Staging Ageing : Theatre, Performance and the Narrative of Decline

How can plays and performances, past and present, inform our understanding of ageing? Drawing primarily on the Western dramatic canon, on contemporary British theatre, on popular culture and on paratheatrical practices, Staging Ageing investigates theatrical engagement with ageing from the Greek chorus to Reminiscence Theatre. It also explores the relationship of the plays, performances, and practices to the material, social and ideological conditions that produced them. A seminal work on the cultural past and present of ageing, the book will find grateful audiences not only among scholars but also among theatre and health care professionals.