There’s a trend both in theatre and in memoir to provide context to every story, which demonstrates an awareness of the artifice and shortcomings of the medium. However, in the case of one-woman play The State Of Grace which has been pieced together by writer/performer Michaela Burger, the context is wholly necessary to make sense of what we’re watching. Burger opens by reading a letter she was sent from the mother of Pippa O’Sullivan, otherwise known as Grace Bellevue, an Australian sex worker who spent her life advocating for sex workers’ rights but succumbed to mental-health problems and died aged 28. 

The following play is a deep dive into Grace’s story, collaged from a folder of writings, press cuttings, diary entries, hip-hop lyrics and memories given to Burger by Bellevue’s mother. Burger riffs around Grace’s life, sometimes turning her words into beautiful harmonised live-foley songs, sometimes whizzing through enactments of her sex-work diaries. In one powerful moment Burger sits curled into a ball and reads a poem Bellevue wrote five years after an abortion.  

The task Burger has been set is not an easy one, and the play is fragmented and messy, sometimes only scratching the surface of the anecdotes it explores, sometimes wearing its heart on its sleeve with simplistic philosophies or crass jokes. It might have worked better to have been more explicit at the start that this was a verbatim collage of Bellevue’s words, placing in context the limitations of the play’s content. But this is a noble, neon-tinged eulogy to a beautiful soul. 

The State Of Grace, Assembly Rooms, until 24 August, 7.05pm; main picture: Jane Hobson.