Using Puppets, a New Play Tells the Stories of Seniors with Dementia

“D-Generation: An Exaltation of Larks” opens this Thursday at the Irondale Ensemble Project. An original play by the Vermont-based Sandglass Theater and directed by Roberto Salomon, “D-Generation” uses a combination of live actors and hand-made puppets to grapple with the effects of late-stage dementia on the elderly, as well as their potential for creativity and communication.

“There’s an interesting correlation between puppets and people with dementia,” said Eric Bass, a performer and one of the artistic directors of Sandglass Theater. “People on the outside look at people with dementia differently. We’re afraid of them. Similarly, puppets are scary. They seem like they’re alive, but they’re not, so they can live by different rules. They can do things we can’t do and in a sense, people with dementia are like that too. They don’t have to obey social rules any more. They’re free of that.”

The members of Sandglass Theater drew from stories written by residents of the Pine Heights at Brattleboro Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation to make the play. Members of the theater troupe facilitated 20 sessions where they led groups of seniors in creating stories using an improvisational storytelling game called “Timeslips,” which aims to alleviate pressures on seniors to remember their past and encourages imaginative thinking and expression.

In the play, five puppets created by Vermont artist Coni Richards portray senior citizens with late-stage dementia while the three puppeteers (Bass, Ines Zeller Bass and Kirk Murphy) play the roles of caregivers.

“The most difficult part was walking the line where you don’t deny the terror of having dementia but you don’t deny them their humor and joy,” Bass said. “We wanted to create an uplifting piece without denying the terror.”

In order to convey what is happening in the minds of the characters, Sandglass Theater uses animated videos that are projected throughout the performance. Through this piece, Bass and his collaborators hope to show that these types of storytelling exercises can open lanes of communication between people with dementia and their caregivers.

“People with late-stage dementia don’t completely disappear,” Bass said. “There’s still room to play, to communicate. There’s a sense of poetry in it.”

“D-Generation: An Exaltation of Larks” is showing at the Irondale Ensemble Project at 85 South Oxford Street from Feb. 6 to 15. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, and Saturdays at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25 for adults and $15 for students and seniors and can be purchased online.