The stages of age: performing age in contemporary American culture

Abstract

In a time when aging and old age are often equated with rigidity, decline, and invisibility, the very act of acting, of taking on a new role, can help shift cultural understandings of later life. In this book, playwright and scholar Anne Davis Basting explores both aging actors and aging as acting in a cross-section of American theatrical representations that hope to catalyze shifts in our understanding of age. first study of its kind, The Stages of Age argues that aging is a vital element of identity and difference.The author explores in rigorously self-conscious fashion eight performances that interrupt, transform, and underscore stereotypes of later age. Whether invoking the Geritol Frolics of Brainerd, Minnesota, Grandparents Living Theatre of Columbus, Ohio, Carol Channing's smash revival of Hello, Dolly!, or her own work with Alzheimer's patients, Basting describes the dynamic processes and interchanges that constitute the aging process as well as the theatrical representations that capture that process. Fluently exploring the intersections of performance theory and sociological method while maintaining a clear focus on the actors and producers of senior theater, The Stages of Age introduces a long overlooked aspect of cultural identity and performance method.A valuable addition to the literature on performance; I know of no other text that deals with aging as a category of identity and difference in the context of performance. Basting does an excellent job of positioning the performances she discusses relative to cultural configurations of aging and theories of performativity. --Philip Auslander, Georgia Institute of TechnologyAnne Davis Basting is Assistant Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

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