SEVERAL times during the performance of the play Julie I found myself fighting back tears as my emotions continually got the better of me.
And it wasn’t just me. The audience at the Roddies on the Glen Road sniffed the tears away and coughed to regain composure as actress Charlotte McCurry told the story of 14-year-old Lenadoon schoolgirl Julie Livingstone who was killed after being hit by a plastic bullet fired by a British soldier on May 12 1981 as she returned home from the shops.
Charlotte is Julie’s niece and has heard all the family stories about her auntie: Her mischief-making, her fun, her laugh, her quick-wittedness. In this one woman show, Charlotte tells the story of Julie Livingstone from the perspective of her aunt and Julie’s older sister by two years, Bernadette.
The venue for the play is not far from what was Julie’s Carrigart Avenue home and the streets where she grew up, played with her young friends and went to school. On one level that may explain the emotion from the audience as many would have known Julie and still know the wider Livingstone family; but I would expect the same reaction when the play travels outside Belfast this month.
Superbly written and performed by Charlotte, there is barely a wasted word or a mistimed delivery over the 70 minutes, which is remarkable considering the burden that Charlotte must carry during every performance telling a story that is personal to her and her family.
Among the tears there is also laughter as you would expect in any story about two sisters. The sibling rivalry; the buying and playing of records; favourite pop stars; hiding teenage magazines under the pillow.
The story is told from the bedroom that both sisters shared. Bernadette is older but more introverted than her younger, more precocious sister. The evening Julie was shot she was accompanied to the shop by her friend Nuala. (Charlotte has taken what she calls poetic licence with the story. Bernadette has become the voice through which a number of narratives are relayed – including that of Nuala.) Her mother told them to be careful going to the shop as Francis Hughes had just died on hunger-strike and there could be trouble. But Julie was determined to buy a pair of tights for the Horn Drive disco. As they arrived at the shop a group of local women had gathered on the Stewartstown Road at the bottom of Lenadoon to say the Rosary on news of the latest H-Block death. It was when leaving Greenways shop that Julie was shot by a plastic bullet fired from a British Army saracen.
In hospital, Julie seems okay. She tells Bernadette to take cigarettes out of her pocket so that her mother doesn’t discover them. But all changes the next day when Bernadette, older sister Elizabeth and mother Barney arrive at the Royal Victoria Hospital. The simple family bedroom is now transformed into a kaleidoscope of grief and sound that drags the audience into the despair of losing a loved one. A child. A 14-year-old girl.
Charlotte McCurry as Bernadette
When Julie dies, word comes through that Pope John Paul II has been shot, but has survived. Barney, holding on to her strong Catholic faith, comforts herself with the belief that God took Julie in place of the Pope.
In the H-Blocks, where Julie’s brother Martin is on the blanket, a screw opens the slit on the cell door and asks him if he has a sister called “Julia”. When he replies no, but he has a sister called Julie, the screw shouts in: “Aye, she’s dead.” Mourners call to the house; some disappointed that there is no body to gawk at as Julie is being waked in St Oliver Plunkett Church in a closed coffin.
In response to losing her youngest child, Barney dedicates her life to the campaign to ban plastic bullets. Today the north of Ireland is the only part of the UK where plastic bullets are still in use.
This is a powerful piece of theatre from Kabosh Theatre Company. Directed by Paula McFetridge the emotion hits you in the chest and winds you. Animation and sound are used to great effect, giving voice to an innocent 14-year-old girl who was brutally murdered 44 years ago and whose memory has not waned over that time. Coming as it does at a time when discussions over legacy are prevalent, Julie is a timely and relevant production which although is essentially one family’s story, is universal and one that will be recognised by other families and audiences beyond Belfast.
The only tickets that remain for Julie are at the Derry Playhouse (15 and 16 August).
