This book is the first to examine age across the modern and contemporary dramatic canon; from Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams to Paula Vogel and Doug Wright. All ages across the life course are interpreted as performance and performative both on page and on stage; including professional productions and senior-theatre groups.The common admonition "act your age" provides the springboard for this study; which rests on the premise that age is performative in nature; and that issues of age and performance crystallize in the theatre.Dramatic conventions include characters who change ages from one moment to the next; overtly demonstrating on stage the reiterated actions that create a performative illusion of stable age. Moreover; directors regularly cast actors in these plays against their chronological ages. Lipscomb contends that while the plays reflect varying attitudes toward performing age; as a whole they reveal a longing for an ageless self; a desire to present a consistent; unified identity. The works mirror prevailing social perceptions of the aging process as well as the tension between chronological age; physiological age; and cultural constructions of age.
#970497 in eBooks 2016-07-15 2016-07-15File Name: B01IFB4BSC
Review
