Created by Wow! Productions Trust and TheatreWorks, from interviews with people who have had direct experience of dementia — carers, family members, doctors and the people themselves — the play will be staged at Dunedin's Te Whare o Rukutia theatre on Sunday, followed by two productions in Waiheke Island and Whangarei in September.
In the performance, four actors represent the edited testimony from 17 people as precisely as possible.
With the original voices playing in their ears, the actors relay the words spoken (every vocal inflection, intonation and hesitation) as well as replicating physical gestures and facial expressions that originally accompanied the words.
In this production, actors Serena Cotton, Nadya Shaw Bennett, Ross Johnston, and Cindy Diver perform under the direction of Professor Stuart Young, with design by Martyn Roberts and Anna van den Bosch.
In a collaboration with Aotearoa Brain Trust and Alzheimer’s Otago, the Wow! team will present forums at the end of the performance in keeping with the main kaupapa of the piece — to break the stigma around dementia and get people talking.
Their stories and discussion work together to highlight the all-encompassing effect dementia has on people's lives and everyone around them.
Writer Cindy Diver said one of the fascinating aspects of verbatim theatre was not knowing the story to be told until it emerged from the interviews.
"With The Keys are in the Margarine, numerous themes came to light from the interviews.
"After many hours of collaborative editing we had a script that was in turn thought provoking, funny and deeply poignant," Diver said.
Co-writer and general practitioner Susie Lawless said the piece was an opportunity to allow the voices of those living with dementia to be heard.
"The stigma around the heartbreaking, but increasingly common illness makes it difficult for these people and their families to tell their stories."
Working with Prof Young, the pair created an elegant script that followed the experience of those living with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, from diagnosis to end of life care.
The Keys are in the Margarine premiered with a sold out extended season in the Fortune Studio Theatre in Dunedin, in 2014, and toured New Zealand in both 2015 and 2019.
The play won the Robert Lord Script/Narrative of the year at the Dunedin Theatre Awards, and excerpts have been presented at national and international medical conferences in Australia and New Zealand.
About 70,000 New Zealanders are living with dementia, with numbers predicted to grow to 150,000 by 2050.
It is estimated that two out of three New Zealanders are affected by dementia, either experiencing it personally or in a close family member.
It is a subject about which greater awareness and understanding is urgently needed.
Wow! Productions acknowledges the support of Alzheimer’s New Zealand, Dementia New Zealand and the Aotearoa Brain Trust in creating and touring this piece.
- The Dunedin season of The Keys are in the Margarine has sold out but there is a waiting list in case some seats become available on the day.
