Care review – this searing portrayal of dementia raises urgent questions for us all
Young Vic, LondonAlexander Zeldin’s devastating play depicts the gruelling loneliness and confusion of life in a care homeAlexander Zeldin’s characters often inhabit the margins, from zero-hours workers to apparently unremarkable...
By Arifa Akbar · The Guardian Culture
Young Vic, London Alexander Zeldin’s devastating play depicts the gruelling loneliness and confusion of life in a care home Alexander Zeldin’s characters often inhabit the margins, from zero-hours workers to apparently unremarkable wives and mothers. Here is another community of the socially invisible presented by the writer-director: a cohort of elderly people in a care home. Set in what seems like a locked dementia ward, this play is both an unwavering portrait of what it means to be old, and an indictment of a system that leads to such acute loneliness in this last leg of life. In the book Being Mortal, the writer-surgeon Atul Gawande asks: “ Why, as you become older and sicker, should you give up your autonomy? ” Zeldin explores this from the point of view of Joan (Linda Bassett, moving beyond measure), who thinks she has been admitted on a temporary basis. Continue reading...