The Window Outside gives a poignant view into challenges of aging and caregiving, at Presentation House to June 25
New play from Australia looks at one family’s struggles with dementia and stroke
Photo by Ross Durant.
The Window Outside is at Presentation Theatre to June 25
AN AWARD-WINNING new stage play about love, aging, dementia, and the challenges of caregiving is about to have its world premiere at Presentation House Theatre.
Belinda Lopez’s The Window Outside centres on the elderly couple Frank, who has had a stroke and cannot outwardly communicate, and Evelyn, who is showing early signs of dementia. Their eldest daughter and primary caregiver Sharon is at the breaking point, struggling to manage her parents’ needs, as well as her own family’s. Tensions mount even further when her younger sister Miranda, an artist living in New York City and far removed from the crisis, comes home for a long overdue visit—just in time for one of their parents to go missing.
Australian-based American playwright Lopez has won the Melbourne Writers Theatre Award in 2012 for the script—a raw, tender, and sometimes funny look at the hard decisions faced by the “sandwich generation” across the planet. Lopez herself has called the work “a love story that neither age nor illness can dampen.”
The production here is mounted by Perth-based Wise Owl Theatre, a unique company that celebrates the experiences of older people, their stories, their lives, and their most pressing issues—as well as their intergenerational relationships. The troupe is named for the mythological Owl of Athena, and its precepts of wisdom, keen vision, education, and learnedness.
Local theatre icon William B Davis directs the West Coast production, which stars Douglas Abel, Susan Hogan, Sarah Jane Redmond, and Liz Connors.
The Window Outside will be donating a portion of its proceeds to the Alzheimer’s Society of British Columbia.
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