Chapter 267: On Margaret Atwood and Tales of Sisters & Circus Handmaids

Get thee to a nunnery!

Next week at Sadlers Wells East Ben Duke and his company Lost Dog is bringing The Last Hamlet to Sadlers Wells East. Ever since I've saw his Paradise Lost at the Battersea Arts Centre, I've wanted to see more. Around the time I booked the tickets I received the news of the death of a sister. Not my biological sister, but a religious sister who I'd know at the school I had gone to for sixth form as Sr Lizzie, and then twenty years later met as Sr Ann (reverting to birth name, thanks to Vatican II, rather than the one appointed when taking vows) at the Bar Convent, where she was running the guest house, one of York's hidden gems. A convenient stone's throw from the railway station, by the iconic Mikelgate, on the corner of Blossom Street and Nunnery Lane, the entrance has a discreet sign on the glass of the entrance doors, welcoming people of all faiths or none, and those of us swinging somewhere on a pendulum. The rooms are modern, in the large glass atrium above a beautiful mosaic floor is served cracking cooked breakfasts and cream teas, the chapel hosts LGBTQI+ Mass once a month, and their Living Heritage Museum is state of the art interactive and fascinating. 

We had first gone up to York a couple of years ago to see another sister, Mary Ann, up in the retirement home on the same street, and when my daughter heard the news this time her immediate response was, effectively, "get thee, and me, back!" We had also been drawn out of curiosity to the Bar Convent by the fact that it housed the relic of the  hand of St Margaret Clitherow, a Yorkshire martyr from Elizabethan times, which is on display in the chapel there. Margaret was executed for her Catholic faith and harbouring priests, despite (or, it's rumoured, because of) her step-father, Henry May, being  the Lord Mayor of York. She refused to plea, to avoid her children having to be called upon at her trial, and so was condemned for her silence to a horrific death by being pressed to death by heavy weights, under her own front door, on the bridge over the Ouse. She was rumoured to be pregnant too. When Elizabeth I heard about it she was so horrified at what had been done to the woman that no Catholic was ever executed in that way again. Mary Ward, the founder of the order of sisters at the Bar Convent, was only a baby at the time but grew up among courageous Catholic women for whom Margaret was a spiritual hero, and she went on to found the educational movement that grew into a world wide network of Mary Ward schools such as mine. 

On the train journey up this time, a dog that looked like a pint sized wolf hound, the kind that would be lolling by a medieval fireplace, led us to chatting to the couple across from us on the train. "Do you know the difference between a nun and a sister" asked the wife, when we were discussing travel plans.  I did, not thanks to 15 years of convent education, but due to an Instagram post the week before. She had seen the same one. Nuns, if you're interested, are those who live an enclosed life, mainly in silent contemplation. Otherwise they are sisters. Hamlet wanted to silence Ophelia's voice, I reflected, and that way madness lies. 

From tales of sisters to handmaids... another Margaret is one of my literary heroes: Margaret Atwood. So when I saw that The Penopliad was being staged that night at the Theatre Royal I booked us in. Last time round it had been Legally Blonde. As we took our seats, we saw on stage several red ropes hanging down. Circus skills would be woven into Penelope's yarn, clearly. And they were, both in the innocence of the maids at the beginning, two actors particularly skilled in aerial, climbing, looping and generally hanging out with the others, relaxing, a stark mirroring to later hanging in twisted positions in a dramatic reveal at the end. 

Penelope walked in initially. A Grecian beauty with grey hair swept up into a Grace Kelly chignon, slender in a white jumpsuit that gave serious goddess vibes. Somewhat familiar, it was only later I twigged I recognised Amelia Bullmore from the BBC series Riot Women. How apt. Here again she was to turn the tables. Penelope told her tale from Hades, a barren space, and her perspective on the Odyssey was not just a retelling of herstory, but that of her maids. Flashbacks took us to her childhood. A rope turned serpentine oracle gave a nebulous prophecy that led to her father trying to drown her initially, leading henceforth to a fear of bridges.  But she survived and was betrothed, her mother, a Naiad, instructing her in the art of fluidity when navigating obstacles. Olivia Burton-Laws, the actor playing the Naiad combined both spoken word and BSL which added a striking grace and power to the choreography and her role in this tale about women making their voices heard. The reference to the river struck me, not only as a shadow of Clitherow, but also because I'm reading Ursula LeGuin's "EarthSea" chronicles, where the river again is a border between mortality and immortality, and cosmic equilibrium. And I am also listening to Elif Shafak's "There Are Rivers in the Sky" on Audible where rivers both source and contain memory. These connections are flooding my stream of consciousness, and writing this is maybe my way to figure out how it all comes together. 

The rest of the all female cast portrayed not only Penelope's maids, and Odysseus' nursemaid, but all of the male characters, bar Telemachus in his infancy, a touching puppet that was a dead ringer for the puppet used in Tao of Glass (See Chapter 243). So much so that I borrowed a programme for a quick flick through, but couldn't see any mention of puppeteers Sarah Wright or her mother Lyndie. I still wonder. In  Tao Phelim McDermott talked about the theatre ghosts we as audience members bring with us, and that still resonated clearly. 

There was dark humour and deftness in the casts' mimicry of male energy, whether the chameleon Odysseus, alternating between tenderness, anger and impassive stoicism, or the suitors' ribald behaviour and poses struck. The latter was often light relief as the story grew ever darker for the maids. Like lambs to the slaughter they because the distraction employed by Penelope to fend off the suitors' unwanted advances. When Odysseus returns, Penelope is given a sleeping draught, while he then orders Telemachus to hang them, so she has no opportunity to explain her strategy, nor they to speak up and defend themselves. In this story, the silence of the mother figure, her complicity in terms of the strategy she employs to survive herself, is what condemns her "children", rather than saves them. Atwood gives the maids the last word though, as in the afterlife they turn to the Furies who grant them their plea to haunt Odysseus, in Hades and in each of his subsequent reincarnations. He will never be free. And Penelope will never be spoken to by them again, left alone to miss the company of her "doves". 

There was something about the production that felt very much a zeitgesit in terms of the history of women in York. Whether Catholic recusants, witches or prophetesses (we also thoroughly enjoyed the jumpscares of the York Dungeons with the likes of Mother Shipton and Isabella Billington) time and again we were coming across tales of maids and strong women, independent, rebellious and defiant, deemed a danger to the status quo. 

Victims of the patriarchy maybe, but not passive ones.  Margaret Clitherow refused to betray those she sheltered, Mary Ward challenged the constraints of religious life for women (she was also imprisoned by the Catholic Church at a time when they preferred their orders of women orderly, enclosed), and Atwood's maids refused to let their story rest with the version told by their masters. Myth or otherwise, the truth of their story lives on, not so much a cautionary tale but more of an empowering one, albeit acknowledging the uncomfortable truth that women can also be complicit in silencing others. We walked back under the light of the full moon and got to our room, slightly disappointed to be assigned to "St Winifred" rather than "St Margaret" opposite. Then we googled the story of the saint and found she was patron of women spurning the unwanted advances of men. Someone up there was having a laugh...


Post-script

The morning after, after regaling Mary Ann with our adventures, my daughter had one more question: "If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?" Without a moment's hesitation she replied "Prague! It's meant to be the most beautiful city in the world and I would so have liked to have seen it." Ironically, I'm going there next weekend. "I'll send you a postcard" I said. "Are you taking Catherine?" she asked. "God no!" I said. And then, a tad guiltily, I qualified that I was going with an old uni friend Jane to see Cirk La Putyka's 15th anniversary show Okamžik (meaning a moment, an instant) for a weekend getaway that will no doubt go in the blink of an eye. The show is running until mid November and if you can get there, go, it looks phenomenal. We had last seen the company and their production Dolls (see post here) over a decade ago at the Edinburgh Fringe (the only time I have been actually!), the same year Barely Methodical Troupe's show Bromance (see post here) was also at the Circus Hub. BMT's Charlie Wheeller has now taken his iron Cyr ring over to Czech Republic and is in Okamžik too, which is how I heard about the show. Their Christmas show will be FoolMoon. The wheel has come full circle you could say... 

Lead photo credit: Pamela Raith, as featured in Guardian review of The Penopliad: 

www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/oct/17/the-penelopiad-review-margaret-atwood-feminist-york-theatre-royal

PPS: also spotted on a poster at Theatre Royal in the interval that Lost Dog's Juliet and Romeo, which is also on my wishlist, is on tour there 20-21 November. If you fancy a break away you know where to stay. And if you do go up, I also recommend a trip to York Gin, round the corner from The Shambles. Last time I came away  with a Viking inspired Spring notes gin. This time I went for the seasonal "Mad Alice" Blood Orange-infused limited edition. Fun fact: apparently Mad Alice is Europe's number one rated tour guide. If your tastes are more catholic, York Gin also have an apple-infused gin from the orchards at Ampleforth Abbey. Will definitely have to return for an encore...! 

Chapter 266: Itch by Teatronas

"Mum, why are you dressed head to toe in black?"

The answer was simple. It had been a full-on day and I was going to see a show about the fear of death. Somehow shaking off the day, and the clothes, and dressing for the evening ahead, brings its own energy. I was off to see Lithuanian performing arts company Teatronas at Jacksons Lane with ITCH, a performance directed by Gildas Aleksa. Described by its creators as a theatre essay on the fear of death, it draws inspiration from psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom's book Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death.

The premise intrigued me. What if our everyday anxieties, our isolation, our busyness, our relentless pressure to achieve, were really manifestations of a deeper fear of mortality? As a compulsive overachiever in a perpetual boom-and-bust cycle of energy, there are patterns that need breaking and questions that need answering.

I've never considered myself particularly afraid of death - educated by Irish Catholic nuns for 13 years, it's really the thought of an afterlife that scares the bejesus out of me! In the past few years I've accompanied both my parents at the end of their lives. The night before my mother died in January, I felt her energy flood the house and wrap me in a warm blanket. The morning after she died, as I approached the bedroom where she lay, my chest constricted, but still I crossed the threshold. The experience struck me with the thought that when we go, no one can do it for us or come through with us. We cross alone. I can't describe why, but that thought gave me some consolation and made me feel stronger.

But there is a fear that remains. A sense of accountability for this life. An exhaustion, even. The feeling that time is slipping away and there is still so much to do, or strip away. Increasingly I feel the pull to pull away. To just be still. But not that evening. I was looking for another perspective.

I arrived minutes before the performance and grabbed a ticket and took a seat. On stage, two guys were warming up in a twilight of muted lighting. Minimal, metropolitan, dressed in suits but bare-chested, with slits of fabric, purple perhaps, at the knees of one and the elbows of the other. I liked that. It was a strange world, somewhere between the familiar and the surreal.

A young woman, the flyer, performer Milda Jonaitytė, swinging on a rope, held a balloon. She spoke of the landmark moment when a child first recognises their own mortality as a helium balloon slips from their grasp and floats away, beyond reach. A first experience of irrevocable loss. It struck a chord, especially if, like me, you were haunted by the beautiful film The Red Balloon as a child. But in a neat inversion, her balloon didn't float away. As she turned upside down, it thudded to the floor. Suddenly we were in an upside-down world. Clever.

Then another balloon, apparently with a life of its own, followed an acrobat across the stage. However often he kicked it away, back it came. Later, a juggler appeared to throw a ball which, through a genius bit of sleight of hand, went nowhere at all. There was something wonderfully playful about these tricks, and something unsettling too. Death is like that balloon, or that ball. However hard we try to chuck it away, or ignore it, it keeps coming back into play.

The circus skills were a joy to watch. Kasparas Bujanauskas performed an extraordinary juggling solo lasting over half an hour. It sounds impossibly long, but the repetition took on an almost meditative, playful quality. There was something deeply soothing about the rhythm, the different patterns, the seemingly effortless control, the endless movement. But baked into that serenity was a certain anxiety about the inevitable drop. There were several. Yet each was recovered so smoothly, with a flick of a toe or a leisurely scoop from the floor, that it was difficult to distinguish the mistakes from the choreography. Nor, perhaps, should we. The carrying on is the point. 

There were moments of wonderful comedy too, with acrobat Džiugas Kunsmanas weaving in and out of the juggler's movements, interrupting his carefully constructed patterns. The interventions were at once a distraction and a source of delight, and I didn't see a drop. There was the pleasure here of watching extraordinary physical skill responding to another human being intervening, Loki-style. 

Then there were surreal moments. At one point, the acrobat folded himself over, feet above his head, until his back seemed to take on a life of its own. It twitched and writhed in strange, almost St Vitus' dance-like movements, the itch of the title, an uncontrollable agitation. It took me back to seeing Punchdrunk's immersive The Masque of the Red Death at Battersea Arts Centre, years ago. But to me the back also resembled a faceless puppet, the hands on either side like ears, a body onto which we could project the features of someone we'd known, or unknown.

The spoken word was harder for me to grasp. The words tumbled out quickly, one over another, and I struggled to hold on to them. I wanted the flyer to slow down, to leave more space between her thoughts, to give me time to reflect. But maybe that was the point, and I just needed to go with the flow rather than try to anchor myself to a pebble in the riverbed of words. A thought had drifted in early on: They're so young. So full of energy. What do they know of death? Of that paralysing exhaustion? And yet I know death doesn't respect age, and neither does grief, as I was reminded when she spoke of her own experiences.

One striking image I carried away was of the flyer standing blindfolded in a two-high, directing the base beneath her through shifts in her weight towards the rope in the centre. It was funny, clever, but also took me back to Songs of the Bulbul, a dance performance I saw earlier this summer, based on a Sufi tale of a caged songbird. When the bird is blinded, it can no longer see the world beyond its cage, but in that darkness its song becomes something deeper, almost a prayer. Its physical world contracts, yet something within it is released.

The creators of ITCH suggest that our relentless rush to achieve might itself be an expression of our fear of death. Watching the endless juggling, the frenetic itch, the distractions, the anxious torrent of words, I could see what they meant. We keep ourselves busy, perhaps because stopping would mean confronting the limits of our time.

In the face of death, perhaps our only response is to create. Not necessarily something grand or lasting. Not a monument to ourselves, or another achievement to add to the list. But something that taps into what lies beyond ourselves, something we can share with others.

Ironically, I almost didn't write this up. I'd jotted these notes down on the tube home. Everyday life intervened the moment I walked back through my front door. Traitors. Ironing. Lesson prep. I dropped the ball and was loath to pick it up. I could just give myself a break for once. But I'm learning. And maybe the trip down to the shell of my parents' house this week for a final clearance, and the raw grief that surged back up, brought that home. 

And perhaps the measure of a life isn't how many balls we managed to keep in the air, but how we pick them up after the drop, before the ultimate performance comes to an end.

Photo credit: Teatronas teatronas.lt/en/itch-show/

And if you are London-based this weekend, check out London Juggling Festival at throwntogether.org which is being covered over at thecircusdiaries.com/