What a blessing experiencing Mom going through older age, when she set aside the tried & true roles and sterling performances she'd delivered for almost 90 years. She'd arrived at the great AH HA! that "growth keeps right on going, ideally right out of the ceilings of our cramped opinion." How truly awesome to experience her stepping away from those cramped opinions, aka old roles, into an unfamiliar light. She stopped following the lines some unknowable force had written for her, choosing instead to wing it, improvising within the moment.
THE FAMILY brings a different meaning to "home theater." So, shift from Tennessee Williams & Lillian Hellman to Second City & Christopher Guest. Improvise! Let people in your lives develop within the present moment, in response to present circumstances, rather than acting out an assigned part. Instead of continually reviving theatre pieces complete with scripts & staging, let's create lives out of whatever there is, experience where it comes from & see where it goes to.
How many times in my life have I wanted to know where a situation was going to end up, how a "scene" would resolve itself? One of the great things learned from my husband has been that we don't - can't - KNOW how things will resolve, that all we can do is turn in the best performance we can with what props are at hand. And if we don't take a shine to where that takes us, we can try a different spin the next time. There is no final curtain, just endless opportunities to develop grow expand.
It was REALLY hard for Mom to give up the expectation that her role was to be the mother, the person who kissed the boo boos & stepped up with solutions to her kids' problems. It was REALLY hard for her to stop casting herself in the adult role, with me & my sibs in the children's roles. It was REALLY hard for her older children to stop seeing her in a maternal role & recast her in a whole new role, whatever that might be for them.
Many people are great fans of THE FAMILY. It can simplify life, with its easy-to-grasp roles & lines & scenarios. Better to be forever cast in a role than have to constantly write your own lines & blocking. With improv, you're forced to build off of whatever the others hand you, which means letting it register in the first place.
Living within an improv environment helps as our loved ones grow seriously older, with all the challenges & even heartbreaks associated with advancing years & frailer selves. If we've been improvising with what's at hand, then the challenges of a frailer body, even a challenged mind are experienced as another change of scene, rather than a rewrite of an established role.
In an improv setting, THE FAMILY differs from day to day, from moment to moment. It easily adjusts changing circumstances, whether joyful (an accomplishment, wedding, a birth, an accomplishment) or daunting (a job loss, a divorce, a death). If the core idea is to develop spontaneous performance, rather than refine a set role within a given script, then we can adjust & readjust throughout life times.
This seems especially important with older people, particularly with significantly older people. Perhaps one family member feels strongly that because Mom is almost 90, she shouldn't be making her own medical decisions. Another might be distressed that 60+ Dad balks at drawing up plans to turn over the family business. They see their parents through the prism of expected roles. Imagine how different the experience if they saw their parents as sharp as a tack at 89 or expecting to work for as long as he's capable.
Improv actors build off of each other's performance, stimulated & inspired by what they experience in the here & now rather than repeating words on a page written by an absent, maybe long-dead playwright. Great improv is all about interchange, the building of performance between two people or within an ensemble. No interchange, no improv, even if it's just the audience yelling out situations or providing props. And it can take off into unexpected directions at the drop of a baseball hat or the suggestion of "you're a penquin." Sometimes it's okay, sometimes mediocre or flat or lousy, but then there's that jewel of an unforgettable performance.
Child, sibling, co-worker, spouse, widow, elderly. Move past such roles, with ourselves & with others. Help create opportunities for individual performance, whatever it might be at any given moment. With older friends & loved ones, that means creating fostering developing environments where they are free to express themselves, to keep on growing, right out of the cramped confines of restrictive roles. Role play rather than play a set role.
Perhaps the greatest challenge for a person getting up there in years is no longer knowing what lines they are meant to speak, no longer sure of the role they're expected to play. They can feel abandoned on life's stage, in a relentless spotlight, unable to speak or turn or even exit. It might not be now, it might not be for years & years, but all of us will ultimately be thrust out of our set roles & into inescapable improvisation, reacting to unexpected twists & turns. How much better for all if we're old hands at running with whatever comes next.
As traditional theater, THE FAMILY - with its countless acts - limits restricts confines. As improv, it allows individuals & the greater whole to create & recreate, to respond to changes as the norm, to deliver great performances within the available space, however large or small, and time, however long or short.
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