BACKSTAGE AT FRINGE with Dawn Bamforth | The Vessel
- TW
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
In today's 'Backstage at Fringe', we spoke to Dawn Bamforth, writer and producer of The Vessel, which opens on October 14 at Theatre Works as a part of our Fringe 2025 season.
This intimate new work gently explores the complex world of aged care — the emotional weight carried by those who give and receive care, and the small acts of tenderness that can offer comfort in the most uncertain of times. The Vessel invites audiences to reflect, remember, and connect. It’s a heartfelt story for anyone who has cared for someone, watched a loved one change, or wondered what it means to truly be seen.
Q: Take us back to the start. When did this show first drop into your head? How did it get to where it is now?
A: I was driven to write my play, as a creative response to witnessing my mother living with dementia in an aged care facility. I had written a poem back in 2017, shortly after her death and I wanted to expand the story, working as I did at the time, as both a Lifestyle Assistant in care and Social Support Worker in the community. The first version of The Vessel, received a Creative Power Award – of $3000, which enabled me to enlist the help of a director and four actors to rehearse and present a series of three shows in our small regional town – Kyneton, in the Macedon Ranges.
Later in the same year, we presented a slightly extended version at The Engine Room Bendigo and again in 2024, at The Potato Shed in Geelong, Phee Broadway Theatre in Castlemaine and again in Kyneton and Trentham, during seniors’ month. In the play, we go back in time to Mary’s earlier life and memories associated with times past. I was a daughter, volunteer and eventually staff member for around ten years in the residential care facility where mum lived and felt a strong urge to highlight the complex nature of caring and being cared for inside an institution, and the difficulties for everyone involved in this process. I also wanted to reveal more than a representation of a hollow shell of a person.
Q: What will audiences find in your show that they won't find anywhere else in fringe?
A: The Vessel is a story about the human condition from the viewpoint of a woman at the end of her life, a woman with multiple vulnerabilities, decreasing physical and mental capacity, and in cognitive decline. It is about the struggles of everyone around her, her daughter, staff and volunteers, coping with their own personal challenges. The audience bear witness to an unfolding story of grief, loss, trauma and deep love. The show is about ageing and death, as it often happens, without fuss or fanfare.
Q: What will surprise audiences about this work?
A: The joy, the music, the fear and laughter, and the stories behind the face. Mary’s memories unfolding into the room and lingering beyond the grief and loss in the present.
Q: You're on a blind date. Nervously, you walk into the bar. Across the smoke and pool tables you see them - there they are. Your exact target audience member, personified. Can you describe them?
A: They are my family, my friends, my colleagues and detractors all rolled into one. They are wishing me all the very best for the life of the show and buying me a drink perhaps to celebrate my inspiration…my mum. A small sherry please?
Q: What has been the most memorable moment in your process to this point?
A: Probably the initial acknowledgement of the power of my play, from the first ever reading at Chaplin’s Café in Trentham, November 2022, when everyone sighed and cried and said, we have to do this show. What a remarkable moment that was, before the award, before the rehearsals. These amazing people lifted me up higher than I would ordinarily be comfortable sitting that night.
The Vessel plays at Theatre Works from October 14-18. Stay tuned to the Theatre Works Backstage Blog, where we have loads more Backstage at Fringe content on the way!
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