Joyful actors: Aging futures and the potential of intergenerational theatre
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Abstract
By examining a verbatim theatre performance that brought together older (aged 60 and up) and younger (aged 18–25) adults, this article finds that staging intergenerational theatre generated intergenerational joy: a collective, interdependent experience not devoid of struggle and challenge that prioritizes the here and now while also envisaging more promising futures. The actors in this project thus challenged normative neoliberal attitudes that suggest that the old have nothing to offer the future, and that the young have little to offer the present. The stress involved in undertaking a community-based theatre project was not an obstacle but a gateway to joy, as it produced (and even demanded) a level of interdependence and solidarity not found in other intergenerational relationships commonly structured by hetero-normative family relations. Moreover, the play offered a structure through which actors could challenge societal norms that isolate generations from each other and encourage intergenerational antagonism.
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