Benc7
Active Member
Another Home Invasion-Tarragon
I went to see "Another Home Invasion", a new play by Joan MacLeod at The Tarragon. Its one and only actor, Nicola Lipman, plays Jean, an elderly woman caring for her husband, Alec, while they wait to be placed in a nursing home. Many people and things invade Jean and Alec's home: old age, illness, well-meaning bureaucrats, incompetent bureaucrats, an indifferent granddaughter and most obviously, a deranged young man. For 75 minutes (with no intermission), Jean shares her life with us, her anger, rage and fear. And her loyalty to an increasingly senile and dangerous husband. For the most part, she copes alone as control of her life is wrested away from her by old age and by how badly our society deals with it. Nicola Lipman is utterly engaging as Jean; her humour and that rage I mentioned makes her story ring true with so many people faced with caring for aging parents, or themselves aging in a society that doesn't know what to do with them;the woman in front of me cried through the last ten minutes of the play. There were, I think, many people in the audience moved in a similar fashion. The subject may have hit too close to home for me: I appreciated the performance, I appreciated the play, but I KNOW this story. I know too many people living it. I felt for Jean, but from a distance, behind glass. That's my problem, and no fault of the play or the actor.
http://www.tarragontheatre.com/season/0809/anotherhomeinvasion/
I went to see "Another Home Invasion", a new play by Joan MacLeod at The Tarragon. Its one and only actor, Nicola Lipman, plays Jean, an elderly woman caring for her husband, Alec, while they wait to be placed in a nursing home. Many people and things invade Jean and Alec's home: old age, illness, well-meaning bureaucrats, incompetent bureaucrats, an indifferent granddaughter and most obviously, a deranged young man. For 75 minutes (with no intermission), Jean shares her life with us, her anger, rage and fear. And her loyalty to an increasingly senile and dangerous husband. For the most part, she copes alone as control of her life is wrested away from her by old age and by how badly our society deals with it. Nicola Lipman is utterly engaging as Jean; her humour and that rage I mentioned makes her story ring true with so many people faced with caring for aging parents, or themselves aging in a society that doesn't know what to do with them;the woman in front of me cried through the last ten minutes of the play. There were, I think, many people in the audience moved in a similar fashion. The subject may have hit too close to home for me: I appreciated the performance, I appreciated the play, but I KNOW this story. I know too many people living it. I felt for Jean, but from a distance, behind glass. That's my problem, and no fault of the play or the actor.
http://www.tarragontheatre.com/season/0809/anotherhomeinvasion/
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