Pig Tales

Written and performed by JULIE McNAMARA
The Unity Theatre

Reviewed by Catrina Macfie

A tale which pairs one person’s experience of a brutal mental healthcare system with the flaws within Catholicism seems an unlikely premise for a play. In Pig Tales, however, award-winning Julie McNamara eschews the realms of convention and confronts us with a highly-charged, emotive and semi-autobiographical performance that links the two.
Composed of five short vignettes with the nursery rhyme ‘This little piggy went to market’ as it’s reference point, Pig Tales recounts the story of a female child raised as a boy. The psychological and emotional effects that ensued are thoroughly explored and McNamara’s own struggle with gender identity and her sexuality is placed in the spotlight. A lifetime of confusion which led to lengthy periods spent in psychiatric hospitals.
From the outset, McNamara’s startling stage presence and earthy dialogue demands attention. Deliberately provocative, she shakes up our cosy perceptions of the Catholic Church and the psychiatric system through her stark portrayals of individuals damaged by them. Artfully depicting each character, with the central focus on her namesake ‘Pig’, McNamara remains on stage throughout and adopts a range of accents and personas.
Wearing bandages to flatten the chest and the index finger of a glove crammed with toilet paper to replicate a penis, Pig recalls how her/his father’s blind refusal to accept his daughter led him to name her Kevin and rear her as a boy. Such torrid subject-matter could very easily be covered in a morbid and one-dimensional manner. Deftly, however, it is told in a light-spirirted yet darkly-humorous way, almost mocking the absurdity of it all.
With the symbolic imagery of an altar and a bloody carcass interspersed with video footage and sporadic on-screen quotes such as Tony Blair’s “History will forgive us” the play mixes technical wizardry with wit.
Pig’s final victory is her acceptance of her uncommon life in a scene where she “washes away her manhood”. Asking “What would you do in Pig’s trotters, McNamara implores the audience to show greater tolerance and acceptance in a world which fears and shuns people who do not fit our definition of ‘normality’.