Dramatic Playing as a Tactic for Confronting the Mask of Ageing

Abstract

The pulse of theatre is sometimes felt in places remote from the centres of the theatre industry. One such site was the geriatric rehabilitation day-care centre where I facilitated theatre in the early 1980s. Before discussing the theatrical events created by the elderly performers and their ways of making do with theatre, it is worth looking at the cultural context of the aged in Western society.