Inspired by hospices, mystics and trips to the cemetery, Age is a Feeling is a never-the-same-twice show is a gripping story about how our relationship with mortality shapes the way we live. Charting the seminal moments, rites of passage and turning points in an adult life – your life – from the day you turn 25 through to your death, Age is a Feeling celebrates the glorious and melancholy unknowability of human life. We sat down with Haley McGee to discuss her upcoming performance.
Age is a Feeling shifts depending on the age of the performer playing it. Now that you’re revisiting the show at 40, what moments feel sharper, heavier, or more generous than when you first wrote it at 35?
When I wrote it at 35, I talked about seeing photos of your younger self and being astounded by the beauty you possessed even though you ‘had a meltdown in the mirror before leaving the house’. And now, at 40, I look at photos of myself at 35 and think, oh my gosh, I was so young—so fresh! I’m sure this is an experience that just keeps happening throughout one’s life.
But on a deeper note, there’s a story in the show where the protagonist loses a friend who is 39 to cancer. And now having lost Adam Brace, who directed the show, in his early 40s, that section takes on a new meaning, even though the details of his death are different.
The show asks audiences to imagine their life unfolding from 25 to death. What surprised you most about how different audiences respond to that invitation, especially across cultures and age groups?
The biggest surprise is that there hasn’t been much of a difference. I was really struck by this when I premiered the show in Edinburgh, where I could see the entire audience (because the theatre couldn’t achieve a blackout, and I was performing it at noon every day). I had expected the show to resonate most with women in their mid-30s, people like me. And many times, I would look out and see elderly men wiping tears from their eyes.
You describe the piece as a quiet rebellion against cynicism and regret. Was there a moment in your own life when cynicism felt especially tempting, and this show became a way of pushing back against it?
Candidly, I was starting to feel a bit cynical about my work in the theatre before I moved to the UK from Canada when I was 30. I’d formed ideas about how things ‘should’ be going, and that’s a mindset breads cynicism and entitlement.
Moving countries and starting again at 30 turned out to be an antidote to that. Suddenly I couldn’t take anything for granted — not friendships, not the smallest career opportunity. I felt grateful for everything. There’s nothing like placing yourself in an unknown situation to completely reframe feelings of cynicism or that you’re owed something from the world.
And more generally, in moments where I’ve felt despair or stuck, remembering how fragile and fleeting life is has been incredibly focusing. I made my will recently, and that was another stark reminder of how precious life is and how deliberately I want to live it.
Mortality is often treated as something abstract or distant, yet your work brings it into very ordinary, intimate spaces. How did you find a balance between tenderness and honesty without tipping into sentimentality?
Well, first of all, thank you for framing it in that way. I have worked hard in the editing process to tell the moments around mortality as truthfully and clearly as I can, oftentimes focusing on what was said and what was done. I think this helps.
Having seen Age is a Feeling translated and reinterpreted by performers aged 24 to 56, what do you think the show ultimately says about ageing, not as a number, but as a lived emotional state?
That actually, the best is always yet to come. Is that true? Maybe that’s too simple. How about this: That ageing is inevitable, but our relationship with the passing of time has a lot to do with how we feel about getting older. And how we feel about something creates an inner climate… and most of how we feel is determined by our inner climate.
Age is a Feeling plays at Soho Theatre Walthamstow 5-7th March, tickets are available here.