Rachael’s healing art for H’boro
AN EDGE HILL graduate has created a play based on her family’s experience of the Hillsborough disaster – in an attempt to help their healing process.
Rachael Mutch, 35, was only eight at the time of the incident, when she felt a sense of panic developing among her Liverpool FC-loving family.
The next thing she remembers is her cousin, Karen, wearing a neck collar and a policewoman being in the house.
Later, she learned that Karen had been injured in the tragedy at Hillsborough Stadium – and her dad and another cousin had also been at the match.
In fact, Rachael said her dad was one of the people seen carrying victims off the pitch on makeshift stretchers in the TV footage from the day.
Now an artist and teacher, Rachael has developed a theatrical performance, named 96/27, which looks at the personal impact of the disaster in an effort to tell her family’s story and uses the arts to raise awareness of mental illness.
Rachael, who graduated from Edge Hill with a first class degree in visual theatre in 2016, said: “Being only eight I wasn’t sure what was happening at the time, but it soon became apparent that Karen had been badly affected by the disaster, not so much physically as mentally.
“She was only 17 years old when it happened. Over the years she spoke about it to me only when I asked but never in great detail and, because of the lies that the media had spread, she had become marginalised and couldn’t really speak about what had happened freely to anybody else.
“Karen was clearly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and I knew I needed to tell her story to give her some sense of relief from it.”
Rachael created a verbatim piece from Karen’s account of her experiences, which developed into 96/27, the onewoman show she performed recently at On The Verge, an arts festival dedicated to supporting and showing provocative new work in unusual places and spaces around Liverpool.
The moving play aims to communicate how the aftermath of a traumatic experience can cause mental health issues and asks the question “can storytelling start the healing process for people with PTSD?”.
Rachael said: “Creating the piece filled me with a sense of pride. To be able to help Karen by telling her story was all I ever wanted to do.
“She came to watch every performance and after each one her confidence grew and grew – to see this transformation over such a short period of time was amazing.
“My dad came to watch too, and for him to see what his niece went through in the pen that day helped him to open up and talk to Karen about the disaster, which they had never done before.”
Rachael who is the curriculum lead for the BTEC in acting at Liverpool Media Academy, and is also a part of Confianca Collaborative Theatre Company, added: “Creating 96/27 made me realise that storytelling can really help to reduce mental stress and it is something I will be continuing with in the future.
“I’m hoping to do some more performances around the time of the Hillsborough anniversary.
“I am always looking for new places to perform and I’m open to exploring different avenues and ways that I can make sure this important story is told.”