by **** (out of 5)
Geraldine Hickey is another festival favorite in Melbourne, having won for most outstanding show in 2021, and the Piece of Wood Award (voted on by her peers) in 2019.
This year’s show took a bit of a turn, however, when Hickey set about focusing her new hour on a newly-received medical diagnosis, only to realize that Raynaud’s syndrome, while rarely publicized, might not be as a big of a deal as she initially hoped?!? That’s why she has special gloves she wears when the occasion arises. But she deftly finds a way to, instead of making mountains out of molehills, getting the audience on board by broadening her perspective to include the various things that ail us or trouble us or present seemingly arduous obstacles for us that might otherwise seem small to everyone else. And it’s probably nothing compared to dealing with the death of your dad, even when the grieving process is long and unsurprising and you have multiple siblings to lean on.
In the meantime, Hickey’s experiences with Raynaud’s have inspired her to take proactive measures for her health (even if they go against her desires), and as it turns out, when her grieving process takes her to the Edinburgh Fringe, she finds a quite literal way that a molehill can become a mountain.
It’s all well told and enjoyable, and Hickey wraps it up in a bow with an extended coda.
