The Fish Bowl
Presented by: Fish Bowl Productions
How does a person with Dementia experience the world? How can we better connect with people in the often challenging environment of aged care?
This award-winning experimental theatre piece explores communication, ageing, and identity through the real-life stories of people living with Dementia in a South Australian memory unit. “The Fish Bowl” is a metaphor for the voyeuristic, circular nature of the daily routine for people living in aged care and those that work alongside them. The play celebrates the rich character’s you find in aged care, the wisdom they impart, and the ways in which carers and nurses can find creative new forms of communication.
In 2022 The Fish Bowl won the BankSA Award for Best Theatre and Physical Theatre and the Holden Street Theatre Award.
Presented by: Fish Bowl Productions
Director: Steph Daughtry;
Writer: Matthew Barker;
Performers: Matthew Barker & Evie Leonard.
The Fish Bowl has been made in direct consultation and collaboration with a local Adelaide nursing home, where playwright Matthew Barker has worked and built relationships with patients, families and staff over the past six years. While working as a Carer, Matthew (BCA Drama Centre) has recorded conversations and written down interactions between healthcare professionals and residents from the home. These recorded interactions illustrate both heartbreaking moments of miscommunication, and glowing moments of connection.
Reviews & Fringefeed Reacts
A must see piece of theatre - Matthew Hocter, Theatre Travels
This new local work is a touching and challenging exploration of life in aged care, and of the experience of living with dementia. - Gianluca I Noble, InReview
it is an important work which should be powerfully supported and, perchance, soon seen by every care worker in the world - Samela Harris, Barefoot Review
terrific new play - Craig Cook, The Advertiser