Confessions Of A Mulatto Love Child theatre review: A tender, heartbreaking story
The upset of loss pervades this tribute to a lost parent
Bellina Logan’s one-woman show Confessions Of A Mulatto Love Child is a funny, tender and heartbreaking tribute to her mother. Averil is a formidable presence: a fierce English woman with a razor-sharp tongue, a complicated past and the inability to remain in one place. With only a chair and considerable storytelling talent, Logan takes us through a childhood of constant house moves, stories of her mother’s life and navigating her mixed-race identity.
Bellina grows up being told by Averil to ‘remember your life’. The instruction takes on a devastating new significance when Averil shows signs of Alzheimer’s. As appointments are forgotten and memories disappear, their roles gradually reverse with Bellina becoming her mother’s carer and keeper of her history.
By the end, Averil has been drawn so vividly through stories, impressions and countless eccentricities, that you leave feeling you almost knew her yourself. When Bellina loses her, somehow you feel that loss too.
Confessions Of A Mulatto Love Child, Zoo Southside, until 30 August, 10.10am; picture: Ben Bode.