Venue: Old Fitzroy Theatre (Woolloomooloo NSW), Oct 7 – 17, 2025
Playwright: Michael Andrew Collins
Director: Violette Ayad
Cast: Ari Sgouros
Images by Phil Erbacher
Theatre review
Clara’s story begins millions of years ago, evolves into a toy horse, and culminates as a plastic water bottle in the 21st century. Written by Michael Andrew Collins, the one-person play Everything I Know About This Water Bottle unfolds as a whimsical odyssey from organism to object. Though rich in imagination and buoyed by moments of fanciful invention, the work ultimately distils into a rather straightforward message of ecological preservation, one that resonates on a thematic level but rarely connects beyond the immediate impression.
Directed by Violette Ayad, the production maintains an appropriate sense of gravity, even as the text itself struggles to convey emotional depth. Performer Ari Sgouros proves sure-footed and assured, exuding a warm, jovial presence that keeps the audience engaged and at ease throughout. Set and lighting designer Morgan Moroney conjures a campfire-like intimacy that draws viewers closer to the story, while Madeleine Picard’s minimal sound assemblage offers only minimal enhancement, lending texture but little transformative impact.
Everything I Know About This Water Bottle exposes, with unflinching clarity, humanity’s incapacity to prioritise its own survival. Despite decades of discourse surrounding ecological collapse, our predicament continues to worsen, suggesting an almost inherent self-destructive tendency that no amount of awareness has managed to arrest. In its quiet despair, the piece gestures toward the melancholy truth that knowledge alone cannot redeem us. What remains is a haunting portrait of a species watching itself fade, fully conscious yet strangely unmoved.
Suzy Goes See 