Walking the Tightrope: An Interview with Jenny Macdonald

SÍOBHA: Hi there, Jenny.

JENNY: Hello.

SÍOBHA: Could you introduce yourself and your work?

JENNY: My name is Jenny Macdonald, and I’m a theatre artist and facilitator. That means I write and perform my work while also directing and facilitating theatre with community groups who have something to say through the medium. I’m also the director of SoloSIRENS, a company I founded five years ago based at the Civic Theatre in Tallaght. Our mission is to create more just, caring, and sustainable ways of making theatre and living our lives.

SÍOBHA: Could you explain the premise of your play, its format, and what inspired you to write and perform it?

JENNY: The play is called The Tightrope Walker, a name inspired by something a psychotherapist friend told me after I was diagnosed with breast cancer. They said, “You’re now walking a tightrope between grief and gratitude.” That image stayed with me.

I started writing almost immediately— even at the moment of diagnosis. I think many people in intense experiences have this moment where they’re both in it and watching it unfold. I remember telling myself, “Try to remember everything happening right now because you might put this into a play someday.” I don’t know if that was a coping mechanism, a way to connect to a future beyond the diagnosis, or simply an artistic impulse.

That moment changed everything. I was suddenly immersed in a world I had never been in before—a world of hospitals, medical treatment, and uncertainty. It wasn’t a world I would have chosen.

SÍOBHA: [laughs] I don’t think most people do. I mean, people choose it professionally, but not recreationally.

JENNY: Exactly. I had no choice in being there, but I could choose to write.

At that time, I wasn’t able to perform or facilitate, but I could still document my experience. Writing started as something personal, and I wasn’t sure if it would become a play. A few years after treatment, I revisited those writings and realized there was something there. I shared it with friends, colleagues in the arts, and the director I had worked with on my first solo performance. We all agreed—this was a play.

The challenge was finding a form that suited the content. It was clear it couldn’t be a linear narrative because illness, particularly cancer, throws life into disarray. It scatters everything. So, I structured the play like a waiting room experience. Audience members pick numbers, and those numbers correspond to pieces of paper on the floor—each one containing a different moment or experience from my journey.

SÍOBHA: Has writing and performing this play—examining themes of illness, diagnosis, and mortality—changed your relationship with them?

JENNY: Absolutely. Experiencing illness fundamentally changed my relationship with these themes. We all have a conceptual understanding of things like mortality, but when it becomes a personal reality—when you live it in your body—it’s entirely different.

Many physicians say that going through a serious illness themselves changes their practice. Everything they knew intellectually is suddenly felt in a new way. For me, death had been a concept until I was 42. Then it became real. I realized this was going to happen to me and to everyone I love. It floored me.

We live with an unspoken denial of death, probably out of necessity. But confronting it head-on made me see how strange it is—this fundamental truth of human life: we love deeply, and yet we all eventually leave. Writing the play gave me time to sit with that reality. And sharing it with others made it feel even more real.

SÍOBHA: That ties beautifully into something else your play explores—the loneliness of illness, but also the profound connections it can create. Can you speak more on that?

JENNY: Yes, the loneliness of illness was a huge part of my experience. The tightrope metaphor fits here, too—you’re out there on a wire, and no one else can walk it for you.

People offered support and suggested I talk to others who had been through it, which was helpful. But ultimately, no two experiences are the same. You’re always looking for someone who truly gets what you’re going through, and you never quite find that perfect match.

At the same time, illness deepened my existing relationships in a way I hadn’t experienced since childhood. I had to rely on my loved ones in ways I never had before. I had profound conversations about life and death. I had moments where I had to simply call and say, “I’m too exhausted to go out. Can you bring me milk and a fire log?”

Then there was this unexpected intimacy with strangers—phone conversations with people I never met but who shared their own experiences. And, of course, the healthcare workers. The moment I was diagnosed, my doctor instantly became one of the most important people in my life. I knew nothing about him—where he lived, if he was married, what his past had been—but he was about to save my life. That’s extraordinary.

SÍOBHA: You were the 2022-2023 Irish Hospice Foundation Writer-in-Residence. What was that experience like?

JENNY: The Irish Hospice Foundation is an incredible organization, originally focused on supporting dignified dying. Over time, they expanded into broader end-of-life care and developed a strong arts and culture program.

I first got involved through their Compassionate Culture Network, which brings artists into communities to facilitate conversations on grief and loss through the arts. At the time, I needed support from other artists dealing with similar themes. I reconnected with Dominic Campbell, one of the program leads, and he offered me a writing residency at their offices on Nassau Street.

That space was invaluable—not just physically, though it was beautiful (there’s this copper-domed library where you can hear the rain falling). It was also about having a community. Writing can be lonely. You spend so much time in your head, untangling difficult thoughts. But having people around, even if they weren’t writers, helped immensely.

One of the most profound lessons I took from my time there is something they articulated for me: creativity is an antidote to grief. When we create, we generate something new, and that act itself is healing.

SÍOBHA: You’ve performed this play in both traditional theatre settings and hospitals, particularly for healthcare workers. Have you noticed a difference in audience responses?

JENNY: Definitely. I always feel that the right people find the work, and we’ve had healthcare workers in our theatre audiences, too. In fact, the hospital performances happened because healthcare workers saw the play in a theatre first.

Performing in hospitals was uniquely powerful, though, because the audience had such intimate knowledge of the world I was portraying. In a theatre, I sometimes recognize survivors—they exhale at certain moments, nod along, or react in ways that tell me this person understands this deeply. Doctors and healthcare workers often have their own moments where they laugh or nod knowingly.

At Beaumont Hospital, the audience was entirely healthcare professionals. It was fascinating—just a sea of heads nodding in recognition. The post-show discussion was also different. Many of their questions weren’t about the patient experience but about the artistic choices—why I used certain symbols or props. That was really affirming. It made me feel like I had successfully reflected their world back to them.

I think that’s something we always hope for as artists—that people see themselves in our work.

SÍOBHA: That’s a wonderful note to end on. Thank you so much, Jenny.