shows about the political ramifications of how my identity intersects with my string of sexual exploits,” she says, “Peter and I remain a proper married couple.” This includes the prospect of having a baby together, but before they can make this happen, Peter dies of cancer, “30 minutes before his 30th birthday,” she says, still seeming mournful and shocked. “Who dies 30 minutes before they turn 30?”  Now a “lesbian widow,” Ms. Chin still feels the maternal urge, but also believes that at 32, she has all the time in the world, and has a carefully thought-out master plan. With Brooklyn a “sea of lesbians,” she’s in just the right spot to find the right partner. “Then we will spend 2.25 years reveling in the magic of our romance,” she explains. “Then, over careful, respectful, nonhostile negotiations and even more careful planning, we’d select the perfect sperm donor, who would have to, of course, be the exact combination of both our ethnicities, to assist in conceiving the radical feminist ninja messiah we intend to release upon the Patriarchy.”  At which point, those in sympathy might be tempted to sing out, “You go, girl!” But life has a way of deflating plans and dimming dreams, and Ms. Chin’s shining path toward mothering that messiah does not come to fruition easily. The story of “MotherStruck!” grows more complex, and darker, as Ms. Chin first seeks lasting love — and fails time and again. “Meet, love, break, recover” becomes the sad mantra of her middle 30s. Anxiety begins bubbling up as the years go by, and the prospect of having a child within a firm relationship becomes more remote.  Like all talented storytellers, Ms. Chin may perhaps be a little too besotted with her own voice, rich in warmth, wit and intelligence as it is. “MotherStruck!,” directed by the actor Cynthia Nixon (who has recently added direction to her repertoire), would benefit from some pruning here and there; a solo show that requires an intermission and runs to two hours will inevitably have some saggy spots, and this one is no exception.  But Ms. Chin’s easygoing radiance helps keep you hooked, even when the writing grows slightly slack. And certainly her story has plenty of hairpin curves and alarming surprises — no shortage of drama, in short. She faces medical and financial problems (insurance companies: how we love them!), but maintains an almost warriorlike determination to achieve her goal.  And all, I might add, without apparently losing her humor, or so it seems in the telling. During one of her more desperate moments, she finds herself praying — in every form she knows, to every God she can name — for some assistance in her endeavor. “Ruler of the Universe,” she remembers calling out, “just go ahead and knock me up. You did it for Mary! You sure as hell can do it for me.”  It’s not spoiling much to give the good news that he, or she, eventually heeded the call.  Lynn Redgrave Theater at Culture Project, The  Category Off Broadway, Play, Solo Performance  Credits Written and performed by Staceyann Chin; Directed by Cynthia Nixon  Closing Date January 29, 2016  This information was last updated: Dec. 14, 2015  MotherStruck!Written and performed by Staceyann Chin­­; directed by Cynthia Nixon; lighting by Bradley King and Dante Olivia Smith; sets by Kristen Robinson; costumes by Akua Murray-Adoboe; sound by Elisheba Ittoop; associate director, Ron Russell; assistant director, Shariffa Ali; stage manager, C. Renee Alexander. Presented by Culture Project, Rosie O’Donnell and Robert Dragotta, with Michael Drescher, Curt Forsythe, Susan Mikulay, Julio DePietro, Ken Schur and Sue Wolf. Through Jan. 29 at the Lynn Redgrave Theater at Culture Project, 45 Bleecker Street, near Lafayette Street, East Village; 866-811-4111, cultureproject­.org. Running time: 2 hours.  A version of this review appears in print on December 15, 2015, on page C3 of the New York edition with the headline: Pursuing Love and an Even More Elusive Goal. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Ms. Chin’s solo show travels from her childhood in Jamaica to her life as a gay adult New York performer who longs for a stable relationship and a child.