Episode 9
The Narcissist
This solo guitar piece is Maggie's musical reckoning with her mother, a woman whose cruelty control and narcissism shaped a lifetime of pain. From infancy her mother was relentlessly critical, silencing Maggie's cries for help and enforcing secrecy around the abuse inflicted by her brother. The music mirrors this toxic dynamic: sharp staccato high notes mimic her mothers cutting voice while lower subdued tones represent Maggie's forced submission.
As the piece unfolds cracks appear and rests signal growing resistance. Her mothers grip weakens her notes slowly while Maggie's voice rises weaving a gentle hopeful melody that gradually drowns out the abuse. Composed by different parts of Maggie's dissociative system, the “outcast freaks” expressing rage and the “Music M” group channeling anxious resilience, the piece culminates in silence where her mother once dominated. In the final measures Maggie breathes freely for the first time through rallentando pauses and soft harmonies she claims peace, freedom and the truth that she and all survivors deserve to be free.
NLM producer: Zoe Carides, Narrator: Jonathan Biggins, NLM producer: Tanya Lee and CorriLee Foundation's Jess Brain
Jonathan Biggins | Actor, Writer & Director
Jonathan Biggins is an actor, writer and director with a wide and varied stage career, perhaps best known for The Wharf Revue and most recently his one-man show The Gospel According to Paul.
Jonathan’s notable acting credits include Travesties, The White Guard and Ying Tong for STC, The Importance of Being Earnest for MTC, and The Mikado and Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera Australia.
Film and TV credits include The Messenger, Manny Lewis, A Few Best Men and Three Men and a Baby Grand.
Jonathan has written for Fairfax’s Good Weekend magazine, the musicals Living in the 70s and The Republic of Myopia, and the plays Australia Day and Talk.
Winner of two AWGIES, he is also the author of three books, including The 700 Habits of Highly Ineffective People. His other directing credits include Orpheus in the Underworld for Opera Australia, Avenue Q, for which he received a Helpmann Award, Pete the Sheep and Josephine Wants to Dance for Monkey Baa Theatre and Noises Off and Talk for STC.