After becoming a parent, O’Reilly said she lost confidence in her writing and questioned whether she should tell such personal stories.
The breakthrough came when she realised she did not have to have all the answers.
“I realised it’s okay to say, ‘I don’t know.’ It’s okay to say, ‘I’m really sorry,’ if you’ve got something wrong. That kind of set me free to write it.”
Encouragement from Basement Theatre’s then creative director gave her the confidence to put the show on stage, where it quickly found an audience.
After touring it for several years, O’Reilly decided to preserve it on film.
With two young children at home and acting work already taking her away for long periods, she wanted the show to continue reaching audiences without requiring her to keep touring.
“I wanted to make sure that it lived a life beyond what I was capable of doing on my own.”
Her husband, filmmaker Peter Salmon, directed the film, the pair carefully crafting a version that retained the feeling of a live performance while subtly using cinematic techniques.
“We wanted you to have the sense that you’re watching something live, but it has a whole bunch of little magical accents to it that couldn’t have happened live.”
For O’Reilly, comedy is the key to telling stories that might otherwise be difficult to hear.
“When you laugh together about an idea, the idea gets deeper into your heart,” she said.
“Most of the time, people’s first instinct is to refute whatever you say, but if you laugh together about it, then you receive it.”
Years of performing live have also changed the way she thinks about audiences.
“People laugh because they understand,” she said.
“It’s a way of communicating that they recognise something.”
While the show contains plenty of laughs, O’Reilly admitted some moments still catch her off guard emotionally, particularly when reading from the diaries she kept as a 12 and 13-year-old.
“The more I was reading some of those heavier entries, the more it just hit home that that is just me, little 12-year-old me. I just wanted to hug her.”
She hopes audiences leave the cinema having shared more than just a laugh.
By finding humour in the universal experiences of growing up, parenting and living in imperfect bodies, O’Reilly said people become more open to seeing themselves and each other with greater compassion.
“When you laugh together about an idea, the idea gets deeper into your heart.”
O’Reilly is also looking forward to returning to Hamilton, one of her favourite places to perform.
“Hamilton crowds laughed at everything because they understood everything,” she said.
“I feel like you guys all live together in a certain way that you just understand humans.”
The Hamilton Q&A with Morgana O’Reilly about her show Stories About My Body will take place at Lido Cinema on July 19 at 6.30pm. Tickets are availble online at lidohamilton.com/movie/stories-about-my-body.
Tom Eley is a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. Before he joined the Hamilton-based team, he worked for the Weekend Sun and Sunlive. He previously worked as a journalist at Black Press Media in Canada and won a fellowship with the Vancouver Sun.