Towards the end of her performance of The Tightrope Walker, Jenny MacDonald encourages the audience to thank a part of their body that they are grateful for.
“If there is a part of your body that you never had a chance to thank, do that now. Say, ‘thank you, you are doing great – I’m glad that you are here’.”
It’s an unusual invitation after what has been a heartfelt theatrical exploration of MacDonald’s own experience of surgery for breast cancer. Yet, it seems appropriate after we’ve watched her share her thoughts and observations of her journey through illness as part of Creative Brain Week in Trinity College Dublin (TCD).
The metaphor of illness as a journey is not new, but the writer and performer brings levels of personal insight, observation and generosity to the show that is rare to witness. In a post-performance discussion, audience members who have also had cancer surgery say she has described so much of what they felt too from diagnosis to treatment to post-surgery recovery.
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Maria Fleming, chief executive of the First Fortnight festival and board member of the Irish Cancer Society, also had treatment for breast cancer. “It helped me understand and explore more my experience and feel it was shared with other people. I want friends and family members to see this production,” says Fleming.
“I’ve changed. I can’t be fake any more. I can’t push my body too hard because my spirit won’t let me,” says MacDonald, reading one of the many numbered sheets of text that are scattered on the stage floor of the Samuel Beckett Theatre in TCD. Having invited four audience members to sit with her on the stage, she then asks them to pick numbers from a box, which prompts her to read each specific text. At times, they also play bit parts in her dramatisation of her illness experience.
It’s the randomness of the texts that she reads that maintains an element of surprise throughout the performance. This non-linear exploration of illness also keeps us alert to what might come next.
She talks about wanting to be an informed, yet not irritating, patient. She describes the sadness, shock, but also the love. “Death can be a co-traveller in the background,” she says at one point. “But you can’t do illness without love,” she adds later.
She poignantly describes how her mother comes to look after her when she is ill. And she recounts the feelings of loneliness that are so common after her treatment ends and people leave her to get on with her life. Her disconnection from wider world affairs is contrasted with her greater empathy during fleeting encounters with strangers in challenging situations.
She speaks about how the surgical team see parts of her body that she never sees. “Could you see my heart when you were moving muscles around?” she wants to ask and then becomes tearful when she sees her own heart beating on an ultrasound scan.
She describes the anger she feels when breast reconstruction is mentioned, yet she also doesn’t want to feel ungrateful to these strangers who are fixing her body.
She names her breasts Patricia and Francesca and her new one Stella. “I come to see her as a shield. Will I be stronger, more loving?” she asks. Although she admits to times of vulnerability and tearfulness, she says that, throughout her experience, her desire to observe and record it helped her through. “I knew in a future time that this crisis would be a piece of art.”
Like so many other people who have faced serious illness, MacDonald seems transformed by her experience. “Life is hard enough. It makes me ask how can we take care of ourselves, be more generous, listen to who we are and what we need to share”, she says in the post-show discussion (See solosirens.info for details of future performances).
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