ABSTRACT
This chapter complements the theoretical approaches of other chapters in the volume by focusing on an idiosyncratic, personal example: the author’s experience as an adult caregiver for her mother, Lil, who experienced cognitive decline in later life. As Fuchs explains, performing as a caregiver entailed relying on a form of double-consciousness familiar to actors, who are required to exude spontaneity, yet simultaneously hit all the markers and recite memorized lines as if uttering them for the first time. Fuchs holds her ground between two opposing camps—the “medicalists,” who boast about their heroic war against Alzheimer’s disease, and the “culturalists,” who make inflated claims about “the power of art” to make “everything better.” Drawing on her personal experience, Fuchs makes the far humbler claim that art can open a space for wonder, uncertainty, and the possibility that human growth can occur in “the last act.”
