Joey: the Mechanical Boy at The Blue Room Theatre

Joey is 9½ years old. Joey likes machines so much he wants to be one. But sometimes Joey explodes…

Enter Dr Bruno Bettelheim: world-renowned child psychologist, Freudian, best-selling author, Holocaust survivor and Director of the School for Emotionally Disturbed Children and Adolescents at the University of Chicago. Dr B diagnoses Joey with autism and begins immediate treatment.

But does the diagnosis say more about the doctor than the patient? And what about Joey’s mother? What does she have to say about all this?

Based on an article published in Scientific American in 1959, Joey: the Mechanical Boy explores how personalities are made, destroyed and made again, and how sometimes imagination can be the best medicine.

The premiere of a new work by the award-winning nest ensemble (Eve, Winner - 2012 Member’s Choice Award, The Blue Room Theatre).