Losing my Mindfulness
Natural Food Cafe
2.25pm
“Do you want to feel calmer, more focused and relaxed? Imagine a life where daily stress just floats by like a cloud in the sky, not a rain cloud, a nice one, a fluffy one. Yeah, do you want that? You know you do, don’t you? Join me at my mindfulness workshop where we can leave our baggage behind and be in the moment, even if that moment is not quite what you thought it would be, cos hey, what is?! Sometimes that moment is f*cking terrible. I’m joking. See, mindfulness can be fun. Fun and calm.”
Review by Richard Lambert, 4 Stars
Serena (Katie McLeod) invites you in to her workshop session which is all about how to be mindful, how to live in the moment, and how to de-stress. She works in PR but along with all employees, her job is on the line as the company is going through a “re-structuring” phase. She’s setup this workshop to gain positive feedback from colleagues in the hope it will help her retain her job.
The character portrayal is hilarious! Her personality is feisty and you instantly laugh out loud at her directness – a John Cleese/Basil Fawlty style of organising the workshop where it doesn’t quite go to plan. As we arrive and slip into the show it’s a fuzzy line between being welcomed by the actor and meeting Serena the facilitator. It’s a little unsettling and hilarious as you figure out who you’re dealing with. Early on, one of the audience replied to Katie but was met with Serena who was having no nonsense in her session. Soooooooooo funny!!!!
However, all is not going well in her personal life and through texts and phone calls that arrive during her “session” with us, we get glimpses of her life collapsing in the background. This is a woman suffering domestic abuse who doesn’t acknowledge that reality – blaming herself for the emotional abuse, believing it’s due to her lack of skills, style, knowledge and spiralling deeper and deeper into depression. All the while pretending to herself and her colleagues that she’s got her shit together.
It’s a heart racing play that exposes toxic masculinity, emotional abuse, manipulation and through the laughter of this character there’s a deeper terror of the situation. We laugh at her predicament, running a workshop while her life collapses, while simultaneously wondering how we can help this poor woman.
As we hand in the feedback forms at the end of the session she glances through them and there’s a surprise. Not to give the game away but there is a surprising life jacket thrown towards her sinking life.
This is a free event and a must-see. It’s not a play you’ll forget in a hurry!
Meeting Katie McLeod after the show:
