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Ham Night at
the Senior Center
Elder Performances
Boost Creativity, Memory, Social Links -- and Kids' Doubts
By
Stefanie Weiss
The Washington Post, October
29, 2002
The director of the Center on Aging, Health and
Humanities at GWU believes seniors who take up creative activities take
great strides to maintain and improve their health.
My 71-year-old father is wearing knickers, a dirty white shirt, a
filthy apron and a black cap. He's got a week's worth of gray stubble on
his chin and appears to be missing one front tooth. He's waving his arms
and swaggering as if he's drained one too many tankards of ale. He's
mouthing the words to a song, but no sound is coming out of his lips.
I seem to be the only one, among the hundreds of people watching, who's
worried about any of this. His friends and neighbors at Leisure World are
laughing, clapping and tapping their toes to the soundtrack from "Les
Miserables." In this lip-synched version of the song "Master of
the House," Dad plays a drunken, slovenly innkeeper with gusto.
I'm laughing and clapping, too, but on the inside I'm having a hard
time accepting my father's post-retirement remake. In 45 years of working,
my father seemed content to be a tall, shy and (no polite way to put it)
geeky guy who wore a pocket protector and an undershirt, did good deeds
and sang only in the shower. In the three years since he retired, Dad
seems to have emerged a new man -- a tall, shy and geeky older guy . . .
who wants to be a star.
My father has been infected late in life by the theater virus,
afflicted with let's-put-on-a-show fever, and he's not alone. In
retirement communities across the nation, 60-, 70- and 80-somethings are
taking to the stage for the first time in their lives or in decades.
They're singing in musicals, tapping in talent shows and killing in comedy
clubs. They're having the time of their lives.
So what's my problem? I know, I know -- it's all fun, cheap and
accessible to those who can't drive at night. But frankly, like any good
parent . . . er, adult child, I worry when people I love are having too
much fun, particularly when I don't quite get the joke.
So, in the great tradition of caring family members everywhere, I
started snooping. I went to shows, rehearsals and auditions. I talked with
directors, other star-struck seniors and my mom. But it wasn't until I met
Gene Cohen, director of the Center on Aging, Health & Humanities at
George Washington University, that I began to understand.
The author of "The Creative Age: Awakening Human Potential in the
Second Half of Life" (HarperCollins, 2000), Cohen assured me that my
father's interest in doing daring new things on stage isn't a medical
condition. In fact, he said, seniors who take up creative activities are
taking great strides to maintain and improve their health.
I raised my middle-aged eyebrows -- and asked more questions.
Question: My father played Captain Von Trappe in an adaptation
of "The Sound of Music." He "sang"
"Edelweiss" with great enthusiasm, even though all the audience
heard was the recorded voice of Christopher Plummer. He even
"married" Maria at the end. When I asked him about it, he just
giggled. What's the diagnosis?
Answer: Most likely my father is in the "liberation
phase," Cohen said. Life after 40, Cohen believes, typically falls
into four developmental phases: There's the widely known midlife crisis or
"reevaluation phase," followed by the "liberation
phase," the "summing up phase" and the "encore
phase."
My father is past the first phase and too young for the last two. But
he's right in the midst of liberation. He has accepted his mortality,
gotten past the angst and vanity that aging often provokes. At this stage,
my father and a lot of other people between 55 and 75 are looking at the
remainder of their lives with fresh eyes, free from the limits they've set
for themselves and the expectations others have had of them. They're ready
to be who they are.
And armed with what Cohen calls a newfound "ability to be
outrageous," they are ready for some risk. When that inner sense of
liberation coincides with the liberation from work known as retirement,
watch out.
Question: My dad takes weekly singing lessons and auditioned
for a big part in "Call Me Madam," which involves real lines and
real singing. "If I'm ever going to get to Broadway," he told
me, "I'm going to have to work my way up the ladder. Stars are not
born, they're made." Was he kidding, doctor?
Answer: Performing gives people a "tremendous sense of
empowerment and exhilaration that further motivates them," Cohen
said. "They're thinking, 'My God, I did it. I want to do it again. I
want to do more.' " And they don't seem fazed by the gap between
their age and their dreams.
Cohen's book is full of margin notes that flag the achievements of
people trying some creative feat for the first time late in life and
making it big. The Post's Katharine Graham wrote her first book at 79 and
won a Pulitzer Prize. Grandma Moses didn't begin painting until she was
78, then had 15 one-woman shows. Who knows where my father's dramatics
could lead?
Question: In the months last spring between his diagnosis with
prostate cancer and the surgery to remove his prostate, my father seemed
afraid. When I ask him how he's holding up, he says, "Terrible. I
can't seem to remember the words, and I'm really worried about being able
to hit all the high notes." He is not afraid of dying on the
operating table. He is afraid of dying on stage, while wearing a tuxedo
and trying to sing "Begin the Beguine." Shouldn't Dad be
stressing out about important things?
Answer: Routing anxiety through a creative outlet is a great
idea, and "may even contribute to physical healing," Cohen told
me.
In his book, he cites studies that show, first, that the mind-body
connection is "most robust" in later life and, second, that
creative activity "can lead to an increased production of protective
immune cells."
"Creativity is an emotional and intellectual process -- a
mechanism -- that can, moment by moment, displace negative feelings, such
as anxiety or hopelessness, with positive feelings of engagement and
expectation," Cohen writes. Besides, it's a heck of a distraction.
Question: Yes, but what's my dad really getting in return for
all the hours of rehearsal that he might have spent, say, oh, babysitting
his only grandchild?
Answer: Fun and friends, physical exercise, mental health,
motivation and independence, for starters. Plus he's contributing to the
culture of the community. He's even boosting his brainpower, Cohen said.
"Anything that can make you intellectually sweat will have a
positive impact on the brain," he explained. Cohen says that
experiments with lab animals have shown that the aging brain responds
"to mental exercises in much the same way that muscle responds to
physical exercise."
Question: When my father was rehearsing for the role of Mr.
Bumble, the headmaster in "Oliver." he spent a lot of time
kibitizing with his fellow actors, especially "Mrs. Bumble."
Should my mother have worried?
Answer: Your mother should be pleased that your father is
"diversifying his social portfolio," Cohen said. He's building a
variety of new relationships, meaningful in different ways, that will help
him stay creative and cope with physical decline and the death of friends
in the future.
Theater also creates opportunities to diversify social activities,
balancing what Cohen called "individual with group activities, high
energy with low, and high mobility with low mobility." You need some
of each, he said, to have "true 'social security.' "
Last Question: Why does my father continue to blacken his
tooth, grow a beard and do that "Master of the House" skit, even
after the show is over?
Answer Maybe he's just trying to get it right. Or make people
laugh. Or maybe, Cohen suggested, he's playing out some inner desire.
Unlike other creative arts, theater gives actors the chance to take on new
roles, which can be a way to "explore further aspects of yourself.
It's a chance for discovery," he said.
When I asked Dad why he loves that skit so much, he said: "It's
become my trademark song. That performance established my credentials at
Leisure World. Now when I come into a room, people say, 'Here comes the
master of the house.' "
Who wouldn't want to try that role on for size?•
Stefanie Weiss works at the University of
Maryland's Academy of Leadership. Dave Weiss has a small part in the
Leisure World production of "Call Me Madam," which will be
staged next month.
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