That old story: Artangel theatre piece puts men's ageing in the shop window

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/may/29/that-old-story-artangel-theatre-mens-ageing-shop-window

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“When you get white hair people patronise you, treat you as if you are a congenital idiot, start calling you we,” rails the 82-year-old actor Dudley Sutton before sipping his Red Bull and making a start on a packet of digestives.

Soon he will be on set for rehearsals which involve him taking his shirt off, removing his dentures, cutting his toenails – all the things we don’t really want to see old men doing. “It is the natural way of life but the modern world would prefer we were all airbrushed and we stayed pleasant to look at,” says director Lu Kemp.

Kemp has been commissioned by the adventurous art group Artangel to create a piece which explores the problems and issues men face when they get old. The result is Have Your Circumstances Changed? a piece named after the officious letter people receive from the TV licensing authorities.

The setting is possibly the least glamorous location in London. The Artangel team has taken over a former Fads decorating shop, soon to be torn down, in a shabby, rundown square near Archway tube station in north London. Outside are plastic chairs from the closed bookie’s next door and empty cans which rattle around in the wind.

Next week the shop windows will be transformed into three theatre sets: a kitchen, a front room and a bathroom. Inside will be wordless, choreographed performances by three older men and three young boys.

The audience will watch the triptych of 15-minute performances wearing noise-cancelling headphones.

To prepare for the piece Kemp and Artangel producer Rachel Anderson spent time with a project offering cookery lessons for older men in north London, many of whom had little idea of how to cook beyond heating a tin of soup. “One man admitted he’d never opened an oven door,” said Anderson. “He’d had his lunch every day in the same cafe since the second world war.”

The pieces are performed by professional actors in their 70s and 80s and boys aged under 12 from a local theatre school. Their focus will essentially be the domestic chores and difficulties of life, and questions about the quality and responsibilities of care.

The pieces raise questions about who is the adult and who the child. Will these boys be the ones who grow up to make the political decisions around care? Are the boys and men the same people?

“We all know the older generation is just exploding,” said Kemp. “We now talk about younger old and oldest old ... there’s new terminology coming up all of the time. The idea that we would retire at 65 and then die soon after is no longer the case.”

Kemp believes the current care system does not cater for people until crisis hits and cites a terrible story from an older man who collapsed in the bath, could not move and was not discovered for three days.

She also has experience from her own parents. After her dad died, her mum was left incapacitated – she had done all the caring and he looked after everything financial, so she had no clue about bills or whether there was a mortgage. “She was disabled by that,” said Kemp. “I was also acutely aware that if my mother had died first my father could not have cooked an egg.”

Kemp, an associate director with Inspector Sands theatre company is more used to directing on a conventional theatre stage but is enjoying the challenge of something which is more a blend of theatre and performance art.

Artangel is known for its challenging, eye-catching commissions. Previous works include Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave, in which he organised the re-enactment of a memorable flashpoint between police and striking miners, and PJ Harvey publicly recording her next album in a glass studio in Somerset House.

It is always about asking artists to do things they could not do with any other company, said Kemp. “They are asking me to do something completely outside of my own work and my comfort zone which is interesting.”

Sutton, a familiar face on stage and screen since the 1960s, is the oldest actor involved and he too is having fun. “I always like doing things that scare me to death,” he said.

• Have Your Circumstances Changed? 3-28 June at the former Fads shop, 2-3 Archway Mall, London N19 5RG. Tickets can be reserved on a donation/pay-what-you-can basis here.