About the Play:

Winner of the 2004 Governor General's Award for Drama (Canadian equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize)

Girl in the Goldfish Bowl is a full-length comedic drama by Morris Panych. The play tells the story of a precocious preteen's last few days of childhood. Her goldfish goes missing, her mother leaves and an atomic missile crisis starts. At the same time, a mysterious man appears who she believes is her goldfish reincarnated and can bring her family together again. Peering into this family "goldfish bowl" will find your audience incredulous and laughing at a story that lingers long after the show.

Girl in the Goldfish Bowl is set in the ocean-side, fishery town of 1960's Steveston, British Columbia. It tells the story of a young girl, Iris, who is dealing with the events leading up to what she describes as "the last few days of my childhood." Preoccupied with the impending Cuban Missile crisis, and the obvious strain in her parents' marriage, broken-hearted Iris is convinced that the death of her goldfish, Amahl, must have brought on these troubles. After finding a near-drowned man washed up on the beach, she becomes more and more convinced that he is the reincarnation of her beloved pet. She brings the elusive stranger, Mr. Lawrence, back to her home thinking he can bring her divided family together again with the magic of his presence. It is into the goldfish bowl of this dysfunctional family of lethargic piranhas, existential bottom-feeders, and aggressive guppies that the audience peers with incredulity, acute recognition, hysterical laughter, and an overwhelming sense of the creative healing power of the imagination.

Girl in the Goldfish Bowl premiered in 2002 at the Arts Club Theatre Company in Vancouver. Since then the play has been produced widely at professional theatres throughout Canada, the U.S., Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and has been mounted by community theatres and colleges as a showcase of student talent.

Cast: 3 female, 2 male

What people say:

"The Girl In The Goldfish Bowl is a Canadian modern classic that taps the glass of life and see what flounders and what rises to the surface." — Prince George Citizen

"Written by one of Canada's most acclaimed playwrights, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl is hilarious, yet heart breaking. The award-winning play brings back the absurdity, pain and beauty of growing up." — Broadway World

"A quirky cocktail consisting of equal parts Pinter, Orton, and Disney, shaken by author-director Morris Panych in his own distinctive style." — Variety

"Panych creates some of the looniest, funniest, most human characters in this Canadian drama." — Backstage

"Arguably Morris Panych's best play to date." — Canadian Literature

"Emotionally waterlogged… We soak up [Iris's] story as seen through her eyes – the distorted, confused, yet extremely perceptive eyes of a child desperate to keep her broken family together… a memory play where reality and fantasy swim and churn together in a theatre-of-the-absurd style that examines the existential themes but, at its heart, is a child's recollection of a traumatic experience through dysfunction and abandonment." — The Sault Star

"An uncommon, quirky blend of humour and compassion…" — National Post

About the Playwright:

Morris Panych is one of Canada's most significant contemporary playwrights. He has written more than 25 works for the stage and directed nearly 100. He is the winner of two Governor General's Literary Awards for Drama, the country's most prestigious literary honour. He has won 14 Jessie Richardson Awards, three Sidney Riske Writing Awards and five Dora Mavor Moore Awards.