THE BALLAD OF MAURA MACKENZIE
The story of an extraordinary woman who risks everything for the chance to be a mother again to the daughters she thought lost to her forever.
Maura Mackenzie’s life has always been a risky business. She dares to live as intensely as she feels and for a while her youth, beauty and talent are enough to mask the demons that threaten to engulf her, just as they engulfed her mother many years ago. Maura marries young and believes the world is hers to conquer. But with an absent husband and two little daughters in her sole care, her precarious sanity begins to unravel. On the summer day that changes her life forever she awakes excited by a new artistic passion. Burning with manic energy she makes a terrible mistake. She leaves her children alone “for a minute” on Kidston Island. And she forgets them.
The girls are unharmed but the consequences for Maura are catastrophic. Her ambitious husband runs for his life and takes the children with him. Maura, haunted by voices she doesn’t understand, lapses into a full-scale breakdown. Her life as she knew it is over. No more husband, no more children, no more Maura Mackenzie, the rising young star.
Maura begins to reclaim her life with the help of her father Ian, who is determined to save his daughter where he couldn’t save his wife. Maura tries to contact her children but her ex-husband easily defeats her efforts; the distance is too great and her resources too little. Almost crushed by her loss, she’s rescued from the brink by Ben Cleary, a wounded soul like herself. He never took Maura for just an ordinary girl. He bring humour and light back into her life.
Maura carries her loss deep inside until the miraculous day when she is presented with the chance to re-connect with her girls. And so she finds herself in the Oscar Wilde room at the Waverly Inn, trying on dresses for her eldest daughter’s wedding, prepared to risk her peace of mind, her hard-won measure of grace, her considerable pride, all for a second chance. Will her children acknowledge and accept her? Can they forgive her? Can she keep the crazy at bay, at least long enough to get her foot in the door?
This universal story of the redemptive power of a mother’s love is adapted from the award-winning novel by Joan Clark. Maura, with all her flaws, is a woman we want to know, a woman we’re going to root for every step of the way, a woman who will walk right into your heart.
"A glimpse into the mind of a true iconoclast and wild spirit, who has managed despite overwhelming odds to keep hope alive. Her struggle with mental illness provides the novel with both sadness and hilarity, even as it moves to its extraordinary end.” From The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award Long List of Nominees
"Joan Clark dares to write about those who live with a disability that is not physically manifest, but makes of life a labyrinth of potential disasters. Her risk is our benefit—if only we have the wit to live as intensely as Moranna lives. And as William Cowper has it, ‘there is a pleasure in madness’ that we all might wish to know.”
Aritha van Herk, The Globe and Mail
"An Audience of Chairs is a brilliant achievement, one that deserves a huge audience of its own.”
Edmonton Journal
THE BALLAD OF MAURA MACKENZIE
adapted from the award-winning novel
AN AUDIENCE OF CHAIRS
by Joan Clark
Screenplay by Rosemary House
A Feature Film for
Theatrical Release
scheduled for production
Fall 2010
A ROCK ISLAND PRODUCTION
A MARKHAM STREET FILM
Rosemary House and Judy Holm
Producers
