Looking Straight at the Struggles of Old Age

PARIS — There is something piercing, almost brutal, about watching someone struggle to walk, eat or even sit down. When faced with the physical decline that often comes with old age, many of us instinctively avert our eyes. In Paris, however, two theater artists are forcing audiences to look.

In “A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad,” a new play by the writer and director Carole Thibaut, the members of an extended family gather around their ailing matriarch — who may or may not have passed away. And mortality looms even larger in “A Death in the Family,” a new play by the British playwright Alexander Zeldin, which is primarily set in a French nursing home.

If there is such a thing as an overly naturalistic play, “A Death in the Family,” which had its premiere at the Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, may represent it for some people. In truth, nothing much happens for long stretches. Zeldin convincingly portrays daily life, down to the bland furniture and wall colors, in an institution for residents at the end of their lives: The most dramatic event of all awaits, but in the meantime, the days must be filled.

There are slow, silent meals, and group activities to make viewers in good health wince — especially those closest to the actors, in seats onstage. Is it compassion we feel as we watch the residents working hard to follow basic dance movements to a children’s song? Or panic, at the thought of a potential future we would rather ignore?

Zeldin has experience when it comes to discomfort. The “Inequalities” trilogy he created between 2014 and 2019 (composed of “Beyond Caring,” “Love” and “Faith, Hope and Charity”) turned the spotlight on casualties of government austerity policies in Britain, including workers with insecure contracts and homeless families. His work found eager audiences abroad, and an invitation from the Odéon led him to stage his first production in French — a language he speaks fluently.

The realities of old age have been in the spotlight lately in France. This month, the government began an investigation into one of the country’s largest nursing home providers after a journalist published a book accusing the company of mistreating residents.

For the theater world, the upheaval caused by the pandemic has provided unlikely opportunities to reconnect with older audiences. In summer 2020, the first professional performance after France’s stringent initial lockdown was held at a nursing home in Chalon-sur-Saône, in the east, and a number of performers have brought readings and small-scale performances to hospitals.

With “A Death in the Family,” Zeldin has done the reverse, bringing older people to perform in one of Paris’s most prestigious playhouses. He and his team did extensive research in local nursing homes, and out of 13 roles in the play, a handful are taken by older amateur performers. (Eight actors alternate in these parts.) This is no walk in the park in a pandemic: The premiere had to be postponed three times because of coronavirus safety measures.

Other than the fact that the amateurs have fewer lines than their experienced colleagues, it is nearly impossible to tell the two groups apart, with strong performances across the board. On the night I attended, Francine Champion — making her stage debut at the age of 93 — caught the eye as one of the nursing home residents. So did the veteran actor Annie Mercier, while Nicole Dogué and Karidja Touré brought touching empathy to their roles as nursing assistants.

One resident serves as the main character: Marguerite Brun, who is introduced at her overwhelmed daughter’s home. Zeldin’s typically sharp and economical dialogue fails him in some scenes involving Marguerite’s family, with lines that don’t land quite as naturally in French as they do in his English-language productions. Still, casting Marie-Christine Barrault, an Oscar nominee in 1977 for the film “Cousin Cousine,” as the initially prickly Marguerite was an inspired move. Her radical vulnerability as the character declines, especially in the nearly silent scene in which Dogué gives her a bed bath with a kind, unspoken sense of intimacy, is likely to linger in many people’s minds.

“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” lacks the laser directorial focus of “A Death in the Family,” but it is far less bleak. The imminent death of the main character, Galia, is treated as an opportunity for her family to rally and find meaning in their shared history, however painful.

As Galia, Monique Brun is the glue that holds the cast — and the performance — together. She spends much of the show in a red armchair center stage. Her deep, exuberant voice projects no self-pity, even when she may be speaking from beyond the grave, since the timeline is blurred. Yet she is deeply affecting, too, when she gets out of the chair at night and walks slowly and stiffly, reminiscing quietly with one of the loves of her life.

“A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” is a little chaotic when it comes to the rest of the characters, perhaps because it attempts to portray so many generations at once — and to tie them to real historical events, like the rise and decline of the local coal industry. The production has been in Paris at the Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, but it was inspired by the history of the city of Montluçon, in central France, where Thibaut has been the director of the Théâtre des Îlets since 2016.

Years of research went into this ambitious project, and plenty of details ring thoughtfully true, like the death of Galia’s fictional parents during World War II. During one interlude about the city’s economy, tiny bottles of local wine are even handed out to the audience. But the dialogue doesn’t quite flow, with tonal changes, heavy-handed voice-over commentary and tangential stories about, for instance, one granddaughter’s anger at the casual misogyny of the older men in the family.

It’s all believable, and Thibaut has been a major voice for feminism in the French theater for years. Yet “A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad” has more emotional heft when it focuses on the rite of passage underway for Galia and her family. Like Zeldin, Thibaut doesn’t shy away from portraying death, and however hard it is to look, there may be closure in following them down that path.

A Death in the Family. Directed by Alexander Zeldin. Odéon-Théâtre de l’Europe, through Feb. 20.
A Century — Life and Death of Galia Libertad. Directed by Carole Thibaut. Théâtre de la Cité Internationale, through Feb. 26.