Derry writer Mel Bradley has debuted her one woman show For The Love of Mary at the Alley Theatre.
9 October 2023
The play is a bilingual autobiographic mapping of her journey to find the Virgin Mary, a figure glorified as the epitome of female identity. For the Love of Mary examines her lost humanity, rediscovered through stories shared by women living in Ireland, gathered around the kitchen table, often over a pot of tea. It has been produced with assistance from Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Individual Artist Fund and the University of Atypical and was premiered at the Strabane venue as part of a wider tour. The performance explores the atrocities committed against women, the institutionalisation of women, the Repeal and Decriminalise movements alongside acts of devotional faith and love. All layered against a backdrop of religious ideology and national identity. Viewed through the lens of a woman from a Protestant/Unionist background, displaced by the troubles into a Nationalist area two years before the Good Friday Agreement was signed it questions the cultural influence of her prescribed ideals of courage, endurance, hope, faith and confidante in parallel to the experiences of pregnancy, consent, agency, crisis and sexuality by Irish women. The event is part of Bounce Festival 2023 organised by University of Atypical for Arts and Disability.