Interview with Bellina Logan

Bellina Logan's Confessions Of A Mulatto Love Child arrives at the Edinburgh Fringe following acclaimed success in the United States, where the production was selected by Isabella Rossellini and Laura Dern as the centrepiece of their 2024 Mother's Day fundraiser. Drawing on her extraordinary life, Bellina blends humour, heartbreak and remarkable storytelling to explore race, identity, memory and motherhood through the lens of an unconventional childhood. Ahead of the show's international debut, we spoke to Bellina about transforming deeply personal experiences into theatre, caring for a parent with dementia, and why preserving family stories has become more important than ever.

What first inspired you to turn your life story into Confessions Of A Mulatto Love Child?

I never really thought of it as turning my life into a show - I think of my life in chapters, and I'd already told the first one: my twenties, an actor hungry for footing, acceptance, a job. Navigating single life in New York, falling in and out of love with men, not the city. This chapter was different - meeting my husband, having my daughter, becoming my mother's caregiver, then losing her. I was asked to revive my first show, Conversations…, and I didn't want to relive old stories. If I was doing a show, it would be the one I wished I'd had during those caregiving years. I missed my mom. I wanted eighty more minutes with her. So I wrote us a visit.

The title deliberately uses language that many people now find outdated. Why was it important to keep those exact words?

“Mulatto" was never a slur in my house - it was a term of endearment my father started, and my mother took up too, and it stuck. It belonged to them, because I belonged to them. Growing up in the seventies, it was simply how I understood myself: half European, half Black, a love child born into a specific moment in history. It was soothing, even grounding - a word that let me define myself before anyone else got to. This is a personal story, and the title is mine to tell honestly. Softening it now would mean telling someone else's story instead of my own.

How has the show evolved since its first performances in the United States?

The show hasn't changed - I have. I wrote it just three years after my mother died, when my perspective was still a little wobbly, grief still finding its shape. Since then, I've lived through the COVID years, more time without her, more time to sit with these memories and hold them closer. I haven't rewritten the show, but I've filled out what I wrote back in 2017 - found new weight in lines I once rushed past, new laughter in moments I used to play seriously. The words are the same. What I bring to them keeps evolving, because I keep evolving.

Your mother was clearly an extraordinary character. What is your favourite memory of her that didn't make it into the show?

So many flood in at once, it's hard to pick just one. There's the time she was so furious with an ex-boyfriend of mine that the rage spiralled outward to men in general, and she actually growled like a dog, then caught

herself and announced, "Oh God, here it comes, the rage, Bellina, the rage!" - literally trying to push it back down with her hands. We just looked at each other and burst out laughing. Then there's her philosophy on blow jobs, delivered to me and my best friend Laura - filthy, hilarious, and disturbingly accurate. Too raunchy to print, but Laura and I still recount it, and we've vowed to pass it down to our daughters one day.

The show balances comedy with grief so effortlessly. Was finding that balance difficult?

It would have been, had I written this right after my mother died - grief would have swallowed any desire to find humour. But I was lucky to start three years later, once the grief had found a more stable place to

sit, and I could see the comedic ridiculousness of life again. Once I started remembering her stories and looking at their real shape, the humour came naturally - equal parts sad, equal parts hilarious. I think people feel guilty crying one minute and laughing the next, as if joy in grief means you're doing it wrong. I disagree. Sometimes laughter is exactly the release we need, and we should allow ourselves that.

How did caring for your mother after her dementia diagnosis change your relationship with her?

It was never neat and tidy - there was no clean moment of diagnosis and acceptance. She didn't think anything was wrong, so much of it was a quiet battle before it had a name. What changed wasn't my love for her - that never wavered. What changed was the shape of it. I became the mother, while desperately still wanting and needing to be her baby. People called it a "burden," and I hated that word - it was exhausting and heartbreaking and sometimes maddening, but it was also mine to do. It was fortifying and lonely, all at once.

You've worked with legendary directors including David Lynch. Has your screen career influenced the way you perform solo theatre?

They're different beasts, but there are real lines of connection. Film taught me the power of stillness, of less-is-more - which sounds funny coming from someone who spends this show running around like a

lunatic, playing a dozen characters. But what I took from working on screen is faith in the smaller moments. Not every beat needs to be big. Sometimes the most powerful thing I can do on stage is nothing

at all - just let a moment sit, and let the audience in. Film gave me that gift.

What does live theatre allow you to explore that television and film cannot?

I can only speak from my own experience - but rehearsal, for one. Theatre gives you the luxury of time to develop a character, to try things and fail without too much judgment. Film and TV don't offer that; you

show up ready to go, which has its own exhilaration, but there's no room to figure it out on the clock.

Then there's the stage itself - delivering the words, any playwright's words, in a room full of people hanging on each one, breathing alongside you in real time. That feeling, of them right there with you, is

terrifying and wonderful all at once.

What conversations do you hope audiences are having after they leave the theatre?

Well, I'd love it if they're talking about their favourite stories from the show.

Winning the United Solo Award twice for the same production is a remarkable achievement. What did that recognition mean to you?

This might sound corny, but when I found out I'd won the United Solo Award a second time, I was honoured, of course, but I went quiet. All I really wanted was to call my mother, my father, or Betty - none of them still here, but all of them my biggest fans. Like a kid wanting to show off a winning ribbon, I would have loved to see their faces. Knowing my mother, she'd have had a nice cry. I'd have rolled my eyes. And

then we'd have a nice laugh.

After audiences experience Confessions Of A Mulatto Love Child, what feeling do you hope stays with them?

As a performer, first and foremost I want people to enjoy themselves - I really do want to entertain them. Beyond that, everyone's going through something different, so everyone takes something different away, and I don't try to steer it. But it's warmed my heart when people tell me it made them reflect on their own lives, their own parents. Someone recently said, after a show, "I felt seen." Hearing that meant everything - but honestly, if they just had a good time, I've done my job.

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me, Bellina. Confessions of a Mulatto Love Child will perform at 10:10am at Zoo Southside from 7th – 30th August. For more information please click this link: https://zoofestival.co.uk/programme/confessions-of-a-mulatto-love-child/