 I've been busy over the month of June because they've been in Anguinin theatre for the most part because they're Anguinin artists in residence and they've been working on a new production called On a House Like a Fire and it's a mother-daughter story and it's told through glimpses of memorabilia and the fragments of memory and there's a great score as well performed live and let us know that Michelle rejoins the slave on the show and we're streaming as well Michelle. Good afternoon to you. Good afternoon John, thanks very much for having me on. It's good to talk about this production so the last month has been productive. It's been really productive yeah we've had a fantastic time it's wonderful to be supported by Anguinin and all the amazing staff there so Patricia McBride the director and Niall Cranny the technical manager and Jude Barrascale's been our stage manager so we've had fantastic support to put this show together. But it's not just in Anguinin or it's not just about the show because she's been doing a couple of things beyond that as well. Yeah I've been working with through the Donegal libraries so doing some creative writing so I worked it was actually the Diamond Writers Group who hosted us in Raffault and a few other people came along to that session and that's that sort of creative writing was I suppose drawing on the process from which I wrote this piece because this piece is a sort of memoir and a kind of elegy as a piece of performance because it's about my experience of my mom trying to remember my mom through the things that I've kept so we were kind of looking at that in the creative writing process and everybody brought along an object that for them carried memories significant memories of somebody often somebody they'd lost because often it's not the expensive things you know like we have the things we keep like the good china but maybe the good china doesn't hold the memories I mean sometimes it does but often it's that wooden spoon you know I mean I remember I do a workshop in Dublin with a lady who talked about a wooden spoon and how she remembered her mom in a baby's bath doing the Christmas puddings and mixing all the ingredients and everybody getting to have a stir with the spoon and she's kept that spoon because it just triggers all those memories so that's kind of what we were doing we were looking at objects and we were writing a little bit about our experiences of those objects and what they contain for us what they carry and the wooden spoon is a great example because it's just so personal and the way the scribe is there about you know the memories of everybody taking the turn at the mixing whereas other things can be just a little bit more maybe contrived whether it's a you know a diary or photographs or something or something this and there's other examples within the production of of things that you know remind you of your mom and and then there's the I suppose a little bit of film and writing and so on that that you would expect to see in production with this yes I suppose it becomes narrative there becomes a story in it so but I was working with the idea of sort of fragments and the different ways those come to you so through objects and I do I do mention objects also through photographs so we see sort of glimpses of photographs and of course now we all have photographs on our phones so that idea of the physical object and keeping the physical object and sometimes when I'm doing work in work with young people I think young people are quite interested in objects again now because they don't have as many so that idea of vinyl coming back or physical photos wanting to print them out so it's interesting about instrumented cameras making a comeback because you know we were also shaking those pictures so I do think it's interesting about our connection to object so it's that with the photos as well I think also then with the writing is how do you try and recreate a sense of memory because memory isn't like a film you know it's you can't just replay it it's not like that that home video you sort of you remember things and you remember in a sort of fragmentary way I think sometimes and then and then things like smell can we all know that you know so there's a there's a bit of sensory reflection in the piece as well I'm you know if I smell hairspray it reminds me of my mom so yeah I think all of those trying to put all of those things into the piece so to talk about my own personal experience but to make it universal that other people would understand that and I think that's also where the music came in and kind of working with Brian early on in the process I had never worked with music before and I think when I was saying I'm sort of struggling with how to write this I want it to be very kind of broken down little fragments of memory and he started playing me a score or a piece of music that he'd been working on that was about echoes and it was really beautiful and I said oh well will you develop this music for the show so he started developing that music specifically for this show and when we first developed the show for age and opportunity and the Bealtana festival last year we had to do the show online obviously because of covid so this is our first opportunity this is the live premiere and what's even more special for us is getting to work with a live string quartet and Brian's been working with the string quartet so to have that music played live is is really magical yeah and with the conductor Victor Yolamo and it you know it sounds like it sounds like a great mix and it'll all come together when you know and it'll all with all make sense as well when there's a live audience there totally yes and then you feed off the reactions and you also touched when you were chatting there about memory you touched on the subject of living with Alzheimer's that's right my mom lived with Alzheimer's at the end of her life I mean she was very she coped with it really well and she managed very well and she had support in that yeah but it's it's interesting as well about how when memory disappears and how it and how people living with dementia or with Alzheimer's often hold on to longer term memories and how how important they are but that the holes in the memory can come at different places you know somebody might I think music works really well as well for memory we remember songs they stay with us but I think also just that the story of people's stories are really important for carers or for families to be able to for families to be able to share with carers to understand who a person is because of their their story and who they were you might meet a person when they're older and maybe when they're suffering from Alzheimer's or experiencing that but of course they have been all these other people in their life they've been that five-year-old on the trike they've been the young person dancing on the dance floor they've been all these people so I think looking back at my mom's life again after she passed away it was really interesting to remember all I mean and I obviously I didn't know her before I was born but as I was a child remembering the person she was throughout her life um was a really a really helpful process really interesting process was a sort of deep dive after the grief of losing my mom so I started to make this show quite a while afterwards where I could really kind of process all these um little pieces of memory the photographs the objects the things that I'd saved and the things I wished I'd saved from the house it's when you're clearing a space and you're just sort of not sure what you should keep it's very interesting because you know those things like the wooden spoon you maybe let go of and you keep the china and you wished you'd done it the other way around and and just watch you get me may trigger memories for people or the items that you use may may trigger off memories for people and they only then realize that oh yeah I'll actually read one of those and I'm kind of thinking about you know that used to you know use it all the time or whatever so it's a such a you know on one level of such a simple premise from the most common items found in in any house um emerald o kelly and the sunday independent that's described that has a beautifully crafted piece of writing and performance and we can see it for ourselves tomorrow night and on saturday nights for two nights only in a greening theater in there the kelly on a house like a fire and Michelle read the best look with thank you for joining us thank you so much john serving the northwest for over 40 years explore our showroom with