Gerontology in Bryony Lavery’s A Wedding Story (2000) and Sebastian Barry’s Hinterland (2002)
From Firenze University Press Journal: Studi irlandesi. A Journal of Irish Studies
Rania Mohamed Rafik Abdel Fattah Khalil, The British University in Egypt
- Old Age a Social and Cultural Construct, or Biological?
Old age has been part of the history of theatre since its inception. What is relatively recent is the attention paid in Th eatre Studies to the study of Ageism, and for good reason. A report published in 2009 by the United Nation alarmingly declares an unprecedented global aging crisis where by 2045, the number of young adults will be exceeded by the number of old persons (United Nations 2010). Th is change in the social sphere will ultimately rock the foundations of societies in all countries across the world. Robert N. Butler dubs this crisis the “longevity revolution” (2008). It has become a universal topic for discussion in the humanities and the social sciences. According to Giovanna Tallone (2020) and Heather Ing-man (2018), gerontology is a new category in literary studies and literary theory. Literary gerontology and interdisciplinary studies of old age open the inquiry for researchers to examine what it means to be old. What does ageing mean to the person getting old? And what does it mean to others? Old age is not a phenomenon, but an interrelated labyrinth of stereotyping, social constructions, and realities. Ageing populations are compelled to adjust to the increasing probability of illness and the impending probability of death. Society, further, imposes these conditions, terms, to which the ageing population must come to terms with such as the dependence on others, the loss of a mate, acceptance of declining health, the relinquishment of social relationships, and the acceptance of the individual’s perception of the self in contrast to reality or how they appear to others. There is also a need to understand that the experience of ageing is culturally diverse. This research, in its attempt to take a broad-brush picturesque view of the key issues that concern age studies, makes a reference to Plato’s The Republic. The Republic opens with an in-quiry into philosophy, truth, politics, and old age. Socrates and his comrades visit Polemarchus in the Piraeus where they meet Cephalus, Polemarchus’ elderly father. The old man greets his son with the stereotypical question as to why he does not come to visit frequently; a typical complaint that is often heard from the aged (2002, 17). Many of the points raised by Plato in The Republic, continue to shape the research agenda of the exploration of old age and the meanings we seek to examine today. The intellectual framework of literary gerontology on which this paper rests, builds on these perspectives taking into consideration the recent discussions related to the intersection between the narratives of decline in theatre and the different perceptions and experiences of ageing. Lit-erary critics (Basting 1998; Lipscomb, Lebi 2010, Mangan 2013; Sandberg 2013; Lipscomb 2016; Bernard, Amigoni, Basten et al. 2018) have come to emphasise the role theatre can play in enriching interdisciplinary studies on old age. Valerie Barnes Lipscomb (2012) highlights the emancipatory role of theatre in terms of self-expression in our anti-ageist communities which can lead to a constructive discourse on ageing and social empowerment. Lipscomb in her introduction to the book Performing Age in Modern Drama, opens the discussion on ageism with the statement “act your age” (2016, 1) and explains that it rests on the supposition that age is performative.The paper scrutinises two dramatic texts concurrently: British dramatist Bryony Lavery’s A Wedding Story (2000) and Irish playwright Sebastian Barry’s Hinterland (2002). Lavery’s play, depicts aging as a process where there is difficulty in retaining agency and humanity. The play focuses on the experience of the ageing female character and the prevalent decline of her body and mind. Sebastian Barry’s Hinterland illustrates old age as a representation of the societal changes pre and post the Celtic Tiger in Ireland. The paper attempts to address the theatrical manifestations of stereotyping old age and raising awareness that it is a social construct. In parallel it explores the representations of old age as otherand the alternative notion of aging known as Gerotranscendance: positive ageing, a process of inner harmony.While the humanities and age studies have examined the stereotyping in old age, still little has been done, although this has started to change. The contribution of artistic representations in deepening the understanding of the aging process and the elderly, is slowly being recognised and it is what Julia Twigg and Wendy Martin have termed as “the cultural turn” (2015, 353). Dramatic texts and theatre productions concerned with the human struggle of aging and the experiences of older persons within a variety of societal frameworks provide rich data around the ageing experience and perspectives which advance research in the humanities and old age studies (Kivnick, Prucho 2011; de Medeiros 2014; Marshall 2015a, 2015b; Oró-Piqueras 2016; Weil, Lefkowitz 2019).No current scholarly publication compares the representation of ageing in Bryony Lavery’s A Wedding Story to the representation of ageing in Sebastian Barry’s Hinterland. Few publications inspect the representation of aging in British theatre to the depiction of old age on the Irish theatre stage. The two dramatic texts understudy have gained little attention from theatre studies academics and literary gerontology critics. Jennifer Thomas (2017) holistically examines Lavery’s aging female protagonists in a number of the playwright’s works, the paper does not focus on ageing, but on the role of older females as agents of change. Hinterland, Barry’s play, is among the array of dramatic texts referred to in Austin Hill’s (2013) dissertation reflecting on cultural change and the impact of the Celtic Tiger as depicted on the Irish theatre stage. Publications on Sebastian Barry’s works have mainly addressed his genius as a novelist and poet. He has written nine plays but is best known for The Steward of Christendom (1995) and Our Lady of Sligo (1998). The limited scholarly work on literary gerontology and theatre studies, given its short trajectory as a field and the current global ageing crisis, gives this research great significance. It is however necessary to acknowledge that there are contemporary British plays that address continuity into old age like Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love (1997) as well as the dramatic work of Irish playwrights Hugh Leonard’s Da (1973) and Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa (1990). However, these works focus more on the performance of age where the character on the stage plays a different age highlighting a fragmented perception of the aging self. The plays depict a notion of the self and hence are more defined as memory plays. Academic work connecting ageing and theatre studies came to bear fruit through the work of scholars such as Núria Casado-Gual (2021); Bridie Moore (2014, 2018); Sheila McCormick (2017); Katarzyna Bronk (2017); Miriam Bernard and Lucy Munro (2015); Elinor Fuchs (2014, 2016); Margaret Cruikshank (2013 [2003]); Valerie Barnes Lipscomb (2012, 2016); Margaret Morganroth Gullette (2004); and Anne Davis Basting (1995, 1998). However, Giovanna Tallone (2020), and Heather Ingman (2018) among other critics, continue to underscore the absence of the reflection on old age from the mimetic space. Miriam Bernard equally contends that research about theatre and old age and its transformative potential “remains woefully under-researched” (Bernard, Munro 2015, 64).This research builds on the previous stellar publications, although few, and presents a tex-tual analysis of the selected dramatic texts as a sample to illumine what entails social/cultural constructions of aging in British and Irish societies through theatre. This paper aims to add to the understudied interdisciplinary area of ageism and theatre.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/SIJIS-2239-3978-14616
Read Full Text: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-sijis/article/view/14616
