Student actor gets to be a kid again Greystone play

Fairweather plays 10-year-old in theatre company’s The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl

Samantha Fairweather isn’t 10 years old, but her latest character is. As one of the stars of Greystone Theatre’s season-opening play The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl, the student actor enjoyed the challenge of becoming a child again.

“You just get to flop on the couch. You don’t have to worry about how you hold yourself and how other people are going to receive you. You get to be a kid again and that’s a lot of fun for me,” she said. “I get to explore every little bit of the set.”

A dance teacher in her spare time, Fairweather spends a lot of time with children. Fittingly, her transformation into Iris is driven by the character’s body language. Her director, Natasha Martina, specializes in movement and helped her find the character’s physicality, including an inability to sit still.

The character in question, Iris, is a typical child in some ways, but she’s also especially brilliant.

“She’s such a driven and bright young girl,” said Fairweather, a fourth-year student at the University of Saskatchewan pursuing a bachelor of fine arts in acting.

In the play, Iris’s mother attempts

to leave her father, but falls and breaks her wrist, disrupting her plan. Iris is convinced it’s up to her to save her family. She’s just lost her goldfish, a creature she thinks is a linchpin in maintaining the marriage. When she meets a drifter on the shores of British Columbia, she believes it is her beloved pet reincarnated.

Fairweather wasn’t familiar with the play before landing the role, but knew the work of the playwright, contemporary Canadian writer Morris Panych.

“I knew his work was really funny, so I was looking forward to exploring this play. When I read it, I knew it was going to be a really good show. There’s so much comedy in it and so much you can relate to,” she said.

The cast is smaller than previous ensembles Fairweather has worked with at only five people (six if you count Fairweather’s understudy, seven if you count Finch, a live fish that will appear on stage).

She said she’s enjoyed getting so close to the other members of the cast.

The play begins with Iris saying, “These are the last few days of my childhood.” In rehearsal, the cast members discussed moments in their own childhoods when they realized they were no longer kids.

When The Girl in the Goldfish Bowl wraps, Fairweather gets a 48hour break before rehearsals begin on the company’s next production Season’s Greetings, in which she does a 180-degree turn to play an alcoholic.

You get to be a kid again and that’s a lot of fun for me. I get to explore every little bit of the set.