Vault Festival – until 5 February 2023
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
Carol Murphy’s The Body & Blood is a picaresque rollercoaster of a tale. Described as a 19th century Irish Famine Folk Fable, the adventures of Maggie Murtagh, The Vigilante Cannibal Nun are not for the fainthearted. Originally a series of online videos, this live performance of the story is an exciting and exhausting 70 minutes.
Murphy’s struts onto the stage dressed like a prize fighter, setting the tone for her bravura performance of her own verse. Her face is painted a mask of blue and black, and she is draped in gold chains and dirty bandages under the robe that portray different stages of Maggie’s story. With phrases as extravagant as her mannerisms, Murphy begins with Maggie’s childhood – an indifferent father and an abusive aunt – and her attempts to avoid marriage before becoming a nun in China. As the Famine begins, she is sent back to Ireland, and what she sees stirs the anger (and hunger) inside her as she sees the church’s impotence in the face of the disparity between the English, the landlords and the Irish people. Her murder of a red coat is told in visceral detail, followed by Maggie’s futile flight of fancy about what changes the prostitute she “saved” could make. Maggie’s reassurances that she only eats colonisers are hard to swallow for the terrified woman. As Maggie embraces her fury and becomes wilder, leaving a trail of bodies, her adventures catch the imagination of a journalist who becomes obsessed and wants to tame her as his imagined version is more compliant than the reality. Maggie insists that she remains her own woman ready to die on her terms, in stark contrast to the women around her – but does she truly have agency, lurching from one horror to another with no hope of redemption and escape from the scars of her childhood?
This is a story from a dark time in history, full of bleak themes and serious questions, but it is very funny – full of one liners and asides that take the audience out of the story and give them a chance to breathe. Murphy is a whirlwind of a performer, with magnificent physicality and exaggerating every cliché in Irish speech. Her writing has the same energy – teasing and probing with exciting energy and searing intelligence. I hope we see more of Carol Murphy and Maggie Murtagh in London soon.