FISH
By Zoë Seaton

2000


FishA goldfish bowl appeared from nowhere. A goldfish. A man. Man feeds fish huge steak. Takes out bone. Exits. Fisherman up high. A bite. A struggle. He falls. A splash. A puddle. Fisherman is in goldfish bowl. Fish is missing. Man returns with another steak. Where's the fish. Looks in audience. Woman enters. Bakes cake in bowl. Wedding cake. Huge bride and groom appear on stilts in a huge wedding cake. Love turns to hate. They fight. Groom falls off. Man eats slice of cake. Swallows groom's body. Spits out head. We see a floating head.........but where's the fish?


FISH was a piece of multimedia circus theatre made from a series of surreal images created using clowning, magic, illusion, puppetry, dance and video projection. Video was used to add an extra dimension to the scale of story-telling and the whole show was synchronised to a dynamic soundtrack. An absurd physical comedy, FISH was a response to the quest for meaning which haunts our society as we find ourselves at the end of one century and the start of another. The choice of a fish as central icon is also a comment on our society's need to define itself through religion, an exploration of the danger and absurdity of fanaticism. FISH put that which have come to accept as 'normal' under a theatrical microscope; its liberation of the comic potential of familiar situations answered the darkness which threatens to engulf us, with light. Four circus-trained actors used puppets, stilts and illusion to present a bizarre narrative which turned ordinary into extraordinary, switched the scale of images from little to large and challenged our vision of the world. A highly entertaining and extremely accessible show with innovative audience interaction in a style that owes more to film and circus than to traditional theatre....