Later in Life, Their Curtain Rises : Geriactors Troupe Presents Skits by and for the Elderly

By DENNIS McLELLAN

Oct. 3, 1985 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

The next skit, the narrator informed the audience at the Irvine Senior Center, would dispel the myth that old age is sexless.

On stage, a man (Jim Reiss) is sitting in a chair reading a newspaper when a woman (Gladys Grunewald) walks by and trips over his foot.

He, catching her: “Oh, my goodness, did you hurt your pumpkin?”

She: “My what? “

He, jokingly, referring to her derriere : “ . . . It’s just a part of your anatomy.”

He, thinking to himself: “This is a nice-looking lady. I like her hairdo, and look at her clothes--and she does have a nice-looking pumpkin.”

She, thinking to herself: “I wonder what other interests he has besides sex.”

He, enthusiastically to himself: “I bet she’d go for one of my lasagna dinners. . . . I’ll bring out the candles and turn on a little low music and let nature take its course.”

She to herself: “I wonder how I can lure him?”

He to her: “You know, Gladys, I was wondering if you’d go to dinner with me.”

She to him: “Your place or mine?”

Loud laughter and applause as Reiss and Grunewald walk off together.

Reiss and Grunewald are members of the Irvine Senior Center’s new creative drama group: an eight-member troupe made up of people 55 and older who share an interest in drama.

They call themselves the Geriactors.

And their 25-minute performance before members of the Irvine Active Senior Citizens Club on a recent Saturday afternoon marked their stage debut.

The informal drama group is the result of senior center program coordinator Michele Bats’ desire to “add more creative forms of expression” to the center’s list of programs.

The center had contracted with Irvine resident Flora Quinlan to teach a drama class last spring. Quinlan is co-author of “Acting Up!” a practical guide outlining improvisational acting techniques for older adults.

But a minimum enrollment of 12 was needed for the class to be held and, Bats said, only three people signed up.

Undaunted, Bats continued to run announcements in the senior bulletin asking seniors who are interested in drama to contact her.

To generate further interest in drama, Bats decided to assemble those seniors who had contacted her and have them perform skits for senior citizen groups. In so doing, she reasoned, they would encourage more people to want to become involved in taking a drama class at the senior center.

The result is the Geriactors, who have been meeting once a week since mid-July to create and rehearse their skits for the show. Jokes group member Reiss: “It’s like throwing a 4-year-old into a swimming pool.”

But the Geriactors--two men and six women--have risen to the occasion.

Holly Ackman, a drama instructor, has sat in on some of the classes and offered her advice. But the group, which is using “Acting Up!” as their textbook, is run by its members.

“Jim Reiss is really our fearless leader--if we have a leader,” observed group member Jim Dowty.

“If that’s the case,” interjected Reiss, “it’s because I’m the loudest.”

It was that sort of lighthearted banter that set the tone in a meeting room at the senior center where the cast members began gathering about an hour before show time.

“The thing about this group is the personalities,” observed Bats. “They work so well together. They giggle a lot when they’re together and just have fun.”

The Geriactors is a conglomeration of experienced and inexperienced actors. They’re a busy bunch whose diverse retirement activities dispel one of the myths about aging that they puncture in one of their skits: that senior citizens don’t do anything of value.

The players, in no particular order, are:

- Hortense Silver. Her acting experience, as she says, “goes way back.” (She won’t say how far).

“I studied at the University of Texas. I was in the Curtain Club and very privileged to be in one of Tennessee Williams’ first intimate theater shows, ‘The Eve of St. Mark,’ produced through the university.

“I’ve taken a great deal of drama, I’ve taught drama and been in many little theater shows. This (the Geriactors) is very interesting because it’s a whole new approach to drama for seniors. It’s very difficult to get a play or any type of structured piece for seniors alone.

“This creative type of improvisation is just wonderful. And this appeals not only to people who have loved drama and been involved with it, but it appeals to people with no (acting) experience who want to do this. It’s a wonderful outlet.”

- Jim Reiss. He earned a degree in drama from the University of Michigan, acted in professional summer stock and, in the late ‘40s, acted on such radio dramas as “The Lone Ranger,” “The Green Hornet” and “Call of the Yukon” in which, he said, “I was crowd noise primarily.”

After two years of professional acting, Reiss branched into other lines of work, including working as a manager in an electronics firm during the 10 years before his retirement.

“I have time now which I want to expend in the creativity I thought this (the Geriactors) would allow for,” he said, adding, “I’m taking piano and I eventually want to entertain in rest homes.”

- Jan Styers. She appeared in high school and college productions and recently took an acting class at Saddleback College. She also has studied script writing and is working on a novel on hostels for the elderly.

“I just like to do creative things and get my feet wet,” she said.

- Rose Sonen. She has had no acting experience, but she met Grunewald at the senior center’s folk dance class “and she told me how much fun it (the group) was. I thought it would be a wonderful experience. I came down and liked the people and here I am.”

- Jim Dowty. A retired mechanical engineer, Dowty was active with the theater group at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach and the defunct Children’s Theatre Guild in Costa Mesa. When he saw Bats’ announcement in the newspaper, he said, “It sounded interesting.”

- Gladys Grunewald. She said she has had “no formal training” but has always enjoyed being in plays in church and school. She also has taken an adult education drama class and said the Geriactors not only appealed to her “because it was drama,” but “when I first met them I wanted to stay.”

When the group was asked if any of its members are hams, Grunewald’s hand was the first to shoot up. Joked Reiss: “We have to keep Gladys in control.”

- Louise Hargreaves. She’s had no acting experience but explained that she joined the group because “I had a stroke a few years ago and thought it might help my speech, and a lot of things, if I participated in drama.”

This will be her stage debut and, she admitted with a laugh, “I’m nervous.”

“Everybody is,” observed Silver.

“We’re always nervous--no matter what,” said Dowty.

“It goes with the territory,” added Reiss.

Continued Hargreaves: “It’s been wonderful for me. I’ve never been able to get up in front of a group, but now--hopefully . . . “

- Elizabeth Bruiger. She’s had no acting experience and, she confessed, “I sort of got roped into this.”

She explained that this year she is second vice president and program chairman of the Irvine Active Senior Citizens Club and she heard about the group at a board of directors meeting. As program chairman, she said, she came to a meeting of the Geriactors simply to see what it was all about.

“I sat in and they sort of conned me into participating,” she said with a laugh. Despite her protestation that acting wasn’t her “cup of tea,” she joined the group.

She laughed when asked if she now views it as her “cup of tea.”

“Well,” she said, “we’ll see after today’s performance. . . .”

Actually, their debut performance went rather well and the Geriactors were well-received by the audience.

After doing three skits that dispelled different myths of old age, cast members took their turns in a sequence of individual performances that illustrated what narrator Jim Dowty described as “how some of us adjust--or not adjust--to this great way of life, retirement.”

Grunewald took a humorous approach to the subject, portraying a classic whiner--the type of woman who, when asked how she is feeling today, replies, “Oh, not so good. My back hurts. I do the dishes and make the bed and there’s nothing to do the rest of the day.”

Sonen, on the other hand, aptly portrayed a woman who is enjoying her retirement years.

“It’s such fun to discover new interests at our age,” she said. “I’m taking folk dancing and I love it, and Geriactors is a great challenge. In doing these classes, I’m meeting such interesting people: a senior who celebrated his 69th birthday by going up in a hot-air balloon. . . . Many retired people want to help others--one volunteers for a suicide prevention program. Our retirement years are really what we make of them. They can be exciting and rewarding.”

As the audience watched a movie on an “Acting Up!” workshop, the Geriactors filed back into the meeting room for a critique of their stage debut.

“I thought it went better than I expected,” said Bruiger.

“Yes,” said Hargreaves, “I enjoyed it so thoroughly.”

Bats breezed into the room clapping. “That was so good,” she enthused. “It was perfect.”

“I think the audience laughed at the right places,” said Reiss. “I don’t think we embarrassed ourselves.”

“I think the audience responded beautifully,” said Silver. “That’s always the answer for a good show, if the audience is with you.”

“Oh, I love the applause,” Grunewald said, grinning broadly: “I’m just a ham.”