{"id":357716,"date":"2025-08-19T21:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/357716\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T21:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T21:12:12","slug":"some-of-us-dread-ageing-for-these-stage-actors-it-makes-them-freer-than-ever-australian-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/357716\/","title":{"rendered":"Some of us dread ageing. For these stage actors, it makes them freer than ever | Australian theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Meldrum stalks the stage of the Explosives Factory in St Kilda in a long coat and hat, bewildered and buffeted by a lifetime of memories, grappling with grief and attrition in a dimming and desolate landscape. He\u2019s not suffering from any loss of faculties; he\u2019s simply an actor inhabiting the world of Samuel Beckett<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meldrum and his director and longtime collaborator, Richard Murphet (both in their mid-70s), are preparing to open Still, a compendium of six monologues cobbled from the Irish writer\u2019s later works. While it speaks to universal themes of resilience and despair, it also captures the experience of any ageing actor who puts their body through the nightly rigours of stage work. As Beckett says in his 1953 novel The Unnamable, \u201c \u2026 you must go on. I can\u2019t go on. I\u2019ll go on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I could in any way have done this in my 20s,\u201d says Meldrum. \u201cMy ability to be completely still and present enables me to go into this work in a way I couldn\u2019t before.\u201d Murphet agrees, adding that Beckett\u2019s \u201cunderstanding of age and of maturity, the wealth of experience laid on top of you, is really deep. I sense it would be very difficult for a young person to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a culture we tend to talk about ageing as a series of losses, a whittling away of vigour and ability, but talking to actors in the latter part of their career reveals something more complex and moving. Apart from obvious issues with mobility and strength (Meldrum jokingly mentions \u201cwalking around and going up and down stairs\u201d as areas of difficulty), these performers feel freer and more focused than ever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel I\u2019m performing the best I\u2019ve ever performed,\u201d Meldrum says. \u201cAs far as the idea of age slowing you down, it\u2019s been a positive for me because I\u2019ve always been a bit speedy.\u201d Working with young actors as a lecturer at Victorian College of the Arts and now at the National Theatre<\/a>, he notes the biggest challenge \u201cis getting them to be still, not to constantly think ahead. It\u2019s huge. Maybe it takes a lifetime?\u201d<\/p>\n

Evelyn Krape in Yentl, the 2024 production at Malthouse, Melbourne. Photograph: Jeff Busby<\/p>\n

Evelyn Krape has experienced something of a career renaissance lately, wowing audiences in Kadimah Yiddish Theatre\u2019s production of Yentl<\/a>, playing an ancient mischievous spirit \u2013 an irrepressible agent of chaos scampering up ladders and jumping on beds. She also recently finished a run in Tom Gleisner and Katie Weston\u2019s musical Bloom, carrying the emotional stakes of the show as a vibrant, colourful woman coming to the end of her life in a soulless nursing home.<\/p>\n

The latter is a rare naturalistic, age-appropriate role for 76-year-old Krape, who has specialised in a more freewheeling and vaudevillian performance style, notably in the plays of her late husband Jack Hibberd.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never really played my age. In Dimboola I played a nine-year-old girl. At 21, I played Granny Hills in the Hills Family Show, where I had thick knitting yarn sewn in between two stockings to give me varicose veins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Le Gateau Chocolat and Paul Capsis in Black Rider at the Malthouse in 2017. Photograph: Pia Johnson<\/p>\n

At 61, actor and cabaret legend Paul Capsis is younger than Krape and Meldrum, but after the recent death of his mother he\u2019s found himself thinking about second acts and what his might look like.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf anything, I\u2019m planning on being crazier and more debauched,\u201d he jokes over the phone from Lisbon, where he\u2019s having a break before starting rehearsals for Sydney Theatre Company\u2019s upcoming production of The Shiralee. \u201cBecause I don\u2019t feel any different, you know? I still think I\u2019m 35 \u2013 and then my body goes \u2018Oh hell no, bitch!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Capsis doesn\u2019t necessarily place restrictions on himself as a performer these days, but he does want more agency over certain conditions. \u201cI\u2019ve turned down gigs because they were asking me to sing in that countertenor range, and I just don\u2019t want to do that to my voice any more. I\u2019m also much more interested in a director\u2019s process. I want to know as much as I can before going in.\u201d<\/p>\n

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While fear \u2013 of forgetting lines or blocking, or folding under the pressures of a long run \u2013 can increase with age, so too does confidence in one\u2019s skills. \u201cI feel more certain about myself as a performer,\u201d Krape says. \u201cI\u2019m not afraid to really go for things and if they work, they work. If they don\u2019t, you try something else.\u201d<\/p>\n

All the actors Guardian spoke with mentioned wanting more time in the rehearsal room. Most commercial theatre productions have a three-week rehearsal period, \u201cwhich is not enough\u201d, says Capsis. \u201cNot nearly enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA gift for an actor is a second or third season,\u201d says Krape. \u201cBecause you can\u2019t help but scratch the surface the first time. If you don\u2019t get that time to really play, things are more token and superficial.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meldrum and Murphet extended their rehearsal process over an entire year. It\u2019s a method drawn from famed European theatre companies such as Berlin\u2019s Schaub\u00fchne or Peter Brook\u2019s Bouffes du Nord, where rehearsal periods are ongoing and open-ended. \u201cThere was no time frame [for Still],\u201d says Meldrum. \u201cWe just worked until it was ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, financial constraints mean this type of deep exploration is rare. Most actors in Australia, even at the pointy ends of their careers, work hand to mouth and can\u2019t afford to luxuriate over roles. Retirement seems almost unthinkable. \u201cThere\u2019s still so much I want to do. I hope not to have to retire,\u201d says Krape. Meldrum is blunter: \u201cI can\u2019t afford to retire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why even countenance the idea when the work is so rewarding and the contributions these actors make are so vitalising for an industry often transfixed by youth? Murphet says the work \u201ckeeps me alive, it keeps me energised. And if I wasn\u2019t doing it, then I would slip into senility. So I can\u2019t say that there\u2019s anything about it that makes me feel old, because there isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Meldrum stalks the stage of the Explosives Factory in St Kilda in a long coat and hat,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-357716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115057494805801387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}