Clowning Around @ Goonawarra Nursing Home

Over the last year, it is generally agreed that a nursing home was a pretty difficult place to be. Being locked up, prevented from seeing your friends and family on account of the fact that their visit may well kill you. For our unit 2 drama ensemble we decided that we would put on a play outside a nursing home, to lift the spirits and brighten the days of those who had been stuck there for months on end.

We started planning the show during lockdown; we decided to use clowning, and researched the ins and outs of the way that clowns perform. We also decided to make the play centre around the Rudd-Gillard leadership spill of 2010, likening it to the story of Julius Caesar.

By the time we were back at school, we had only four weeks to put together a show good enough for the Goonawarra Nursing home. We began formulating some sequences and scenes, and by the Friday we had something that resembled a show.

As we arrived at the Nursing home, ready to set up, we could see, through the window, the faces of our audience, smiling down at us in anticipation. Throughout our show, we could see some of them laughing and clapping, and, as they walked off, ready for the next audience to sit down, it felt good to have given them something at all during such a monotonous year. Something to do, enjoy, and perhaps, remember. By the end of the two showings, it felt better than something we would have done just to get a pass mark.

As the adage says, if the lady in the middle goes back to her room and says “Well, that was nice, wasn’t it”, then we’ve succeeded.

Words by Max Burder

Photos by Max Morgan