Dementia in Dramaturgically Hybrid Performance and the Performance of Objects

Abstract

In my research about dementia and its representation in contemporary theatre, I have found that works that employ parataxis are conducive to narratives that foreground the experience of characters with dementia. Parataxis refers here to a dramaturgy in which theatrical elements are placed alongside one another, instead of in a hierarchical arrangement (Lehmann 2006). This article considers several hybrid performances about dementia for how the stage objects featured behave differently, whether they serve to diagnose dementia to the audience, embody narratives of their own or transcend these functions altogether. I discuss hybridity as it pertains to form, specifically that of dance theatre or puppetry theatre. In a paratactical dramaturgy, physical forms like dance can sit alongside the spoken word and take on equal signifying power, as opposed to acting as secondary or merely complementary. From biology I borrow the notion of hybrid vigour and argue that such mixed forms fulfil needs that arise in the telling of neurodiverse stories, which I discuss by drawing on research by disability arts scholars. This enables me to analyse examples of hybrid dramaturgies in puppetry performance, dance theatre, physical theatre and other forms for their staging of dementia narratives and the performance of objects. I then employ theory about stage properties to compare and distinguish the exceptional performance of objects in dementia-themed theatre. The dementia symptomology complicates relationships with objects: on the one hand, they can embody memories, while, on the other, clinical features of dementia make objects unfamiliar and unwieldy. Performances that lean further away from the dramatic tradition are seen to be more apt to present stage objects in ways that transcend their typical dramatic function, and thus potentially present alternatives to the strained object relationality that people with dementia can experience.

Notes

1 These works were selected for their use of theatrical tools beyond the spoken word and for the period in which they premiered. The early 2010s saw the production of an unprecedented number of new performances about dementia, largely in the independent sector, before the subject matter became popular on mainstage programmes in more recent years (perhaps driven by the success of Florian Zeller’s The Father in the UK).

2 The build-up of amyloid-beta protein and tau protein forms obstructing plaques and tangles respectively, that cause nerve cells to collapse (de Rover et al. 2008).