With a light of their own: Re-imagining ageing femininity in two contemporary dramatic monologues

This article offers a textual analysis of Mojisola Adebayo's STARS (2019) and Marina Carr's iGirl (2021). Both plays were conceived through the dramaturgical form of a monologue; yet, they respond to extremely different interpretations of old age as well as of theatricality. On the one hand, Carr's piece clearly employs non-Naturalistic strategies to depict the older woman within a fully symbolic and depersonalized sphere, namely, as the embodiment of a polyvocal allegory of humanity that is expressed through an aged, feminine lens. On the other hand, Adebayo's piece creates a 'confessional' monologue with a predominantly realistic portrayal of ageing at its core: while the protagonist's ethnic, social-class and gender-specific identities render her marginal, she favours a story of late-life desire that contests the ageist and sexist components of the narrative of decline. Through a close reading of each playtext in the light of intersectional discourses of age and gender, we intend to demonstrate how these two Anglo-Irish monologues have the capacity to both absorb and promote different images and conceptions of old age from the contemporary stage. As will be argued, the distinctive dramaturgical devices and theatrical strategies employed in Adebayo's and Carr's pieces for mature women actors not only singularize the experience of older women on the stage, but also update the archetypal view of the theatre of the world by making them representatives of society and of humankind with a light of their own.