Between Heaven And Earth

"Between Heaven and Earth"

Written by Alana Aston

"Between Heaven and Earth" features the dynamic physical theatre performer Stace Callaghan as she attends a "Boot Camp for the Soul". Recently performed at the Powerhouse, the show is a pilgrimage through time, space and soul as it traverses the crevasse between psychological breakdowns and spiritual breakthroughs. Callaghan has said that the show is an "offering of healing" and she has successfully achieved this through the manipulation of dramatic styles, elements and conventions. This intention can be likened to the aim of Greek tragedies, in which the audience would experience a form of emotional cleansing called "catharsis". Throughout the play the tragedy would lead the audience to the realisation that other people suffer much more than them, and consequently the audience felt "ekstasis" or a state of relief. Through a discussion of human context, mood and symbol, it will be discussed how the show was constructed to facilitate "catharsis" and "ekstasis" and consequently become an "offering of healing".

Human context has been skilfully used as all eight characters are mediums through which inspiration and healing was offered to the audience. For Example, Guru Frank's role was to utilise the very powerful tool of laughter. Through doing so, the audience becomes more open to his philosophical ideas and participating in some of his demonstrations. The character "Stace" gives the more sceptical audience members someone to identify with and her personal/spiritual journey reflects the journey that Callaghan wants the audience to also experience. For all other characters, Callaghan uses the Brectian technique of historification to convey messages of hope, passion and inspiration. Through personifying revolutionaries such as St Teresa of Avil, Hildegard von Bingen, Freda du Faur, Muriel Cadogan and St John of the cross and by centring on their quests for spiritual enlightenment, achievement and love, Callaghan uses them as an example for the audience. Through showing how these characters evolved though different healing methods such as meditation, kinesiology, nature mysticism and laughter, Callaghan inspires the audience to become more conscious and consequently more active in their own personal and transpersonal development as permanent healing can only occur once there has been a change in consciousness. Also, through choosing personalities who suffered extreme persecution for their passions, beliefs or quests, "ekstasis" was achieved as the audience feels grateful for the comparable tolerance that the world now shows. To delineate between the many characters, some of the characters were represented through multimedia such as video and voice recordings. This allowed Callaghan to have eight characters through which she could explore many different approaches to the body-mind-spirit connection. Having these many different approaches gave the audience more people to identify with or be inspired by. This way more people in the audience were able to be reached emotionally or spiritually, allowing more audience members to accept the "offering of healing".

Catharsis is also achieved through the sudden emotional breakdown or climax that constitutes overwhelming feelings of great pity, sorrow, laughter or any other extreme emotion. This then results in the renewal, restoration and revitalisation for living that is needed in the healing process. Callaghan achieved this through the creation of moods which evoke such extreme emotions. For example the play often jumped from light-hearted humorous scenes with Guru Frank, to forced laughter, to the shamanistic convulsions and punishing callisthenics experienced by some of the other characters. The contrasting moods involved with these differing scenes stop the audience from dwelling on any particular emotion, allowing the audience to experience a large range of feelings. This results in the audience being in the climatic emotional