Poussière

The time of the theatrical performance is a short time. The classical rules of the seventeenth century required the action to take place within one day so as to guarantee the plausibility of the plot, a constraint that prevented authors from developing their characters psychologically, and, furthermore, prohibited them from “aging” them. The characters who raise the question of old age are therefore often elderly characters whose social status puts them in a position of responsibility or authority over others. These characters belong to the “noble fathers” tradition in comedy, or that of “kings” in tragedy.

Elderly characters, from Don Diegue to King Lear, pose the question of the authority of the older generation over the young, the challenging of this authority by the latter and the fragility of our actions.

Far from these heroic characters, anti-heroes are legion among old characters. In a more overtly comic register, noble fathers and mothers, are replaced by a highly codified range of old fogeys:manteaux, barbons, duègnes, grimes and ganaches. so many roles that deride old age, relegated to farce and seen as a hindrance to the vitality of life and the actions of the younger characters. The character of Peer Gynt, in Ibsen’s play of the same name, is one of the few characters in the theatre repertoire whose entire life journey is marked by the pursuit of the self but whose final moments are still inspired by a youthful and immature drive.

The contemporary repertoire deals with the question of the end of life more frontally, often linking it to existential questions about the meaning of life and our relations with others. It is to this type of approach, in which old age is often incarnated chorally, that Lars Norén’s play belongs: that of Ionesco (Les Chaises, Le Roi se meurt) and Beckett (End Game,Happy Days).