ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I mobilise the “gaze” of theatre and performance to reframe two innovative residential aged care home practices, The Bucket List and The Calendar Projects, as “narra-theatrical” (a term I have coined to describe individual and communal story worlds acknowledged by the “spectators” viewing and interacting with the “performers” of these worlds). I argue that both through the effects of these practices and my reframing of them as “narra-theatrical,” care meets possibility (the latter activated through the lenses of theatre and performance) and older people living in care facilities, with and without memory loss, cannot then be seen as deficit nor be sidelined by Gullette’s “decline narrative.” By partaking in these practices, residents are enabled to step out of their expected “roles” into new ones, and in the process, constricting narratives – which connect them only to their past identities, or, paradoxically, which see them as powerless to live into those past identities if they so choose, might be changed. Viewing these care practices through the tools of theatre, the lens of performance, and an expansive understanding of narrative, older people living in care facilities can be seen as productive contributors rather than just recipients of care, “takers” or burdens. The role plays and narrative improvisations of The Bucket List and The Calendar Projects open possibilities for many of the residents to live in new and dynamic ways and to be appreciated by the “spectators” of these performances of possibility.
