Girl in the Goldfish Bowl

David E. Kemp, a former professor of drama at Queen’s University, is
the author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Vancouver-based Morris Panych is the author of more than a dozen plays
that have been performed across Canada and around the world. In Girl in
the Goldfish Bowl, winner of five 2003 Dora Mavor Moore Awards
(including outstanding new play), one can detect the influence of both
Harold Pinter and Joe Orton.

Iris, the precocious heroine, lives in a town on Canada’s west coast
where nothing happens. Against considerable odds, and preoccupied by the
death of her goldfish and the arrival of a mysterious stranger on the
beach, she struggles to keep her depressive family together.

Whimsical, farcical, and touching, Girl in the Goldfish Bowl manages to
pose questions of deep philosophical importance within the framework of
a family comedy. The deceptively simple dialogue is in fact carefully
thought out and richly layered with elements of poetry, deep feeling,
and laugh-out-loud humour. Panych is totally in command of the language
and spirit that he wishes to convey to his audience.