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Dementia,
Narrative and
Performance
Janet Gibson
Dementia, Narrative and Performance
Janet Gibson
Dementia, Narrative
and Performance
Janet Gibson
UTS Insearch
University of Technology
Sydney, NSW, Australia
ISBN 978-3-030-46546-9 ISBN 978-3-030-46547-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46547-6
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

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Cover illustration: FAIRY FLOSS. Photo of Phillip Mills and Katia Molino from Theatre
Kantanka’s production of Missing the Bus to David Jones. Photo by Heidrun Löhr. Used
with permission of Carlos Gomes.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Julia, Mary-Jane, and Sandy, with love
Acknowledgements
The arguments on which this book turns were germinated in the

Alzheimer’s diagnosis, institutionalisation, and death of my mother
Barbara Gibson, a woman committed to social justice and fervent about
the theatre and its role in awakening peoples’ minds to inequity and big-
otry. The arguments in this book were also fostered by my interest in the
verbatim work of Moisés Kaufman (The Laramie Project) with whom I
had worked as an actor in Women in Beckett at Theater for the New City
(his first Tectonic project) in New York in 1991. The book’s genesis was a
strange mix indeed but going off the beaten track often produces thought-
provoking products, one of which I hope this book to be.
So many people nurtured this project. The book had its first life as a
PhD thesis undertaken at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia, under
the keen eyes of Yuji Sone, my principal supervisor, with additional insight
contributed by Nicole Matthews in the role of associate supervisor. I have
the greatest respect for their intelligence, integrity, and humanity.
Although dementia is not their focus, two very important scholarly
works inspired my writing: James Thompson’s Performance Affects (2009)
and Deirdre Heddon’s Autobiography and Performance (2008). I was
thrilled when they agreed to be on my PhD examination panel. I really
appreciated the enthusiasm with which they greeted my work and their
encouragement to find a wider platform for my ideas. Likewise,
many thanks to Michael Balfour, another of my PhD examiners, for gener-
ous help and advice when I needed it during the writing of this book.
Anne Basting’s commitment to people living with dementia and their
performances in everyday life and on various stages sustains much of my
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
thinking. From first reading her article “God is a Talking Horse” to shar-
ing ideas over breakfast in Milwaukee, Anne continues to both impress
and surprise me with the depth of her intellect and her unwavering com-
mitment to creativity.
Carlos Gomes, the artistic director of Theatre Kantanka, was the soul of
generosity, answering questions and sending me DVDs and other material
which helped me dig deeper into Missing the Bus to David Jones. This the-
atre piece deserves an unquestionable place in the canon of great (demen-
tia) theatre. Thank you, Kate Denborough, for filling me in so promptly
on certain details to do with Sundowner.
Thanks, Vicki Sanchez, for all the information about The Bucket List.
Vicki is one of those very important dementia care workers who love what
they do and do it so well, despite the appalling pay. I hope this situation
changes for all aged care workers in the not too distant future. My grati-
tude also extends to all the people I worked with in TimeSlips sessions at
Uniting Locke Haven : your creativity and imagination refreshed and
inspired me when I was developing many of the ideas which form the
backbone of this book.
The delightful Maureen Matthews and I have been emailing each other
for quite a few years now. I was very lucky to see a performance of her
community readers’ theatre for people living in the early stages of a
dementia diagnosis—To Whom I May Concern®—when I was in New York
in June 2018, an experience which deepened my enthusiasm for this
modality. Thanks also to performers Therese, Julie, and David for wel-
coming me so warmly to the rehearsal before the performance.
My deliberations on To Whom I May Concern® were recently published
in RiDE, adapted for the special issue ‘On Access’. I would like to thank
the anonymous reviewers for input to that article which also helped me in
fashioning the corresponding book chapter. Collette Conroy, RiDE’s edi-
tor, has been very helpful and encouraging about my work since I first met
her at the Performance and Disability working group at the IFTR/FIRT
Stockholm conference 2016. A lot of other people in that group have
heard out my ideas at various stages and I thank you all but in particular
Yvonne Schmidt and Arseli Dokumaci. Arseli—thanks for your input on
some of the chapters, your willingness to do so, and your extremely per-
ceptive feedback. I am indebted to you for the comment in Chap. 8 on the
proliferation of diseases in this day and age in which there are not many
disease-free bodies left to discipline, in Foucault’s dispensation. Likewise,
thanks to Kate Maguire-Rosier and Catherine Maitland, my ad hoc
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
Australian disability discussion group members, for inspiring and chal-

lenging conversations that have helped me no end in fashioning my think-
ing. Caroline Wake: thank you for giving me your valuable time on several
occasions to help me fine-tune some ideas about verbatim theatre.
I have been lucky enough in the last few years to be able to attend two
conferences held by the Dementia and Cultural Narrative Network,
steered by Sarah Falcus and Katsura Sako. I have had such stimulating
discussions with many people in that network, especially Mao Hui Deng,
Cristina Douglas, and Bridie Moore.
UTS colleagues too have cheered me on—David Wheeler, Craig
Johnson, Susan Sherringham, Kevin Alexander Su, Adrian Kelly, Deb
Nixon, Bhuva Narayan, and Gail Kenning, among many others. Aurora
Murphy helped me clarify my arguments in my PhD drafts, and moti-
vated me to extend my ideas to a broader audience. Thanks especially to
Tim Laurence, my Dean of Studies, for giving me time off to write and
taking joyful excitement and pride in my authoring of this book. I am very
appreciative of having had Palgrave editor Vicky Bates cheerfully answer
many of my questions and queries, and more recently, Jack Heeney.
Thanks also to Janet Hutchinson for a perceptive editorial eye on one of
the drafts. And to the anonymous reviewer of the final draft of the book:
thanks so much for helping me think more rigorously about theatre of the
real, and for the morale- boosting comments.
Friends and family—thank you all, but especially Taylor, Margaret,
Penny, and Benjamin. I would like to specifically thank my sister MaryJane
for reading and commenting on several chapters as we sat staring at the
beautiful Yamba Ocean on our one-week writing and laughing holiday on
the north coast of New South Wales, Australia. Miss you Roddy, my dar-
ling brother, and wish you were still alive to see this book published.
Thanks also to Sandy who helped birth this baby and to my partner in life
Julia who is, well, everything to me.
Contents
1 My Mother’s Story, My Story 1
Part I Dementia, Identity and Narrative 33
2 Recasting Senility: The Genesis of the ‘Right Kind’ of

Dementia Story 35
3 Narrative Regimes 59
Part II Dementia in Performance 91
4 Staging the ‘Reality’ of Dementia 93
5 Staging Dementia Voices in Australia: Missing the Bus to

David Jones, Theatre Kantanka, and Sundowner, KAGE133
6 Mapping Applied Performance in Dementia Cultures177
7 “I Don’t Want to Disappear”: Dementia and Public

Autobiographical Performance215
xi
xii Contents
Part III Dementia as Performance 245
8 Rehearsing a Theory of Dementia as Performance247
9 Revisiting My Mother’s Story, My Story269
Index 279
Abbreviations
ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission

ACT Australian Capital Territory
AD Alzheimer’s disease
AIHW Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
BPSD Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia
CCTV Closed circuit television
CD Compact disc
CDS Center for Digital Storytelling
DAI Dementia Alliance International
DASNI Dementia Advocacy and Support Network
DS Digital storytelling
EDIE Educational Dementia Immersive Experience
GPS Global Positioning System
LR Life Review
LSW Life story work
MBDJ Missing the Bus to David Jones
MCM Meeting of Cultural Ministers
MMSE Mini-Mental State Examination
NGOs Non-government organisations
NHPF National Health Performance Framework
NIDA National Institute of Dramatic Art, Sydney
PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
RT Reminiscence Therapy
SDWG Scottish Dementia Working Group
xiii
xiv Abbreviations
TfD Theatre for Development

TWIMC To Whom I May Concern®
VaD Vascular dementia
WHO World Health Organization
List of Figures
Fig. 5.1 ‘Fairy Floss’. Katia Molino and Phillip Mills. Missing the Bus to
David Jones. Theatre Kantanka. Photo by Heidrun Löhr. Used
with permission of Carlos Gomes. (The photo shows a man in
a blue, grey and red cardigan wearing a green party hat and a
woman dressed in a black and white houndstooth jacket and
white hat. They are up very close to each other’s faces and are
eating and feeding each other white fairy floss 143
Fig. 5.2 ‘The Bus Stop’. Katia Molino waiting for the bus. Missing the
Bus to David Jones. Theatre Kantanka. Photo by Joanne Saad.
Used with permission of Carlos Gomes. (The photo shows a
woman dressed in a black and white houndstooth jacket, a white
hat, and white gloves, sitting on a seat clutching a black and
white handbag. She is looking off into the distance as if
expecting a bus to arrive any moment. A Filipino nurse or
care attendant wearing black pants and a white t-shirt is
approaching her) 151
Fig. 6.1 Marcia Bannister, Bucket List Sales Manager, and Jessie
Anderson, Bucket List Assistant Sales Manager. Video still from
Finding the Why. Enabling Active Participation in Life in Aged
Care (Fire Films). Still used with permission of Corrine
Maunder. (The photo shows two old women with short hair
sitting on an orange, red, and yellow striped couch with a very
high back. Marcia is on the left. She is taller than Jessie and has
short white hair. She is wearing a blouse with red, yellow, pink,
and green leaf patterns on it. Jessie is on the right with short
brown hair. She is wearing a white top with white beads. They
both have white mugs in their hands) 199
xv
xvi List of Figures
Fig. 6.2 ‘Elmer Anderson’s dream’. Photo by Skydiving Photos. Used

with permission of Vicki Sanchez. (The photo shows an old man
with short white hair wearing black glasses over which is a clear
face mask with blue plastic arms. He has a bright blue t-shirt on.
He is skydiving. A man accompanies him on the dive. This man
is on his back. The blue plane out of which they have both
just jumped is above their heads, to the left of the picture) 201
Fig. 7.1 To Whom I May Concern® Hill House production. Photo by
Janet Gibson. Copyright Janet Gibson. (The photo shows two
women and one man sitting (in front of an audience) on high
stools with their scripts on stands and microphones in front of
them. Behind them are two large windows, which are open,
some paintings on the wall, a clock, and a vase of pink flowers) 230
CHAPTER 1
My Mother’s Story, My Story
My mother, Barbara Gibson, was diagnosed with ‘probable’ Alzheimer’s

disease (AD) in 2008. A diagnosis of AD is usually traumatic, both for the
person and for their family; it was so for my mother, my siblings, and
myself. My mother entered the dementia wing of an aged care facility a
year later. Decisions around institutionalisation are not easy either. We
were told by the nursing staff that, at the end of her first day in the facility,
Mum put on yellow washing up gloves and, with a hammer in hand (where
had she found that?), proceeded to the door of the wing, which could only
be unlocked by entering a number code on a key pad, and tried to smash
her way out in what appeared to be a (dramatic) bid for freedom. It didn’t
succeed. She stayed in the dementia wing for over a year, moving to the
palliative care wing for the last three weeks of her life. With a bolus of
morphine dripping pain relief into her belly, unable to get out of bed or
recognise anyone, and struggling for breath, she finally died on 4 May
2010. She was eighty-one years old.
This experience turned my life around. While not evident at the time, I
now see that, as one of my mother’s care partners,1 I entered a new ‘real-
ity’ where affect was the grammar of the communication space, not cogni-
tion. Fact merged with fantasy: I found it was not useful to insist on
distinctions between them. For instance, when my mother talked as if her
Aunt Enid was still alive, which she was not, I learned to accept this fic-
tion. Insisting that Enid was not alive only distressed my mother. She was
alive for my mother so that was ‘the truth’. Many ‘liminal’ spaces like these
© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. Gibson, Dementia, Narrative and Performance,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46547-6_1
2 J. GIBSON
emerged in our time together: some between imagination and memory;

some between the present and the past (but not quite past); and some
between the woman who I began to see as ‘not my mother’ and also ‘not
not my mother’ (after Schechner 1985, 110–113).
The woman who was ‘not my mother’ showed infrequent exhibitionist
tendencies and occasional murderous inclinations. When we were out
shopping once, she grabbed my breasts, then hers, and asserted that hers
were bigger than mine. Another time, Mum was found by the nursing
staff trying to strangle Mavis, another woman with dementia, who only
had one phrase, repeated ad nauseam, day in and day out: “la di da, la di
di”. But the woman who was ‘not not my mother’ still exhibited many
familiar behaviours. She loved performing—as she had done for all her
children as we were growing up—joyously dancing and singing along to
any of the songs on her Nat King Cole CD. She was still generous and
compassionate. She spent a week in the facility, on and off, by the bedside
of a dying woman, comforting her by stroking her hands and face.
Over time then, I began to comprehend the ‘performativity’ of demen-
tia, finding fledgling connections between my mother’s behaviours and
performance theorist Richard Schechner’s notion of performativity.
Schechner argues this “occurs in places and situations not traditionally
marked as ‘performing arts’ … mak[ing] it increasingly difficult to sustain
a distinction between appearance and reality, facts and make-believe, sur-
faces and depths” (2013, 24). Furthermore, in living through this experi-
ence, I noticed that ‘our’ story2 did not match those popularly available,
which intrigued me. Gradually, I came to prefer many aspects of my rela-
tionship with the ‘new’ mother to whom Alzheimer’s introduced me,
which is not to say that I saw AD as a gift. Dementia has always been, and
probably always will be, a frightening experience with immense physical
and psychological challenges for the person diagnosed and for that per-
son’s friend, partner, spouse, or family member (Basting 2009, 2).3 From
a biomedical perspective, dementia is a clinical ‘umbrella’ term for a pro-
gressive neurodegenerative syndrome containing a constellation of symp-
toms that may be caused by a number of underlying diseases such as AD
(Bitenc 2020, 8). I examine this perspective, the pre-eminent way we
understand the condition today, in more detail in Chap. 2, along with
other cultural meanings usually yoked to the biomedical viewpoint—
essentially those of tragedy, loss, and deficit. But viewing dementia as an
unqualified tragedy, along with notions of ‘losing’ the mother we once
knew, which was how my siblings and I greeted the diagnosis when we
1 MY MOTHER’S STORY, MY STORY 3
first heard it, is not the whole story either. In sum, I found myself part of
a story for which no template could be found, at that time, in the existing
repertoire.
Narrative sociologist Arthur Frank (2010) contends that, although
people tell their own stories about their lives, they do not make these sto-
ries up by themselves. There is a limited repertoire of stories to be told
from which we then tell ‘our’ stories, as is very evident in the case of
dementia. I now label this restricted arsenal of narratives the ‘right kind’
of dementia story, in Lyotard’s terms (1984), a ‘grand narrative’\, circu-
lating accounts of loss, despair, failure, and tragedy. This story does not
tell of the extant or emergent abilities of people affected by dementia,
particularly those sixty-five years and older. Instead, it focuses on their
pasts or on futures made grim for us all by the probability of a ‘silver tsu-
nami’ coming to destroy lives and push societies towards catastrophe. It
may also tell of long-suffering carers coping with the demands of aggres-
sive, forgetful, dependent, loved ones who are draining personal or famil-
ial emotional, physical, and financial resources. These dependent humans
are framed as ‘burdens’ to the economy, to society, to us all.
In the twenty-first century, in most Western cultures, these types of
stories fit into an overarching performance ‘framework’, which perfor-
mance scholar Jon McKenzie has labelled a “mode of power” (2001, 25).
This mode determines the ways in which, and the contexts where, people
with dementia ‘perform’ their stories and selves, mainly due to the ascen-
dancy of neoliberal capitalism. Neoliberalism can be defined as:
a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being

can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and
skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private prop-
erty rights, free markets, and free trade … [I]f markets do not exist (in areas
such as land, water, education, health care…) then they must be created, by
state action if necessary. (Harvey 2007, 2)
Neoliberalism is a pervasive global ideology, referring to the privileged

position governments have given to markets in determining global eco-
nomic, political, and social policies. It has also been “incorporated into the
common-sense way many of us interpret, live in, and understand the
world” (ibid., 3). Since the 1970s, there has been an emphatic turn to
neoliberalism. Under its flag, performance as a “mode of power”
(McKenzie 2001, 25) propagates a type of ‘imperative to perform’ in
4 J. GIBSON
certain ways for people with dementia and their care partners. I contend
that this mode currently predominates among others, regulating both the
manners in which, and the situations where, people with dementia ‘per-
form’ their stories and selves. In the domain of human care, performance
as a “mode of power” (ibid.) insists on task efficiency over quality time,
results over relationships, and measurement over magnanimity, especially
in care homes and in interpersonal relationships.
My encounter with dementia and the subsequent institutionalisation of
my mother in a care home opened new insights into both performance as
a “mode of power” (ibid.) and the relationship between stories and ethics.
Constantly revolving in my mind at the time of my mother’s diagnosis and
beyond were the words of virtue ethicist Alasdair MacIntyre: “I can only
answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question
‘Of what story or stories do I find myself a part?” (2011, 250)—words
which deepened and complicated the research I was undertaking at the
time into verbatim theatre and ethics. I began to wonder if theatre pieces
that worked verbatim—using the words and stories of people with demen-
tia—existed, and if so, what ethical provocations they would offer.
Verbatim theatre normally relies on the life stories of ‘reliable’ narrators
and, in oral history projects anyway, the assumption of the cognitive
“competency” of the primary teller (Pollock 2005, 3). But people with
dementia are often ‘unreliable narrators’4 who frequently struggle to
remember their life stories or segments of them and who regularly resort
to fabrication in the telling. In part because of this, and because of the
(often gradual) decline in many of their cognitive and physical capabilities,
they are repeatedly stereotyped as the “living dead” (Behuniak 2011) and
not seen as ‘real’ people.5
Focal Points, Challenges, and Contributions

This book then is the result of my own encounter with dementia and its
stories, along with my interest, as a theatre and performance studies
scholar, in how these stories are used on professional stages and in
applied theatre interventions and socially engaged performance prac-
tices. Of note is that I favour the term applied theatre and/or perfor-
mance throughout this book over newer terms which are constantly
emerging in this dynamic field, such as “socially engaged performance”
(Stuart Fisher and Thompson 2020) because the ideas which I either
contest or support in the analysis of the particular community-based
theatre and performance practices I investigate here have emerged from

applied theatre and performance scholarship. Also of importance to note
is that I use ‘story’ and ‘narrative’ interchangeably. Certain literary stud-
ies scholars define these terms discretely, with ‘story’ as the events that
happen and ‘narrative’ as the showing or telling of those events involving
sequence (movement from beginning to finish), space (detours from the
sequence), and time (Cobley 2001, 5–17). For philosopher Paul Ricoeur
(1988), ‘narrative’ is time; it is about expectation and memory, and not
just paying attention to events on a timeline. However, I am guided here
by Arthur Frank’s contention that the words ‘narrative’ and ‘story’ over-
lap so frequently, that sustaining divisions between them in consistent
usage is impossible (2010, 200). Frank also refuses a formal definition of
stories, contending that stories, in their very ontology, constantly evade
classification.
Most importantly, I do not aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of
the ways in which dementia is represented in theatre per se, nor do I seek
to catalogue all the various kinds of art interventions and practices cur-
rently used in care homes or community initiatives. What I do aim to do
in this book, overall, is seek to challenge the hegemony of the ‘right kind’
of dementia story in both art and applied theatre domains, in Western
contexts specifically, and in “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013) offerings
primarily, in order to reimagine other stories. In short, this kind of theatre
“recycle(s) reality” whether personal or communal, historical or political
(ibid., 5). By ‘hegemony, I mean the process by which the ‘right kind’ of
dementia story maintains its power, through the establishment, construc-
tion, and regulation of norms and material processes via the media, eco-
nomics, social roles, and other such means. Certain literary studies scholars
define these terms discretely, with ‘story’ as the events that happen and
‘narrative’ as the showing or telling of those events involving sequence
(movement from beginning to finish), space (detours from the sequence),
and time (Cobley 2001, 5–17). For philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1988),
‘narrative’ is time; it is about expectation and memory, and not just paying
attention to events on a timeline. However, I am guided here by Arthur
Frank’s contention that the words ‘narrative’ and ‘story’ overlap so fre-
quently, that sustaining divisions between them in consistent usage is
impossible (2010, 200). Frank also refuses a formal definition of stories,
contending that stories, in their very ontology, constantly evade
classification.
6 J. GIBSON
What I do aim to do in this book, overall, is to challenge the hegemony

of the ‘right kind’ of dementia story in both art and applied theatre
domains, in Western contexts specifically, and in “theatre of the real”
(Martin 2013) offerings primarily, in order to reimagine other stories. In
short, this kind of theatre “recycle(s) reality” whether personal or com-
munal, historical or political (ibid., 5). By ‘hegemony’, I mean the process
by which the ‘right kind’ of dementia story maintains its power, through
the establishment, construction, and regulation of norms and material
processes via the media, economics, social roles, and other such means.
Accordingly, to challenge the ‘right kind’ of dementia story and rei-
magine other kinds, I situate and explore the contributions that theatre
and performance can and do make in responding to and representing peo-
ple with dementia. But this is no easy enterprise. If, in part, the figure of
the person living with dementia is produced in and through cultural per-
formances, how then can theatrical performances, as cultural artefacts,
best act to represent and/or respond to that figure? ‘Cultural perfor-
mance’ as used here refers to the ways a culture articulates and presents
itself, encompassing not only cultural and artistic performances but also
religious, ritual, ceremonial, and political practices, as well as stories and so
on, as first defined by anthropologist Milton Singer (1972, 7) and later
taken up by various theatre studies scholars, including Erika Fischer-Lichte
(2008) and Jan Cohen-Cruz (2010).
The ‘right kind’ of dementia story is one of these cultural performances.
The issues I have with this type of story underpin my pursuit of the follow-
ing questions throughout the book: To what extent does this production/
intervention tell the ‘right kind’ of dementia story or disrupt it? Why? And
how is this achieved? However, within the overarching charters of the
above questions, my paramount enterprise is to drill down to a specific
interrogation of the troubling and productive nexus between words, sto-
ries, identity, and dementia using verbatim theatre productions, autobio-
graphical performance practices, and other “theatre of the real” offerings
(Martin 2013) as laboratories.
Given the complexity of the above enterprise, my analysis is limited to
case studies from a few Western industrialised societies (mostly Australia
and the USA). Any cross-cultural comparisons further afield (say with
India, Africa, or Asia) would have meant trying to incorporate into this
very pointed study too wide a range of dissimilar cultural and economic
differences, sociocultural practices, and conceptions of identity, selves, and
so on. Though very much a worthwhile endeavour, this focus would have
been overwhelming and unmanageable. My attention to the West is driven

by a desire to investigate the problem of cognitive disability within “hyper-
cognitive” (Post, 1995) societies where selfhood and identity are under-
stood to depend on cognition and memory and where narrative and
performance play an important role in this arrangement.
Through a primary focus on “theatre of the real” offerings (ibid.), the
book makes a key contribution to “theatre of the real” (ibid.) literature
and to forms of the latter which foreground the words of real-life agents.
Some of these forms may be further distinguished as “Theatre of Real
People”, which scholars Ulrike Garde and Meg Mumford (2016, 24–25)
declare to be a subcategory of Martin’s uber category “theatre of the real”
(ibid.). “Theatre of Real People” is:
a prevalent performance mode that exists across diverse and emergent

genres, including autobiographical theatre … community-based theatre,
delegated performance, documentary theatre, ethnographic performance,
participatory performance, refugee theatre, reality theatre, re-enactments,
testimonial theatre, theatre of everyday experts and verbatim theatre. (Garde
and Mumford 2016, 6)
Over the last twenty years or so, and across the globe, there has been an
‘explosion’ of people’s stories and words deployed in theatre productions
across the above-mentioned performance genres. Performed narratives
have included tales of trauma, victimhood, and crisis giving voice to the
socially, economically, or culturally marginalised. These narratives usually
aim to facilitate sociopolitical change for the participants, and/or the spec-
tators, as well as change at a broader social level. Some of these produc-
tions feature the people themselves; in others, actors perform. The
performances may take place in theatres, community centres, or similar
venues. They raise numerous issues and challenges for the theatre makers
creating them, and to their viewing audiences, which theatre and perfor-
mance studies scholars have been keen to interrogate.6
Apart from the emergence of a growing number of professional and
semi-professional art theatre productions dealing with dementia across
Western stages, “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013) productions about
dementia have also started to surface. Certain productions have been cre-
ated using the textual input of people with dementia (and their families, in
some instances). So, what are the challenges to theatre makers working
with these practices when people can no longer say who they are or tell
8 J. GIBSON
their stories in ways acceptable to the normalising regimes in which they

are situated? As a likely consequence of immense exactions in this regard,
little verbatim theatre or other types of “theatre of the real” (ibid.) have
emerged from the stories and words of people with dementia. Moreover,
in a ‘Catch 22’ situation, this shortage of theatre productions has impacted
scholarship. Despite strong scholarly attention to the performance of life
stories from a range of identities—one such example being refugee theatre
scholarship (see Jeffers 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012; Gilbert and Lo 2007;
Burvill 2008; Hazou 2009; Schaefer 2009; Wake 2010b, 2013; Balfour
2013; Balfour and Woodrow 2013)—the links between narrative, demen-
tia, identity, and “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013) have received scant
notice to date in the literature. Anne Basting (2001, 2003, 2006, 2009)
remains a leading voice in this area of academic pursuit.7 When the scarcely
explored relationship between narrative and the construction of ‘reality’ as
‘normalcy’ is uncovered, it becomes apparent just how deeply this rela-
tionship regulates “theatre of the real” (ibid.) practice. So too, many ethi-
cal, political, and aesthetic issues arise from the paradox of theatres that
rely on narratives from ‘real’ people being coupled with people commonly
deemed not to be ‘real’ (or even people).
In part because of this negative stereotyping, people with dementia
rarely take to the stage to perform their own stories in professional theatre
settings, as have some refugees or people with disability, but they do fre-
quently ‘perform’ them in the closed worlds of institutions in applied the-
atre interventions and, occasionally, on the more exposed stages the
internet provides and/or in community settings. In applied theatre schol-
arship, the regnant function of the autobiographical story in dementia
‘cultures’, that is, the imperative to tell and remember as memory and
cognition fades, has been generally, and paradoxically, overlooked, while
being closely examined in reference to other cultures and trauma (see
Thompson 2004, 2009; Bharucha 2011; Stuart Fisher 2011; Jeffers
2012). When it has been studied, Erving Goffman’s theory of the rela-
tional self has been used as the principal theoretical lens with which to
positively re-frame the person with dementia as a communal storyteller
(Basting 2001).8
In this book, I hope to rectify the above-mentioned oversights and, in
so doing, make three distinct contributions to the literature. As mentioned
earlier, the first is my investigation into the relationship between stories
and the materialisation of ‘reality’ as ‘normalcy’ in relation to how stories
constitute selves. ‘Normalcy’ is a word used frequently in this book,
especially in reference to conceptions of the ‘real’ and ‘reality’. My under-

standing of ‘normalcy’ is that it is not an unchanging property of human
beings. As many disability studies theorists have argued (see Davis 1995;
Wendell 1996; Garland Thomson 1997, 2002; McRuer 2006), various
discursive regimes, such as those of religion, politics, law, education, and
medicine, have designated certain bodies to be ‘normal’ and others not,
with the assignment of ‘normalcy’ fluctuating according to history and
culture.
The second contribution is my use of dementia as a filter through which
certain matters in “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013) and applied theatre
and performance literatures can be passed and, as a result, be catalysed,
advancing current debates and problematising certain areas that have been
taken for granted or overlooked. In this way, yet another cultural product
about dementia—this book—is constrained from acting out a story of
deficit and lack; instead, within its academic margins, dementia is allowed
some agency. For example, verbatim theatre practices, often demarcated in
facile ways, are unsettled by encounters with dementia. The third distinc-
tive offering I make is the application of Richard Schechner’s theories of
“restored behaviour” (1985, 37), “double negativity” (ibid., 110), and
“performance consciousness” (ibid., 6) to people with dementia: his theo-
ries are principally used to rehearse a theory of dementia as performance.
Here, ‘performance’ is understood in terms of its utopian potential rather
than as a “mode of power” (McKenzie 2001, 25).
However, I propose that “performance consciousness” (Schechner
1985, 6) can be a vital way of recasting people with dementia in terms of
possibility, not just in terms of tragedy and loss, by reframing certain
behaviours and actions as creative adaptations rather than as deficit exem-
plars of insidious diseases.
Theoretical Contexts, Disciplinary Locations,

and Approach
This book is situated at the intersection of theatre and performance stud-

ies with reticulation to dementia, age, and disability studies, as well as
selected references to refugee theatre studies. Individual chapters are posi-
tioned at various points on this grid depending on the problem being
investigated. In Chaps. 3 and 8 I ask: How might theatre and performance
studies shift or add to both popular and theoretical conceptions of
10 J. GIBSON
dementia and the people who live with it? In the other chapters, in some
to a greater extent than others, I reverse this question to ask: How might
dementia shift or add to questions, debates, and issues in theatre and per-
formance studies? The case studies analysed relate to ideas drawn from all
the above-mentioned literatures, where pertinent, including reminiscence
and the care home. I will now briefly introduce each of these literatures
and their key theorists.
Dementia studies can be delineated into five main, somewhat diverse
approaches: medical and biomedical, personhood, embodiment, relational
care, and social citizenship. Firstly, medical and biomedical approaches
dominate the existing research into, and treatment of, Alzheimer’s disease
and other dementias.9 They are “situated within a discourse of loss” (Beard
2004, 417) and typically prioritise drug treatments or molecular testing
over attention to the social and ethical complexities that dementia also
entails. They advance the separation of the physical, mental, and cultural
dimensions of illness and ageing, reducing the ageing body (and many
others) to a potential diagnosis, while the sociocultural, emotional, and
phenomenological aspects of illness and ageing for individuals and their
families are quite often ignored (ibid., 416).10 Factors like race, class, gen-
der, religion, sexual orientation, disability, family of origin, and cohort
effects will all contribute to differences in the experiences of both ageing
and dementia, but these factors are beyond what medicine and biomedi-
cine generally offer patients.
Secondly, the ‘personhood’ approach, a challenge to the biomedical
episteme, emanated as a reaction to the single-minded focus on cognition
and neurological changes in the brain that had dominated the dementia
industry until the 1980s (Gilleard 2000). This approach opposes the
mainly negative ideas about the person diagnosed with dementia that
arguably dominate studies in biomedicine (Leibing 2006, 254), recognis-
ing the person, not just the disease. It continues to gather numerous new
practices under its mantle. A person-centred focus in dementia care was
initiated principally through the work of social psychologist Tom Kitwood,
largely through the influence of his groundbreaking text Dementia recon-
sidered: The person comes first (1997), and is steadily becoming a seminal
paradigm. Personhood is conceptualised from the standpoint of interac-
tionist social theory, the belief that selfhood is socially acquired and sus-
tained (Kontos 2012, 330).
As important as ‘personhood’ is in providing a critique of the dominant

biomedical paradigm, it minimises the importance of the body as a source
of agency, and the ways in which people with dementia may convey their
humanity through gestures, body habits, and nonverbal body language.
These missing elements are well captured in the embodiment approach
which also focuses on “the social construction of surveillance, cultural
priorities and discursive conventions [and]… the potentialities of the body
for creativity and self-expression” (Martin et al. 2013, 283). Pioneers of
this approach include Pia Kontos (2005, 2012) and Annette Leibing (2008).
Relational care principles are also surfacing in many care homes: for
example, see the film It takes a community (2014) based on work in Arcare
Care Home, Helensvale, Queensland, Australia. Arguably, these principles
are related to the impact of feminist care ethics, including the work of Nel
Noddings (1986, 2013), Joan Tronto (1993, 2013), and Eva Feder Kittay
(1999, 2014), among others.11 At the core of this approach is the idea of
our essential connectedness to others, an idea sidelined in the prevailing
biomedical models. Finally, there is the emergence of scholarship around
social citizenship which builds on Kitwood’s ideas but sees the person as
an “active social agent in the broad context of their lifestyle, lifecourse,
social networks and community activities”, not just a “passive care recipi-
ent” (Bartlett and O’Connor 2010, 4). Ruth Bartlett and Deborah
O’Connor (2010) are key proponents of this approach.
Contemporary age studies scholars12 generally see ageing as constructed
not only biologically and chronologically, but also socially (Basting 1998).
Four main approaches to the study of age have been identified: cultural
age; age as narrative; the performativity of age; and the materiality of age
(Swinnen and Port 2012, 12). In part encouraged by leading age studies
scholar Margaret Morganroth Gullette’s call, “[a]bout age as a perfor-
mance, we need to start the arguments” (2004, 159), I track the idea of
the performance of age and its performativity in tandem with certain other
scholars who have theorised in this direction. (I also draw on some of the
other approaches, including the materiality of age and cultural age.) The
notion of performativity defines age “not only as a state of being but
through acts of doing” (Swinnen and Port 2012, 12; original emphasis).
In general, this approach enlists the theories of feminist post-structuralist
scholar Judith Butler in Gender trouble (1990) and Bodies that matter
(1993) where identity is an effect of “cultural apparatus[es]” (1990, 199)
and not nature. In age and performance scholarship, various iterations of
Butler’s theories of performativity have been worked with, expanded
12 J. GIBSON
upon, and, in some cases, challenged, under such monikers as “age-

effects” (Moore 2014, n.p.); “temporal depth” (Basting 1998, 22); “sig-
nificant form” (Cristofovici 1999, 275); and “absence” (Woodward 1991,
53–71).13
One significant area of dispute in contemporary age studies is the
agreed starting point as to when old age begins. “To put it bluntly: what
counts as old in one society … may not count as old in another” (Mangan
2013, 23), and this applies to non-contemporary as well as non-Western
societies. Across time and cultures, definitions of old age change showing
that as soon as one moves away from the purely biological or the socio-
legal (e.g. at present in Australia one is entitled to get an age pension at
sixty-five), definitions are as much about meaning as anything (ibid., 25).
But most scholars in age studies would agree that a chronological defini-
tion of what constitutes old age is not sufficient. There are at least biologi-
cal, medical, moral, social, legal, civic, and economic factors to be
considered in any definition. Of concern also is the fact that old age does
not form a single category. It covers a broad range of years as well as levels
of fitness in terms of physical and mental conditions. Infirmity can occur
for people in their sixties, while those in their nineties may remain fit.
Furthermore, disputes have arisen over terminology. Barbara Macdonald
argues that ‘older’ is both euphemistic and “the clearest sign of our shame
around ageing” (in Macdonald and Rich 2001, x). Bridie Moore argues
that the comparative descriptor ‘older’ can be seen to construct the “old
person in relation to a projected age-normative citizen” (2018, 42) who is
usually young. In this book, I generally refer to people with dementia
without either descriptor as people may be diagnosed with dementia at
any age. However, given that the majority of people diagnosed with
dementia are over the age of sixty-five and that most of the case studies
examined in this book are connected to age-related dementia, I deploy the
word ‘old’ when it is appropriate. I also sporadically use ‘elder’ and its
offshoots (e.g. ‘elderly’) as the term expresses respect for the aged, seen
clearly in its use in Indigenous (Australian) communities.
Unlike age studies, disability studies is a well-established academic dis-
cipline, fraught with complexities and arguments about issues such as dis-
ability definitions, the role of impairment and the body, and the origins of
disability. There are two main models: the medical model, which defines
disability as biological impairment (Depoy et al. 2003, 177), and the social
model, in which disability is seen as a consequence of social oppression
(Hughes and Paterson 1997). However, most contemporary disability
studies scholars (see Davis 1995, 2002, 2013; McRuer 2006; Siebers
2006, 2008) recognise the category of disability to be intensely problem-
atic and unstable. This is for many reasons, including that it swells and
contracts to encompass so-called normal people as well (Davis 1995, xv);
that is, all people chance stepping on and off the disability continuum,
especially as they get sick, age, or are diagnosed with diseases like demen-
tia. Mike Oliver and Len Barton are exceptions here, arguing that the
current interests pursued by many contemporary disability studies scholars
(postmodernism, representation, and embodiment) are hard to justify in
terms of their “immediate relevance to the struggles of disabled people to
lead a decent life” (2002, 8). Basically, disability studies is useful to the
pursuit of my arguments as it helps to clarify how the notion of ‘normalcy’
has been constructed and its intrinsic relationship to what is commonly
regarded as not ‘normal’, across many cultures, that is, to disability. In this
endeavour, I am principally aided by the work of Lennard Davis (1995)
and Tobin Siebers (2006, 2008, 2010). I also work with research in per-
formance and disability studies.14
As with age studies scholars, some post-structuralist disability scholars
have also drawn on Judith Butler’s theories of performativity to theorise
the discursive construction of disability identity. Both Petra Kuppers
(2003, 2011) and Robert McRuer (2006) argue, following Butler, that as
with gender, cultural scripts about disability can and should be resisted
and disrupted along with the discursive practices that produce both the
disabled and the able body. As old age may be experienced as disabling by
some, and as dementia is ordinarily seen as both a cognitive impairment
and a cognitive disability, representations of (old) people with dementia
must be theorised on a spectrum stretching between the disciplinary loca-
tions of age and those of disability studies.
However, the relationship between age studies and disability studies
holds many tensions. Age studies scholarship tends to undermine assump-
tions that ageing disables; it challenges commonly held generalisations
that all old people are “warm but incompetent” (Basting 2009, 26).15
Margaret Morganroth Gullette (2004, 13) proposes that the “[d]ecline
narrative” runs popular discourses on ageing. On the other hand, some
disability scholarship critiques assumptions that the able, fit, and ‘normal’
body is always free from disability, using old age as the point towards
which all able bodies are heading, a kind of ‘disabling normalcy’. Feminist
disability scholar Susan Wendell maintains that unless we die early “we are
all disabled eventually” (1996, 18).
14 J. GIBSON
In this book, I engage disability studies with age studies to show how
the abilities of people living with age-related dementia are greater than
imagined, while at the same time acknowledging the actuality of their
limits. To further complicate matters, the relationship between dementia
and disability resembles “planets spinning on different axes” (Shakespeare
et al. 2017, 1). In disability sectors, dementia is typically perceived as a
health issue; in dementia sectors, people with dementia do not usually
think of themselves as disabled (ibid.). In this book, I mine both dementia
and disability studies where necessary to support my arguments.
I also take some direction from particular theatre and performance
studies scholars working on refugee theatre, primarily Alison Jeffers (2006,
2008, 2009, 2012) and Caroline Wake (2010a, 2010b, 2011, 2013,
2018). I do this because refugee theatre productions across the globe have
tended to rely on the verbatim genre or other “theatre of the real” (Martin
2013) techniques. Given that there is very little work in theatre and per-
formance studies on “theatre of the real” (ibid.) and dementia, the aca-
demic work that has emanated from scholars working on refugee theatre
provides a useful parallel to concerns that match mine—a point I consis-
tently make in Chap. 2, where I attempt to forge this parallel in more
detail concerning the links between the crisis of dementia and the crisis of
asylum. Consequently, in Chap. 2, I also cite the occasional refugee stud-
ies scholar (e.g. Peter Nyers 2006).
But the primary disciplinary location of this book is in theatre and per-
formance studies. I conflate the two disciplines, as they are “merging and
intermingling in various ways” (Balme 2008, 12), which makes it increas-
ingly difficult to separate theorists into camps. However, disciplinary dif-
ferentiations, which can be tracked historically, do still exist (see Balme
2008.). Today, theatre studies has many fields, with a strong focus on live
art performances, and the study of texts (ibid., 11). Work within perfor-
mance studies has inclined towards Richard Schechner’s “is” or “as” of
performance (2013, 38). The former centres on that which is historically,
socially, culturally, and traditionally accepted to be performance; the latter
refers to the way in which events or practices can be seen to be perfor-
mances, including gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, among many other cat-
egories. In this way, “performance studies grants itself a wider range of
‘objects’ or case studies than theatre studies might” (Wake 2010a, 26).16
In essence, my examination of both “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013)
and applied theatre and performance falls under the broad moniker of
theatre and performance. The works discussed in this book dialogue with
the notion that we perform ourselves on a continuum that ranges from
daily acts of the self to systemised stage performances and rituals both
sacred and secular (ibid.).
This book also references theories of narrativity, including the work of
Arthur Frank (2010) and Paul John Eakin (1999, 2001, 2006, 2008), as
well as that of narrative philosopher Galen Strawson (2004). Additionally,
input comes from medical anthropology (Leibing and Cohen 2006; Lock
2013) and medical history (Ballenger 2006; Beach 1987; Whitehouse and
George 2008). Other material is drawn on at various stages: for example,
the work of philosophers Jacques Rancière (2004, 2007) and Ian Hacking
(1995, 1999).
My methodological approach is varied. Adopting “performance analy-
sis” (Pavis 2003) for my examination of both art theatre and applied the-
atre productions, I draw on notes taken visiting live performances,
watching videos of the performances (Balme 2008, 136), and referencing
“supplementary documents” (Pavis 2003, 40), including theatre reviews,
photographs, programmes, and other outreach materials like education
packs and websites. As well, I opt for (post-structuralist) discourse analysis
due to my sustained interest in how discourses shape reality and power-
fully influence what gets ‘storied’. ‘Discourse’ is used here in the
Foucauldian sense, to do with how knowledge is composed alongside the
social practices, subjectivities, and power relations built into such knowl-
edges, as well as into the relations between them. More than just ways of
thinking and producing meaning, discourses constitute the body, mind,
and emotional lives of the subjects they seek to govern (Weedon 1987,
108). I temper my acknowledgement of the power of discourses to consti-
tute bodies and minds by recognising that biological, material, and
embodied elements also play a role in the construction of dementia sub-
jectivities. Both post-structuralist and phenomenological insights are use-
ful for theorising dementia personhood. For people diagnosed with
dementia, the body speaks, conveying meaning, even if the world in which
they live is created, in large part, linguistically (Vasterling 2003, 212).
Given the material force of discourses in forming and reforming the
normal, the natural, and the true, I am primarily concerned with excavat-
ing the values and politics underlying these discourses in twenty-first-
century Western cultures, both to make them visible and to disturb their
facile endorsement. In view of my interest in the discourses circulating
about age-related dementia in the mass media and on the internet, I
16 J. GIBSON
include comments made available on YouTube or in journalists’ inter-

views, as the discourses produced by these media accounts form part of
the social context of the performances. I principally rely on the analysis
and comparison of a range of sources rather than depending on interviews
and similar primary materials, although information from personal com-
munication with selected individuals does feature in this book. I also occa-
sionally theorise audience reception, including my own, especially when I
have attended the performances.
Mapping the Arguments

This book has three main aims corresponding to the three main sections
into which it is divided. Part I, ‘Dementia, Identity and Narrative’, has
two chapters. Chapter 2 offers necessary contextual information about
dementia including biomedical explanations of dementia and its diseases;
an extended definition of the ‘right kind’ of dementia story; the historical,
social, and geocultural conditions behind the growth of the Alzheimer’s
industry in the West; and a critical exploration of the sociopolitical and
economic drivers of the current dementia ‘crisis’. Chapter 3 focuses on
what I term ‘narrative regimes’ in Western societies. I argue that stories
play a seminal role in the creation and maintenance of identity as ‘nor-
malcy’, with important political and ethical ramifications for people with
dementia, and “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013) representations of
them. I also examine the relationship between stories and selves to ascer-
tain how selves might be rethought so that they are not contingent on the
production of lucid self-narratives, consistent language, and truthful
memories. This chapter critiques the notion of the ‘Narrative Self’ and
points to the hegemonic role played by reminiscence narratives in demen-
tia ‘cultures’, keeping people with dementia firmly moored to the past and
ignoring or sidelining their present experiences.
Part II, ‘Dementia in Performance’, comprises four separate Chaps. (4,
5, 6, and 7). My aim here is to scan both contemporary critical studies
about and practices of applied theatre and “theatre of the real” (Martin
2013)—including postdramatic varieties—to determine what it means
when verbatim and autobiographical performance practices encounter
storytellers who are considered, culturally, to be ‘unreliable narrators’. I
probe whether these practices are useful to reinforce a sense of ‘self’ for
those deemed no longer to have one. While acknowledging that profes-
sional art theatre productions and applied theatre and performance
practices do have specific charters, along with separate literatures and his-
tories that map them, I incorporate both of these in this section under the
moniker of ‘performance’. I do this because, when the seemingly incon-
gruent practices and products of select applied theatre interventions (often
shown to known audiences with a focus on health, well-being, and process
over product) are situated side by side with professionally devised ‘art’
theatre products for public stages, what emerges is their commonalities
and the way they ‘speak’ to each other. For example, although innovation
and experimentation may be more to the fore with art pieces, and drama-
turgical, aesthetic, and reception issues likely to surface, “theatre of the
real” (ibid.) productions may also intend to educate, inform, and change
political and ethical landscapes as well as the views of its spectators; these
productions may also deploy a stripped back aesthetic consonant with
some theatres of social change (applied theatre). Playwright Robin Soans
contends that “the quintessence of verbatim theatre is a group of actors
sitting on chairs, or cardboard boxes or a sofa, talking to the audience,
simply telling stories” (2008, 21).
Furthermore, the concerns of many “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013)
and applied theatre practices are not always discrete. For example, an
applied theatre intervention may also use “theatre of the real” (ibid.) tech-
niques, like verbatim or documentary materials, be devised in a commu-
nity setting, and principally be constructed from the autobiographical
stories of its participants, as is To Whom I May Concern® (TWIMC), my
autobiographical case study. In fact, certain applied theatre products may
be framed as art pieces with a strong aesthetic focus, even if applied theatre
has conventionally focused on social efficacy over aesthetics (Prentki 1998;
Thompson 2009).
In Chap. 4, I navigate the complex terrain of ‘the real’ and ‘reality’. I
argue that any reality being framed on stage will inevitably cite the frames
of reference underpinning and bolstering this reality, which is a reality
always already mediated, making it almost impossible to avoid replaying
the ‘right kind’ of dementia story. These stories include discourses and
cultural narratives about ageing and specifically about old people living
with dementia, which summon what I call ‘normative age-and-dementia-
effects’ (following Moore 2014), that is, the naturalised effects of discur-
sive representations of ‘old’ people living with dementia and the biases and
assumptions underpinning and sustaining these representations.
Chapter 4 also provides extended definitions of the similarities and dif-
ferences between the terms “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013), “Theatre
18 J. GIBSON
of Real People” (Garde and Mumford 2016), and “reality theatre” (Wake
2010b, 6–8). Additionally, it begins an examination into the connection
between words, stories, identity, and the materialisation of reality in “the-
atre of the real” (Martin 2013), taking a particular interest in verbatim
theatre and its history, as well as considering what provocations dementia
offers verbatim theatre and its scholarship, as dementia draws attention to
the nature of the ‘truth’ of any story. Building on these underpinnings,
Chap. 5 examines two very different Australian experimental art theatre
productions with postdramatic leanings as optics through which ethical,
political, and aesthetic problems to do with dementia and age representa-
tion are exposed. The extent to which they tell the ‘right kind’ of demen-
tia story is also assessed.
In Chap. 6, the focus shifts to applied theatre practices, as well as para-
theatrical modes. This chapter critiques chronological life story narrative
when conceived as a universal ethical and political act of healing for people
with dementia, or as an unfailing practice of late life therapy, by extending
James Thompson’s (2009) challenges to narrative hegemony in applied
theatre contexts. This allows entry to the claim that the pressure to pro-
duce a life story, in the context of dementia, might in fact be oppressive
rather than therapeutic. I then analyse TimeSlips, a storytelling interven-
tion increasingly being used in aged care facilities around the world, com-
paring it with the popular Reminiscence Therapy covered in Chap. 3. I
also explore what I term ‘narra[tive]-theatrical spaces’: alternative ways of
reconfiguring performance in care homes which take seriously the oppor-
tunities offered by the location itself in transforming the lives of people
living in care homes.
Chapter 7 moves on to public autobiographical performances by peo-
ple living with dementia and probes one specific performance modality To
Whom I May Concern® (TWIMC), both a play and a therapy, operating
virtually and as live theatre. TWIMC reframes well-worn issues in the
autobiographical literature as complex and fresh, especially the construc-
tion of the self and its relationship to narrative, identity, and representa-
tion. Not widely taken up by people living with dementia, the shortage of
public autobiographical performance is undoubtedly connected to, and
limited by, taken-for-granted understandings of dementia and by dis-
courses about the capabilities of (old) people living with dementia, which
both create and control the situations, perceptions, and worlds in which
these people can perform their narratives and audiences can listen to them.
Part III, ‘Dementia as Performance’, comprises Chaps. 8 and 9. In

Chap. 8, I rehearse a theory of dementia as performance, exploring how
the ‘gaze’ of theatre and performance could be a way of challenging the
deficit gaze of biomedicine and of reframing certain behaviours and actions
in terms of possibilities (vis à vis Jill Dolan’s “utopian performatives”
(2001) and Schechner’s “performance consciousness” (1985, 6)). This
chapter also examines modes of everyday performance, including demen-
tia activism. The concluding Chap. 9 reexamines my mother’s story in
terms of performance, identity, memory, and narrative.
Resisting the ‘Right Kind’ of Dementia Story

In summary, this book considers how people with dementia are repre-
sented as well as the emerging ways in which they are re/presenting them-
selves, primarily in “theatre of the real” (Martin 2013) and applied theatre.
It also assesses the extent to which the ‘right kind’ of dementia story is
being affirmed or resisted in these representations. In public theatre sites,
as well as in settings like aged care facilities, attention to how stories are
told about, with, and by people living with dementia can open up discur-
sive spaces where the ethical, political, and aesthetic ramifications of the
telling of these stories can be made apparent, and perhaps altered, for the
benefit of those who live with age-related dementia. I argue that dementia
and the people living with it are produced in and through these stories as
much as through biology. Moreover, I propose that the grip of the bio-
medical and even the ‘personhood’ gazes on dementia need to be softened
and new ways of understanding found and embraced for futures to be
imagined differently for people living with dementia. The tools explored
for creating such different futures and reimagining the identities of people
living with dementia are performance related and performative.
Importantly, this book aligns with expectations for theatre and perfor-
mance practices and sites to be possible spaces of (possible) transforma-
tion. As theatre scholar Emma Cox (2012, 120) argues, “theatrical
performance … inhere[s] in material functions (as social practice) and
symbolic functions (as representation)”. For Cox, theatre is, “in Crane’s
words, ‘embodied enaction’ that constitutes the reality-making cognitive
systems of practitioners and audiences” (ibid., 121), and it is within these
systems that the transformative capacity of hope in regard to the effects of
performance is enmeshed. However, hope needs to be tempered by respect
for the many issues at play when any narratives—but especially those of
20 J. GIBSON
trauma, victimhood, crisis, and displacement—are performed. This can be

achieved through attention to the people behind the story being per-
formed, as well as to its frames of reception. In other words, attention
must be paid to questions about who is served by, who is involved with,
and who is positioned by these performed narratives. Furthermore, these
questions must moderate any naïve or reductionist ideas about theatrical
performances as simple sites of transformation.
In the twenty-first century, discourses on narrative, disability, ageing,
crisis, identity, and performance intersect in a complex layering of thinking
and practice, and they determine how theatre and performance products
about dementia function in the world. These discourses are tied to whether
performances in dementia facilities are sanctioned or theatre for public
stages is funded, which in turn impacts on whether the story we hear
about dementia in these theatrical sites is the ‘right kind’: that is, a story
which risks reinforcing the power of a hegemonic and authoritarian poli-
tics, an ethics of devaluation, and an aesthetics of aversion and/or tragedy
towards those who live with a diagnosis of dementia. My aim in this book
is to bring the fields of theatre and performance, age, dementia, and dis-
ability studies into a productive conversation. In so doing, I hope to make
it a little more difficult to think and act as we have habitually thought and
done regarding dementia and the people who live with the condition.
Notes
1. I prefer the term ‘care partner’ to ‘caregiver’ because I wish to challenge
the notion implicit in the tag ‘giver’ that people living with dementia are
‘takers’. The relational dynamics between the two parties are far more
complex than that. In fact, (old) people living with dementia may often
give a lot to those caring for them, if the latter can learn to open up to the
possibilities of the relationship.
2. Using ‘our’ highlights that all ‘personal’ stories are born out of interrela-
tionship, co-created with and through the stories of significant others in
our lives. However, in claiming that this story is ‘ours’, I am ‘speaking for’
my mother, given the non-normative features of our communication.
Although ‘my’ story is inextricably bound up with my mother’s, I am not
her. I cannot know what it is like to live with AD, as I have not (yet) expe-
rienced it.
3. Regarding terminology: throughout the book, I generally use the terms
‘people with dementia’ or ‘people living with dementia’ not to suggest that
all people with dementia form a homogeneous group or that dementia is a
stable disease category; rather, these terms are preferred over the more
reductive ‘victim’, ‘sufferer’, or biomedically oriented ‘patient’.
4. The term ‘unreliable narrator’ was first coined in 1961 by Wayne Booth in
The Rhetoric of Fiction (158–159). It refers to a narrator, most often in
literature, but sometimes in film or theatre, whose credibility has been seri-
ously compromised.
5. I have placed the word ‘real’ in inverted commas to highlight the many
debates between certain philosophers and disability studies scholars over
the personhood of the cognitively disabled and who counts or not as a
bona fide person (Kittay 2009; Kittay and Carlson 2010). However, the
real is not only a philosophically contentious idea but, especially within
theatre and performance studies, a more problematic and ambiguous term
than the mere application of inverted commas could underscore. These
ideas are taken up in Chap. 4.
6. Widely discussed to date have been, among other issues, its “paradoxical
pairings” (Wake 2011, 1) including, for example, the personal and the
political (Heddon 2008); replication (reiteration and re-enactment) and
addition (formerly excluded stories) (Wake 2010a); the archive and the
repertoire (Wake 2011); and reality and representation (Tigner 2002;
Reinelt 2006, 2009; Bottoms 2006; Heddon 2008; Martin 2006, 2010,
2013). Interest has also been shown in trauma, telling, and witnessing
(Salverson 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001; Stuart Fisher 2011; Jeffers 2006,
2008, 2009, 2012; Wake 2010a; Thompson 2004, 2005, 2009); the
appropriation of life stories by theatre makers (Couser 2004; Dolan 2005;
Baglia and Foster 2005; Heddon 2008; Casey 2009; Jeffers 2012); and the
ethical and political challenges of dealing with people’s stories and the aes-
thetic challenges of creating interesting theatre from them (Patraka 1996;
Peterson 1997; Salverson 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999; Lathem 2005; Jeffers
2006, 2008, 2009, 2012; Stuart Fisher 2011).
7. Publications on drama therapy interventions with old people living with
dementia are available, but they do not specifically look at the nexus
between narrative and identity (Jaaniste 2011; Reinstein 2004). Innovative
work is emerging in the applied theatre literature on care homes (Nicholson
2011; Hatton 2014) but not in regard to performed narratives in particular.
8. In The presentation of the self in everyday life, Erving Goffman posits that
the “self itself does not derive from its possessor, but from the whole scene
of his [sic] action” (1959, 252). Using these ideas as a basis, Anne Basting
argues that selves with dementia are more dependent on others than some
other selves may be, but that this is not necessarily a problem if we picture
selfhood to be on a continuum from a state of mythical independence to
that of extreme dependence (2001, 79). Basting further argues that people
22 J. GIBSON
with dementia will usually rely heavily on others for their sense of selfhood
but that, to some extent, we all do.
9. These terms are often used interchangeably to refer to conventional medi-
cine. Biomedicine is the application of the principles of the natural sci-
ences, especially biology, physiology, and biochemistry, to clinical medicine
or research (MacIntosh 1999; OED Online 2014/2015). Medicine is “the
science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease”
(OED Online 2014/2015).
10. The word ‘illness’ refers here to an individual’s experience of ‘disease’
(pathology), or of poor health, although ‘disease’ and ‘illness’ are com-
monly used interchangeably (Dokumaci 2013, 107).
11. Care ethics is most often defined as a practice or virtue rather than a theory
as such. It is based on the idea of the importance of caring for the depen-
dent and vulnerable in society and is inspired by the mother–child relation-
ship. Rooted in the sentimentalist tradition of moral theory, care ethics
upholds the importance of care as an incentive in ethical thought, along
with recognising the significance of emotion, the body, and reasoning from
particulars over abstract ideas such as justice and agency which are
enshrined in liberal human rights theory. It emerged in the mid-1980s
from work done by psychologist Carol Gilligan and philosopher Nel
Noddings who critiqued traditional moral approaches accusing them of
male bias. Most care theorists argue that care involves maintaining rela-
tionships by focusing on the well-being of care-givers and care-receivers in
a network of social relations (https://www.iep.utm.edu/care-eth/).
12. Age studies is interdisciplinary and collaborative, drawing on research
efforts from both the humanities and the social sciences, despite their very
different research approaches. This is to be expected, given that age is a
phenomenon that affects so many areas of life. However, some scholars are
surprised at how long it has taken for interest in this field to burgeon, as it
is a relatively new area of inquiry. These same academics have been arguing
about the importance of its presence in the academy for decades where it
should take “its rightful place with other intersectional classifications, such
as gender, race, class, and ability” (Lipscomb and Marshall 2010, 4).
13. ‘The term “normative age-effects” is used by Bridie Moore (2014, 2), fol-
lowing Judith Butler, to underscore that age is produced as an effect gener-
ated by “cultural apparatus” (Butler 1990, 199) through media images,
performances on stage, and so forth. “Temporal depth” is a model of age-
ing that embraces change across the life span (Basting 1998, 22). For
Basting, the ageing body on stage is valuable exactly because it can repre-
sent the spread of difference and variety of age across time (1998, 141).
Cristofici’s (1999) “significant form” is a term moved over from Cristofici’s
analysis of Jeff Wall’s photography to performance by Bridie Moore
(2014): it helps assess whether a specific representation of age might admit

the possibility of agency for old subjects. Kathleeen Woodward’s term
“absence” is a reflection on the rejected, and therefore missing, ageing
body (1991, 53–71). Woodward suggests that at the end stage of life,
comparable to Lacan’s stage of infancy but in reversal, the old person
rejects their mirror image as not being a true representation of self. This
rejection brings on a psychic crisis (a dislocation of the imaginary).
Woodward sees the mirror stage of old age as “inherently triangular,
involving the gaze of others as well as the two images of oneself”
(Woodward, 1991, 69) (i.e. the one looking in the mirror and the one
looking back).
14. Scholarship on performance and disability is more prominent today than it
was ten to fifteen years ago. Established scholars in the terrain include
Carrie Sandahl (2003, 2004, 2010) and Petra Kuppers (2003, 2011), with
recent work emerging from Collette Conroy (2009), Dave Calvert (2009),
Arseli Dokumaci (2013, 2017), Yvonne Schmidt (2017), and Kate
Maguire-Rosier (2016), among others. Some key issues of concern emerg-
ing from the scholarship include representing disability in novel ways to
challenge current orthodoxies; the uneasy relationship between disability,
disability politics, and the dramatic arts; the integration and inclusion of
disabled people in drama and issues to do with the subversion of assump-
tions about disability in drama pieces; the role of non-disabled allies and
professionals; the ‘performativity’ of disability; and the concept of ‘crip’
aesthetics and alternative dramaturgies as a challenge to able-bodied aes-
thetics and elite drama (Roulstone 2010, 753).
15. Some social gerontologists have recognised different stages of old age,
determining categories like the “fit elderly” and the “frail elderly”
(Woodhouse et al. 1988, 505 cited in Mangan 2013, 26–27). The picture
is further complicated by definitions of what constitutes old age being
determined by historical and cultural relativism (Mangan 2013, 23).
16. Diana Taylor has described this difference as between that of probing per-
formance as an object or ontology and deploying it as a method or episte-
mology (2003, 2–3).
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the speaking embodied subject. International Journal of Philosophical Studies
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The Hartford Convention.
This opposition finally culminated in the assembling of a

convention at Hartford, at which delegates were present from all of
the New England states. They sat for three weeks with closed doors,
and issued an address which will be found in this volume in the book
devoted to political platforms. It was charged by the Democrats that
the real object of the convention was to negotiate a separate treaty of
peace, on behalf of New England, with Great Britain, but this charge
was as warmly denied. The exact truth has not since been discovered,
the fears of the participants of threatened trials for treason, closing
their mouths, if their professions were false. The treaty of Ghent,
which was concluded on December 14th, 1814, prevented other
action by the Hartford convention than that stated. It had assembled
nine days before the treaty, which is as follows:
Treaty of Ghent.
This treaty was negotiated by the Right Honorable James Lord

Gambier, Henry Goulburn, Esq., and William Adams, Esq., on the
part of Great Britain, and John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard,
Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell, and Albert Gallatin, on behalf of the
United States.
The treaty can be found on p. 218, vol. 8, of Little & Brown’s
Statutes at Large. The first article provided for the restoration of all
archives, records, or property taken by either party from the other
during the war. This article expressly provides for the restoration of
“slaves or other private property.” The second article provided for the
cessation of hostilities and limitation of time of capture. The third
article provided for the restoration of prisoners of war.
The fourth article defined the boundary established by the treaty of
1783, and provided for commissioners to mark the same.
The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth articles established rules to
govern the proceedings of the commissioners.
The ninth article bound the United States and His Britannic
Majesty to end all hostilities with Indian tribes, with whom they were
then respectively at war.
The tenth article reads as follows:—
“Whereas the traffic in slaves is irreconcilable with the principles of humanity
and justice; and, whereas, both His Majesty and the United States are desirous of
continuing their efforts to promote its entire abolition, it is hereby agreed that both
the contracting parties shall use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an
object.”
The eleventh and last article provides for binding effect of the
treaty, upon the exchange of ratifications.
The position of New England in the war is explained somewhat by
her exposed position. Such of the militia as served endured great
hardships, and they were almost constantly called from their homes
to meet new dangers. Distrusting their loyalty, the general
government had withheld all supplies from the militia of
Massachusetts and Connecticut for the year 1814, and these States
were forced to bear the burden of supporting them, at the same time
contributing their quota of taxes to the general government—
hardships, by the way, not greater than those borne by Pennsylvania
and Ohio in the late war for the Union, nor half as hard as those
borne by the border States at the same time. True, the coast towns of
Massachusetts were subjected to constant assault from the British
navy, and the people of these felt that they were defenceless. It was
on their petition that the legislature of Massachusetts finally, by a
vote of 226 to 67, adopted the report favoring the calling of the
Hartford Convention. A circular was then addressed to the
Governors of the other States, with a request that it be laid before
their legislatures, inviting them to appoint delegates, and stating that
the object was to deliberate upon the dangers to which the eastern
section was exposed, “and to devise, if practicable, means of security
and defence which might be consistent with the preservation of their
resources from total ruin, and not repugnant to their obligations as
members of the Union.” The italicized portion shows that there was
at least then no design of forming a separate treaty, or of promoting
disunion. The legislatures of Connecticut and Rhode Island endorsed
the call and sent delegates. Those of New Hampshire and Vermont
did not, but delegates were sent by local conventions. These
delegates, it is hardly necessary to remark, were all members of the
Federal party, and their suspected designs and action made the
“Hartford Convention” a bye-word and reproach in the mouths of
Democratic orators for years thereafter. It gave to the Democrats, as
did the entire history of the war, the prestige of superior patriotism,
and they profited by it as long as the memory of the war of 1812 was
fresh. Indeed, directly after the war, all men seemed to keep in
constant view the reluctance of the Federalists to support the war,
and their almost open hostility to it in New England. Peace brought
prosperity and plenty, but not oblivion of the old political issues, and
this was the beginning of the end of the Federal party. Its decay
thereafter was rapid and constant.
The eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth Congresses had continued
Democratic. The fourteenth began Dec. 4, 1815, with the Democratic
majority in the House increased to 30. Clay had taken part in
negotiating the treaty, and on his return was again elected to the
House, and was for the third time elected speaker. Though 65
Federalists had been elected, but 10 were given to Federal candidates
for speaker, this party now showing a strong, and under the
circumstances, a very natural desire to rub out party lines. The
internal taxes and the postage rates were reduced.
The Protective Tariff.
President Madison, in his message, had urged upon Congress a

revision of the tariff, and pursuant to his recommendation what was
at the time called a protective tariff was passed. Even Calhoun then
supported it, while Clay proclaimed that protection must no longer
be secondary to revenue, but of primary importance. The rates fixed,
however, were insufficient, and many American manufactures were
soon frustrated by excessive importations of foreign manufactures.
The position of Calhoun and Lowndes, well known leaders from
South Carolina, is explained by the fact that just then the proposal of
a protective tariff was popular in the south, in view of the heavy
duties upon raw cotton which England then imposed. The
Federalists in weakness changed their old position when they found
the Democrats advocating a tariff, and the latter quoted and
published quite extensively Alexander Hamilton’s early report in
favor of it. Webster, in the House at the time and a leading
Federalist, was against the bill. The parties had exchanged positions
on the question.
Peace brought with it another exchange of positions. President
Madison, although he had vetoed a bill to establish a National Bank
in 1815, was now (in 1816) anxious for the establishment of such an
institution. Clay had also changed his views, and claimed that the
experiences of the war showed the necessity for a national currency.
The bill met with strong opposition from a few Democrats and nearly
all of the Federalists (the latter having changed position on the
question since 1811), but it passed and was signed by the President.
A bill to promote internal improvements, advocated by Clay, was
at first favored by Madison, but his mind changed and he vetoed the
measure—the first of its kind passed by Congress.
The Democratic members of Congress, before the adjournment of
the first session, held a caucus for the nomination of candidates to
succeed Madison and Gerry. It was understood that the retiring
officers and their confidential friends favored James Monroe of
Virginia. Their wishes were carried out, but not without a struggle,
Wm. H. Crawford of Georgia receiving 54 votes against 65 for
Monroe. The Democrats opposed to Virginia’s domination in the
politics of the country, made a second effort, and directed it against
Monroe in the caucus. Aaron Burr denounced him as an improper
and incompetent candidate, and joined in the protest then made
against any nomination by a Congressional caucus; he succeeding in
getting nineteen Democrats to stay out of the caucus. Later he
advised renewed attempts to break down the Congressional caucus
system, and before the nomination favored Andrew Jackson as a
means to that end. Daniel B. Tompkins was nominated by the
Democrats for Vice-President. The Federalists named Rufus King of
New York, but in the election which followed he received but 24 out
of 217 electoral votes. The Federalists divided their votes for Vice-
President.
Monroe was inaugurated on the 14th of March, 1817, the oath
being administered by Chief Justice Marshall. The inaugural address
was so liberal in its tone that it seemed to give satisfaction to men of
all shades of political opinion. The questions which had arisen during
the war no longer had any practical significance, while the people
were anxious to give the disturbing ones which ante-dated at least a
season of rest. Two great and opposing policies had previously
obtained, and singularly enough each seemed exactly adapted to the
times when they were triumphant. The Federal power had been
asserted in a government which had gathered renewed strength
during what was under the circumstances a great and perilous war,
and the exigencies of that war in many instances compelled the
Republicans or Democrats, or the Democratic-Republicans as some
still called them, to concede points which had theretofore been in
sharp dispute, and they did it with that facility which only Americans
can command in emergencies: yet as a party they kept firm hold of
the desire to enlarge the scope of liberty in its application to the
citizens, and just here kept their original landmark.
It is not singular then that the administration of Monroe opened
what has ever since been known in politics as the “Era of Good
Feeling.” Party differences rapidly subsided, and political serenity
was the order of the day. Monroe made a tour of the States, with the
direct object of inspecting fortifications and means of defence, and in
this way spread the good feeling, without seeming to have any such
object. He was everywhere favorably greeted by the people, and
received by delegations which in many instances were specially made
up of all shades of opinion.
The Cabinet was composed of men of rare political distinction,
even in that day of great men. It was probably easier to be great then
than now, just as it is easier to be a big political hero in the little State
of Delaware than it is in the big States of New York or Pennsylvania.
Yet these men were universally accepted as great without regard to
their localities. All were Republicans or Democrats, with John
Quincy Adams as Secretary of State, Wm. H. Crawford (Monroe’s
competitor for the nomination) as Secretary of the Treasury, John C.
Calhoun as Secretary of War, William Wirt as Attorney-General. All
of these united with the President in the general desire to call a halt
upon the political asperities which were then recognized as a public
evil. On one occasion, during his tour, the citizens of Kennebunk and
its vicinity, in Maine, having in their address alluded to the prospects
of a political union among the people in support of the
administration, the President said in reply:
“You are pleased to express a confident hope that a spirit of mutual
conciliation may be one of the blessings which may result from my
administration. This indeed would be an eminent blessing, and I
pray it may be realized. Nothing but union is waiting to make us a
great people. The present time affords the happiest presage that this
union is fast consummating. It cannot be otherwise; I daily see
greater proofs of it. The further I advance in my progress in the
country, the more I perceive that we are all Americans—that we
compose but one family—that our republican institutions will be
supported and perpetuated by the united zeal and patriotism of all.
Nothing could give me greater satisfaction than to behold a perfect
union among ourselves—a union which is necessary to restore to
social intercourse its former charms, and to render our happiness, as
a nation, unmixed and complete. To promote this desirable result
requires no compromise of principle, and I promise to give it my
continued attention, and my best endeavors.”
Even General Jackson, since held up to public view by historians
as the most austere and “stalwart” of all politicians, caught the sweet
infection of peace, and thus advised President Monroe:—
“Now is the time to exterminate that monster, called party spirit.
By selecting [for cabinet officers] characters most conspicuous for
their probity, virtue, capacity, and firmness, without regard to party,
you will go far to, if not entirely, eradicate those feelings, which, on
former occasions, threw so many obstacles in the way of government.
The chief magistrate of a great and powerful nation should never
indulge in party feelings. His conduct should be liberal and
disinterested; always bearing in mind, that he acts for the whole and
not a part of the community.”
This advice had been given with a view to influence the
appointment of a mixed political Cabinet, but while Monroe
professed to believe that a free government could exist without
political parties, he nevertheless sought to bring all of the people into
one political fold, and that the Democratic. Yet he certainly and
plainly sought to allay factions in his own party, and with this view
selected Crawford for the Treasury—the gentleman who had been so
warmly supported in the nominating struggle by the Clintonians and
by all who objected to the predominating influence of Virginia in
national politics.
Monroe, like his immediate predecessor, accepted and acted upon
the doctrines of the new school of Republicans as represented by
Clay and Calhoun, both of whom still favored a tariff, while Clay had
become a warm advocate of a national system of internal
improvements. These two statesmen thus early differed on some
questions, but they were justly regarded as the leading friends and
advisers of the administration, for to both still clung the patriotic
recollections of the war which they had so warmly advocated and
supported, and the issue of which attested their wisdom. Clay
preferred to be called a Republican; Calhoun preferred to be called a
Democrat, and just then the terms were so often exchanged and
mingled that history is at fault in the exact designation, while
tradition is colored by the bias of subsequent events and lives.
Monroe’s first inaugural leaned toward Clay’s scheme of internal
improvements, but questioned its constitutionality. Clay was next to
Jefferson the most original of all our statesmen and politicians. He
was prolific in measures, and almost resistless in their advocacy.
From a political standpoint he was the most direct author of the war
of 1812, for his advocacy mainly brought it to the issue of arms,
which through him and Calhoun were substituted for diplomacy.
And Calhoun then stood in broader view before the country than
since. His sectional pride and bias had been rarely aroused, and like
Clay he seemed to act for the country as an entirety. Subsequent
sectional issues changed the views held of him by the people of both
the North and South.
We have said that Monroe leaned toward internal improvements,
but he thought Congress was not clothed by the Constitution with the
power to authorize measures supporting it, and when the
opportunity was presented (May 4, 1822) he vetoed the bill “for the
preservation and repair of the Cumberland road,” and accompanied
the veto with a most elaborate message in which he discussed the
constitutional aspects of the question. A plain majority of the friends
of the administration, under the leadership of Clay, supported the
theory of internal improvements from the time the administration
began, but were reluctant to permit a division of the party on the
question.
Mississippi and Illinois were admitted to the Union during the
“Era of Good Feeling,” without serious political disturbance, while
Alabama was authorized to form a state constitution and
government, and Arkansas was authorized as a separate territorial
government from part of Missouri. In 1819 President Monroe made a
tour through the Southern States to examine their defenses and see
and get acquainted with the people. From the first inauguration of
Monroe up to 1819 party lines can hardly be said to have existed, but
in the sixteenth session of Congress, which continued until May,
1820, new questions of national interest arose, prominent among
which were additional protective duties for our manufactures;
internal improvements by the government; acknowledgments of the
independence of the South American States.
The Monroe Doctrine.
Upon the question of recognizing the independence of the South

American States, the President made a record which has ever since
been quoted and denominated “The Monroe Doctrine.” It is
embodied in the following abstract of his seventh annual message,
under date of Dec. 2d, 1823:
“It was stated, at the commencement of the last session, that a
great effort was then making in Spain and Portugal to improve the
condition of the people of those countries, and that it appeared to be
conducted with extraordinary moderation. It need scarcely be
remarked that the result has been, so far, very different from what
was then anticipated. Of events in that quarter of the globe, with
which we have so much intercourse, and from which we derive our
origin, we have always been anxious and interested spectators. The
citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in
favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on that side of
the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating
to themselves, we have never taken any part nor does it comport with
our policy to do so. It is only when rights are invaded or seriously
menaced, that we resent injuries, or make preparation for our
defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity
more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious
to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the
allied powers is essentially different in this respect from that of
America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their
respective governments. And to the defense of our own, which has
been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and
matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under
which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is
devoted. We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable
relations existing between the United States and those powers, to
declare, that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend
their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our
peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any
European power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But
with the governments who have declared their independence, and
maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great
consideration, and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not
view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or
controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European
power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly
disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new
governments and Spain, we declared our neutrality at the time of
their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to
adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgment of the
competent authorities of this government, shall make a
corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable
to their security.
“The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe is still
unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger proof can be adduced,
than that the allied powers should have thought it proper, on a
principle satisfactory to themselves, to have interposed by force in
the internal concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition
may be carried, on the same principle, is a question to which all
independent powers, whose governments differ from theirs, are
interested; even those most remote, and surely none more so than
the United States. Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted
at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter
of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere
in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the
government, de facto, as the legitimate government for us: to
cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by
a frank, firm, and manly policy; meeting, in all instances, the just
claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none. But in
regard to these continents, circumstances are eminently and
conspicuously different. It is impossible that the allied powers should
extend their political system to any portion of either continent
without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can any one
believe, that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt
it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we
should behold such interposition, in any form, with indifference. If
we look to the comparative strength and resources of Spain and
those new governments, and their distance from each other, it must
be obvious that she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy
of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, in the hope
that other powers will pursue the same course.”
The second election of Monroe, in 1820, was accomplished without
a contest. Out of 231 electoral votes, but one was cast against him,
and that for John Quincy Adams. Mr. Tompkins, the candidate for
Vice-President, was only a little less fortunate, there being 14
scattering votes against him. Neither party, if indeed there was a
Federalist party left made any nominations.
The Missouri Compromise.
The second session of the 17th Congress opened on the 4th day of
March, 1820, with James Monroe at the head of the Executive
Department of the Government, and the Democratic party in the
majority in both branches of the Federal Legislature. The Cabinet at
that time was composed of the most brilliant minds of the country,
indeed as most justly remarked by Senator Thomas H. Benton in his
published review of the events of that period, it would be difficult to
find in any government, in any country, at any time, more talent and
experience, more dignity and decorum, more purity of private life, a
larger mass of information, and more addiction to business, than was
comprised in the list of celebrated names then constituting the
executive department of the government. The legislative department
was equally impressive. The exciting and agitating question then
pending before Congress was on the admission of the State of
Missouri into the Federal Union, the subject of the issue being the
attempted tacking on of conditions restricting slavery within her
limits. She was admitted without conditions under the so-called
compromise, which abolished it in certain portions of the then
province of Louisiana. In this controversy, the compromise was
sustained and carried entirely by the Democratic Senators and
members from the Southern and slaveholding States aided and
sanctioned by the Executive, and it was opposed by fifteen Senators
from non-slaveholding States, who represented the opposite side on
the political questions of the day. It passed the House by a close vote
of 86 to 82. It has been seriously questioned since whether this act
was constitutional. The real struggle was political, and for the
balance of power. For a while it threatened the total overthrow of all
political parties upon principle, and the substitution of geographical
parties discriminated by the slave line, and thus destroying the
proper action of the Federal government, and leading to a separation
of the States. It was a federal movement, accruing to the benefit of
that party, and at first carried all the Northern democracy in its
current, giving the supremacy to their adversaries. When this effect
was perceived, democrats from the northern non-slaveholding States
took early opportunity to prevent their own overthrow, by voting for
the admission of the States on any terms, and thus prevent the
eventual separation of the States in the establishment of
geographical parties divided by a slavery and anti-slavery line.
The year 1820 marked a period of financial distress in the country,
which soon became that of the government. The army was reduced,
and the general expenses of the departments cut down, despite
which measures of economy the Congress deemed it necessary to
authorize the President to contract for a loan of five million dollars.
Distress was the cry of the day; relief the general demand, the chief
demand coming from debtors to the Government for public lands
purchased under the then credit system, this debt at that time
aggregating twenty-three millions of dollars. The banks failed,
money vanished, instalments were coming due which could not be
met; and the opening of Congress in November, 1820, was saluted by
the arrival of memorials from all the new States praying for the relief
to the purchaser of the public lands. The President referred to it in
his annual message of that year, and Congress passed a measure of
relief by changing the system to cash sales instead of credit, reducing
the price of the lands, and allowing present debtors to apply
payments already made to portions of the land purchased,
relinquishing the remainder. Applications were made at that time for
the establishment of the preemptive system, but without effect; the
new States continued to press the question and finally prevailed, so
that now the preemptive principle has become a fixed part of our
land system, permanently incorporated with it, and to the equal
advantage of the settler and the government.
The session of 1820–21, is remarkable as being the first at which
any proposition was made in Congress for the occupation and
settlement of our territory on the Columbia river—the only part then
owned by the United States on the Pacific coast. It was made by Dr.
Floyd, a representative from Virginia, who argued that the
establishment of a civilized power on the American coast of the
Pacific could not fail to produce great and wonderful benefits not
only to our own country, but to the people of Eastern Asia, China and
Japan on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean, and that the valley of
the Columbia might become the granary of China and Japan. This
movement suggested to Senator Benton, to move, for the first time
publicly in the United States, a resolution to send ministers to the
Oriental States.
At this time treaties with Mexico and Spain were ratified, by which
the United States acquired Florida and ceded Texas; these treaties,
together with the Missouri compromise—a measure
contemporaneous with them—extinguished slave soil in all the
United States territory west of the Mississippi, except in that portion
which was to constitute the State of Arkansas; and, including the
extinction in Texas consequent upon its cession to a non-
slaveholding power, constituted the largest territorial abolition of
slavery that was ever up to that period effected by any political power
of any nation.
The outside view of the slave question in the United States, at this
time, is that the extension of slavery was then arrested,
circumscribed, and confined within narrow territorial limits, while
free States were permitted an almost unlimited expansion.
In 1822 a law passed Congress abolishing the Indian factory
system, which had been established during Washington’s
administration, in 1796, under which the Government acted as a
factor or agent for the sale of supplies to the Indians and the
purchase of furs from them; this branch of the service then belonged
to the department of the Secretary of War. The abuses discovered in
it led to the discontinuance of that system.
The Presidential election of 1824 was approaching, the candidates
were in the field, their respective friends active and busy, and
popular topics for the canvass in earnest requisition. Congress was
full of projects for different objects of internal improvement, mainly
in roads and canals, and the friends of each candidate exerted
themselves in rivalry of each other, under the supposition that their
opinions would stand for those of their principals. An act for the
preservation of the Cumberland Road, which passed both houses of
Congress, met with a veto from President Monroe, accompanied by a
state paper in exposition of his opinions upon the whole subject of
Federal interference in matters of inter state commerce and roads
and canals. He discussed the measure in all its bearings, and plainly
showed it to be unconstitutional. After stating the question, he
examined it under every head of constitutional derivation under
which its advocates claimed the power, and found it to be granted by
no one of them and virtually prohibited by some of them. This was
then and has since been considered to be the most elaborate and
thoroughly considered opinion upon the general question which has
ever been delivered by any American statesman. This great state
paper, delivered at a time when internal improvement by the federal
government had become an issue in the canvass for the Presidency
and was ardently advocated by three of the candidates and qualified
by two others, had an immense current in its power, carrying with it
many of the old strict constructionists.
The revision of the tariff, with a view to the protection of home
industry, and to the establishment of what was then called “The
American System,” was one of the large subjects before Congress at
the session of 1823–24, and was the regular commencement of the
heated debates on that question which afterwards ripened into a
serious difficulty between the federal government and some of the
Southern States. The presidential election being then depending, the
subject became tinctured with party politics, in which so far as that
ingredient was concerned, and was not controlled by other
considerations, members divided pretty much on the line which
always divided them on a question of constructive powers. The
protection of domestic industry not being among the powers granted,
was looked for in the incidental; and denied by the strict
constructionists to be a substantive term, to be exercised for the
direct purpose of protection; but admitted by all at that time and
ever since the first tariff act of 1789, to be an incident to the revenue
raising power, and an incident to be regarded in the exercise of that
power. Revenue the object, protection the incident, had been the rule
in the earlier tariffs; now that rule was sought to be reversed, and to
make protection the object of the law, and revenue the incident. Mr.
Henry Clay was the leader in the proposed revision and the
champion of the American system; he was ably supported in the
House by many able and effective speakers; who based their
argument on the general distress then alleged to be prevalent in the
country. Mr. Daniel Webster was the leading speaker on the other
side, and disputed the universality of the distress which had been
described; and contested the propriety of high or prohibitory duties,
in the present active and intelligent state of the world, to stimulate
industry and manufacturing enterprise.
The bill was carried by a close vote in both Houses. Though
brought forward avowedly for the protection of domestic
manufactures, it was not entirely supported on that ground; an
increase of revenue being the motive with some, the public debt then
being nearly ninety millions. An increased protection to the products
of several States, as lead in Missouri and Illinois, hemp in Kentucky,
iron in Pennsylvania, wool in Ohio and New York, commanded many
votes for the bill; and the impending presidential election had its
influence in its favor.
Two of the candidates, Messrs. Adams and Clay, voted for and
avowedly supported General Jackson, who voted for the bill, was for
it, as tending to give a home supply of the articles necessary in time
of war, and as raising revenue to pay the public debt; Mr. Crawford
was opposed to it, and Mr. Calhoun had withdrawn as a Presidential
candidate. The Southern planting States were dissatisfied, believing
that the new burdens upon imports which it imposed, fell upon the
producers of the exports, and tended to enrich one section of the
Union at the expense of another. The attack and support of the bill
took much of a sectional aspect; Virginia, the two Carolinas, Georgia,
and some others, being unanimous against it. Pennsylvania, New
York, Ohio, and Kentucky being unanimous for it. Massachusetts,
which up to this time had no small influence in commerce, voted,
with all, except one member, against it. With this sectional aspect, a
tariff for protection, also began to assume a political aspect, being
taken under the care of the party, afterwards denominated as Whig.
The bill was approved by President Monroe; a proof that that careful
and strict constructionist of the constitution did not consider it as
deprived of its revenue character by the degree of protection which it
extended.
A subject which at the present time is exciting much criticism, viz:
proposed amendments to the constitution relative to the election of
President and Vice-President, had its origin in movements in that
direction taken by leading Democrats during the campaign of 1824.
The electoral college has never been since the early elections, an
independent body free to select a President and Vice-President;
though in theory they have been vested with such powers, in practice
they have no such practical power over the elections, and have had
none since their institution. In every case the elector has been an
instrument, bound to obey a particular impulsion, and disobedience
to which would be attended with infamy, and with every penalty
which public indignation could inflict. From the beginning they have
stood pledged to vote for the candidate indicated by the public will;
and have proved not only to be useless, but an inconvenient
intervention between the people and the object of their choice. Mr.
McDuffie in the House of Representatives and Mr. Benton in the
Senate, proposed amendments; the mode of taking the direct vote to
be in districts, and the persons receiving the greatest number of
votes for President or Vice-President in any district, to count one
vote for such office respectively which is nothing but substituting the
candidates themselves for their electoral representatives.
In the election of 1824 four candidates were before the people for
the office of President, General Jackson, John Quincy Adams,
William H. Crawford and Henry Clay. None of them received a
majority of the 261 electoral votes, and the election devolved upon
the House of Representatives. John C. Calhoun had a majority of the
electoral votes for the office of Vice-President, and was elected. Mr.
Adams was elected President by the House of Representatives,
although General Jackson was the choice of the people, having
received the greatest number of votes at the general election. The
election of Mr. Adams was perfectly constitutional, and as such fully
submitted to by the people; but it was a violation of the demos krateo
principle; and that violation was equally rebuked. All the
representatives who voted against the will of their constituents, lost
their favor, and disappeared from public life. The representation in
the House of Representatives was largely changed at the first general
election, and presented a full opposition to the new President. Mr.
Adams himself was injured by it, and at the ensuing presidential
election was beaten by General Jackson more than two to one.
Mr. Clay, who took the lead in the House for Mr. Adams, and
afterwards took upon himself the mission of reconciling the people to
his election in a series of public speeches, was himself crippled in the
effort, lost his place in the democratic party, and joined the Whigs
(then called the national republicans). The democratic principle was
victor over the theory of the Constitution, and beneficial results
ensued. It vindicated the people in their right and their power. It re-
established parties upon the basis of principle, and drew anew party
lines, then almost obliterated under the fusion of parties during the
“era of good feeling,” and the efforts of leading men to make personal
parties for themselves. It showed the conservative power of our
government to lie in the people, more than in its constituted
authorities. It showed that they were capable of exercising the
function of self-government, and lastly, it assumed the supremacy of
the democracy for a long time, and until lost by causes to be referred
to hereafter. The Presidential election of 1824 is remarkable under
another aspect—its results cautioned all public men against future
attempts to govern presidential elections in the House of
Representatives; and it put an end to the practice of caucus
nominations for the Presidency by members of Congress. This mode
of concentrating public opinion began to be practiced as the eminent
men of the Revolution, to whom public opinion awarded a
preference, were passing away, and when new men, of more equal
pretensions, were coming upon the stage. It was tried several times
with success and general approbation, because public sentiment was
followed—not led—by the caucus. It was attempted in 1824 and
failed; all the opponents of Mr. Crawford, by their joint efforts,
succeeded, and justly in the fact though not in the motive, in
rendering these Congress caucus nominations odious to the people,
and broke them down. They were dropped, and a different mode
adopted—that of party nominations by conventions of delegates from
the States.
The administration of Mr. Adams commenced with his inaugural
address, in which the chief topic was that of internal national
improvement by the federal government. This declared policy of the
administration furnished a ground of opposition against Mr. Adams,
and went to the reconstruction of parties on the old line of strict, or
latitudinous, construction of the Constitution. It was clear from the
beginning that the new administration was to have a settled and
strong opposition, and that founded in principles of government—
the same principles, under different forms, which had discriminated
parties at the commencement of the federal government. Men of the
old school—survivors of the contest of the Adams and Jefferson
times, with some exceptions, divided accordingly—the federalists
going for Mr. Adams, the republicans against him, with the mass of
the younger generation. The Senate by a decided majority, and the
House by a strong minority, were opposed to the policy of the new
President.
In 1826 occurred the famous debates in the Senate and the House,
on the proposed Congress of American States, to contract alliances to
guard against and prevent the establishment of any future European
colony within its borders. The mission though sanctioned was never
acted upon or carried out. It was authorized by very nearly a party
vote, the democracy as a party being against it. The President, Mr.
Adams, stated the objects of the Congress to be as follows: “An
agreement between all the parties represented at the meeting, that
each will guard, by its own means, against the establishment of any
future European colony within its own borders, may be advisable.
This was, more than two years since, announced by my predecessor
to the world, as a principle resulting from the emancipation of both
the American continents. It may be so developed to the new southern
nations, that they may feel it as an essential appendage to their
independence.”
Mr. Adams had been a member of Mr. Monroe’s cabinet, filling the
department from which the doctrine would emanate. The
enunciation by him as above of this “Monroe Doctrine,” as it is
called, is very different from what it has of late been supposed to be,
as binding the United States to guard all the territory of the New
World from European colonization. The message above quoted was
written at a time when the doctrine as enunciated by the former
President through the then Secretary was fresh in the mind of the
latter, and when he himself in a communication to the American
Senate was laying it down for the adoption of all the American
nations in a general congress of their deputies. According to
President Adams, this “Monroe Doctrine” (according to which it has
been of late believed that the United States were to stand guard over
the two Americas, and repulse all intrusive colonists from their
shores), was entirely confined to our own borders; that it was only
proposed to get the other States of the New World to agree that, each
for itself, and by its own means, should guard its own territories;
and, consequently, that the United States, so far from extending
gratuitous protection to the territories of other States, would neither
give, nor receive, aid in any such enterprise, but that each should use

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Dementia, Narrative and Performance:

Staging Reality, Reimagining Identities

ISBN 978-3-030-46546-9 ISBN 978-3-030-46547-6 (eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

The arguments on which this book turns were germinated in the

Australian disability discussion group members, for inspiring and chal-

1 My Mother’s Story, My Story 1

Part I Dementia, Identity and Narrative 33

2 Recasting Senility: The Genesis of the ‘Right Kind’ of

Part II Dementia in Performance 91

4 Staging the ‘Reality’ of Dementia 93

5 Staging Dementia Voices in Australia: Missing the Bus to

6 Mapping Applied Performance in Dementia Cultures177

7 “I Don’t Want to Disappear”: Dementia and Public

Part III Dementia as Performance 245

8 Rehearsing a Theory of Dementia as Performance247

9 Revisiting My Mother’s Story, My Story269

ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission

TfD Theatre for Development

Fig. 6.2 ‘Elmer Anderson’s dream’. Photo by Skydiving Photos. Used

My Mother’s Story, My Story

My mother, Barbara Gibson, was diagnosed with ‘probable’ Alzheimer’s

© The Author(s) 2020 1

emerged in our time together: some between imagination and memory;

a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being

Neoliberalism is a pervasive global ideology, referring to the privileged

Focal Points, Challenges, and Contributions

theatre and performance practices I investigate here have emerged from

What I do aim to do in this book, overall, is to challenge the hegemony

been overwhelming and unmanageable. My attention to the West is driven

a prevalent performance mode that exists across diverse and emergent

their stories in ways acceptable to the normalising regimes in which they

especially in reference to conceptions of the ‘real’ and ‘reality’. My under-

Theoretical Contexts, Disciplinary Locations,

This book is situated at the intersection of theatre and performance stud-

As important as ‘personhood’ is in providing a critique of the dominant

upon, and, in some cases, challenged, under such monikers as “age-­

include comments made available on YouTube or in journalists’ inter-

Mapping the Arguments

Part III, ‘Dementia as Performance’, comprises Chaps. 8 and 9. In

Resisting the ‘Right Kind’ of Dementia Story

trauma, victimhood, crisis, and displacement—are performed. This can be

(2014): it helps assess whether a specific representation of age might admit

Balfour, M., and N. Woodrow. 2013. On stitches. In Refugee performance:

Casey, M. 2009. Ngapartji Ngapartji: Telling aboriginal Australian stories. In Get

———. 2008. Living autobiographically: How we create identity in narrative.

Hickey-Moody, A.C. 2009. Unimaginable bodies: Intellectual disability, perfor-

———. 2011. Disability culture and community performance. Basingstoke:

Accessed May 14, 2014. http://ageculturehumanities.org/WP/depth-

Reinstein, M. 2004. Travelling in and travelling out: Story-making with elderly

This opposition finally culminated in the assembling of a

This treaty was negotiated by the Right Honorable James Lord

President Madison, in his message, had urged upon Congress a

Upon the question of recognizing the independence of the South

You might also like

1 My Mother’s Story, My Story 1

Part I Dementia, Identity and Narrative 33

2 Recasting Senility: The Genesis of the ‘Right Kind’ of

Part II Dementia in Performance 91

4 Staging the ‘Reality’ of Dementia 93

5 Staging Dementia Voices in Australia: Missing the Bus to

6 Mapping Applied Performance in Dementia Cultures177

7 “I Don’t Want to Disappear”: Dementia and Public

Part III Dementia as Performance 245

8 Rehearsing a Theory of Dementia as Performance247

9 Revisiting My Mother’s Story, My Story269

upon, and, in some cases, challenged, under such monikers as “age-