Skip to main content

The Continuum of Age: Performing Identity over the Life Course

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Performing Age in Modern Drama
  • 250 Accesses

Abstract

Continuing to address Pulitzer winners, this chapter asserts a growing trend during the past thirty years toward canonizing plays that portray age as performative. Plays scrutinized in this chapter include Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women (1991), Alfred Uhry’s Driving Miss Daisy (1987), Donald Margulies’ Dinner with Friends (1998), and Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife (2003). Once again, these contemporary plays foreground age by directing actors to perform different ages quickly, without any overt physical changes. The texts share a consideration of multiplicity in identity construction, but this chapter illustrates the wide range and many dimensions of age performance being realized in the contemporary canon.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Copyright information

© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Lipscomb, V.B. (2016). The Continuum of Age: Performing Identity over the Life Course. In: Performing Age in Modern Drama. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-50169-1_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics