MISSING THE BUS TO DAVID JONES

What is it like to lose your memory? To live with diminished physical capacities? To face death rather than hope? What does it mean to grow old?

Missing the Bus to David Jones, provides an honest, deliberately uncomfortable and humorous portrayal of life in an aged care facility. It is a snapshot of the final stages of our existence, shown through the filter of a sanitised environment.

The play opens with death. A woman stops breathing in her sleep and is briskly vacated from the room. There is nothing extraordinary in the event. No one comes to see her.

What follows is a sequence of moments from inside the facility: a mentally ill woman is visited by her son, a game of bingo ends badly because not everyone wants to play, an exercise session goes a little wrong when a patient can’t hold down her bowl movements.

This is a play that is both fascinating and hard to watch. It’s a well-executed production with excellent performances from all the cast. And it’s compulsory viewing for anyone who needs to come to terms with the reality of death in the modern world.

Until Apr 2, Seymour Centre York Theatre, $30-38, sydney.edu.au/seymour/