We interviewed Marie Hamilton about her show Madonna On The Rocks, her background, motherhood and the creative process.
Speak the unspeakable, smash up the pedestals, support each other, and make some art.
Marie, your show is rooted in your own experience of balancing the demands of motherhood with pursuing a career, whilst dealing with postpartum depression, but you've found a novel approach to expounding on those issues, so let's start with your story. How did you start out and arrive at where you are today?
I trained with Philippe Gaulier when I was 18 and then I worked as a jobbing actor for a long time. I was part of a number of devising processes and loved the rush of having a vague idea at the start of an R&D- a play about medieval basket weavers, say- and by the end of the week having characters and songs and a heist montage. It was magic.
Eventually I built up the courage to tell stories myself, and asked people I loved and respected to make some shows with me. I was always too scared to do a solo show though, but then I had a baby. You can’t expect many people to want to work with you if your working hours are 8.30pm - 11pm. And so my lonely late night writing slowly formed itself into this.
Having a baby blew my brain apart. It was terrifying and beautiful and there was a dark period when I didn’t know if I could ever make anything again. Theatre is all I’ve ever done, and I couldn’t see a way of doing it anymore, and the loss of self was enormous. After hundreds of exhausted, often teary, sometimes angry, increasingly galvanising conversations with other artist Mums, I started to feel there was hope. I had to make something- for me, and for all of us. It helped me claw my way through the darkness, and after that it felt like I could do anything. Even a solo show.
What was the driving message you wanted to convey that motivated you to create Madonna On The Rocks?
Motherhood is a gift, but it can also be scary and lonely and dark. We are obsessed with the idea of the ideal mother selflessly sacrificing herself, but this pedestalising of ‘maternal sacrifice’ is toxic. Self-sacrifices, however willingly made, lead to tiny initially imperceptible resentments, which over time build up. It also teaches our children that giving up is what Mum’s are supposed to do.
It’s still deeply shameful to talk about post-natal depression, even though pretty much every mum I’ve ever spoken to has talked about feeling lost and scared and adrift during that early motherhood time. It was the feeling that I’d lost my career, and that there was no way I could get it back that tipped me into the bad place. Then, when I did start getting it back, I had a deep, dark guilt for leaving my baby. It was an impossible Catch-22 and it drove me mental.
The longer all this is shrouded in secrecy and shame the more people will fall into those dark places. That’s terrible for the mums, the dads, our industry and our children. We have to speak the unspeakable, smash up the pedestals, support each other, and make some art.
You have award-winning composer Ben Osborn and Fringe First Award winning director Hildegard Ryan on the team. How did that collaboration come about?
Hildegard directed the brilliant Mustard by Eva O’Connor, which I loved and so I sent her a creepy unsolicited text. She had just had a baby too and our chats got deeper and deeper. All our fears and late-night scrolling bubbled up and fed into this show.
I worked with Ben on the last show I made: Polly, a very punk adaptation of John Gay’s banned sequel to The Beggar’s Opera. We spent a beautiful week in Berlin, Ben, Madeline Shann and I, figuring out lyrics and writing music which we sent via voicenote to Hildy and slowly our play became a musical.
After the first development period Hildy got pregnant again (inconsiderate) and then moved back to Ireland (really inconsiderate) and so this year I’ve been working with Stephanie Kempson, who directed Polly. Having Steph and Ben and Madii (the original Polly crew) all in on Madonna has been a dream, like getting the band back together. It was working with these brilliant, talented, generous people that I was so keenly missing after my first baby. I feel so flipping relieved to have found my way back. It’s logistically harder with kids… but it is possible. And I’m a better, happier Mum for it.
What were you looking for in the variety of music you’ve included in the show?
I wanted it to feel like breaking into a broken theatre brain: show tunes mixing with club bangers, post-show techno, a bit of power pop, heartbroken jazz from the 300th ailed audition and furious punk. Each song is in a totally different musical world which allows us to jump around emotionally and stylistically and have a lot of fun.
How important is comedy in telling your story?
So important. I believe deeply that if you want to change people’s perspectives, making it funny really helps. No one wants to be lectured or beaten over the head with your pain. As a feminist there’s nothing that upsets me more than bad feminist theatre. Shouting at people with nothing smart to back it up will most likely make them hate women even more. Shout at them by all means- I love a bit of shouting- but make them laugh too, and maybe cry a bit. Put them through a hysterical, hormonal rollercoaster of emotions.
What would you like audiences to take away from the show?
I want them to feel powerful and galvanised and ready to fight for a fairer future. To help that sweaty, frizzy haired, baggy eyed woman get her buggy up the stairs, and then go and make some art, because it’ll make this bin fire of a world better.
I want anyone feeling scared, lost and alone, to know that it’s ok. That it will pass. That whatever their feelings are about motherhood- about being a mother, about having a mother- the dark, taboo, nasty, sometimes scary thoughts, we might not talk about it, but we’ve all been there. If you can laugh at those thoughts and see them for what they are: hormones and impossible societal expectations amplified by exhaustion, they lose their hold.
