Upstairs in Motley Bauhaus’ cabaret room, I come upon a stage set as the aftermath of a torrential storm. A neglected apartment in shambles – with its occupant nowhere to be seen.
Open bottles of alcohol and soda cans lie half-hazardly across the floor. Fancy women’s clothing slumber in a supine position. So very unfitting, I wish to shake them clean and lift them off the dirty carpet.
The pièce de résistance? A pair of beige boots, stuck mischievously on top of one another on the side of a bookshelf with superglue. As if alive, ready to run amok – but have nowhere left to hide.
Yet above the disarray, progress is being made. Moving boxes are labelled. Rubbish bags are being filled. And within each effort to pack up this apartment, a quick-witted, playful young girl, Hannah, mills around, ushering us to a trip down memory-lane. Namely, the tumultuous experience her musician mother had struggling with addiction, and the complicated relationship they underwent to beat it into submission.
With captivating off-the-wall humour, cleverly directed by Damian Callinan, props are in fact used onstage with a mission – to reel us in further by unlocking Hannah’s personal memories of this deeply challenging time. A dusty Aria award statue is held up to the light not for reverence, but as a weapon of mass destruction – due to its sharp, pointy head. A single shoe is startingly transformed into an ashtray, complete with cigarette butts standing up inside of it – a brand-new work of art inspired by a female rock star, spiralling downwards.
But as the show progresses, and Hannah’s heartbreaking story unravels, one can see through the paradoxes of addiction: that two things can be true at the same time. Like a see-saw, memories can exist between tenderness and darkness. Little ditties can be sung on a guitar to settle nerves and balance heaviness. A Spice Girls dance can ground and steady us through the wobbles of confusion. The loving eyes of a mother can start to slip away and become unrecognisable to a daughter’s eyes, even though her heart is still pounding strongly.
That flying a little too close to the sun can bubble under the weight of pressure – of an unforgiving music industry ready to take its next victim.
Complexities aside, here is where I congratulate the shows writer and star, Mary-Agnes O’Loughlin. For not only providing a beautiful voice and graceful miming movements to bring this tale to life, but in honouring Hannah’s truth of a very headstrong girl having to deal with a mother experiencing life-threatening addictions.
Not by shutting it out. Nor by dodging it or avoiding it. But by dancing through its storms.
That for Hannah, fortitude was needed. This meant choosing to dance through the fire. Through the highs and the lows. Through bamboozlement and confusion. For the show’s star, Mary-Agnes O’Loughlin, speaks a different language of bravery – using rhythmic movement as a psychological coping mechanism – to let the ugliness of her mum’s addiction flow through her and be released. In order to see it as a seperate entity – to the unconditional love she has for her mum. Planting her at the centre of her mother’s recovery journey, even beyond the disease itself – helping save her life in the process.
In all, Glimpses of Heaven, weaves a beautifully balanced tale of how a mother’s love can affect our soul’s growth, through the good and bad. That each family have their own set of dynamics, even if not set by social norms. That a mother’s love, even mixed with complication, can still lead us forward: to the full experience of being human.
To book tickets to Glimpses of Heaven, please visit https://www.melbournefringe.com.au/whats-on/events/glimpses-of-heaven.