She lived to be 122 years old and still holds the record as the world’s oldest documented living person. She conducted a clever real estate transaction and outlived her buyer.
The irony of a “long-life well-lived” is that one often ends it alone. For old women there are few exceptions. THE OLD BIRD immortalizes one.
The play was inspired by the life of Jeanne Calment, documented by Guinness World Records to be the world’s oldest living person. She was born in Arles, France in 1875 and died in 1997 at 122 years of age. As did the real woman, the Jeanne of THE OLD BIRD claimed to have met Van Gogh, among others. She sold her apartment in a “reverse mortgage” but managed to outlive the “deal.” Iconoclast that she was, she refused to sit back in a nursing home rocker to live out her life. Instead she smoked, biked, swam and ate her daily sweets. In this play, Jeanne savors the fictional friendships of those she meets along the way—a fictional niece, realtor, and not so fictional “acheteur d’appartment,” the man who bought her apartment and in another great irony had to pay her a monthly stipend for her life. In a larger sense Jeanne challenges us all to value a full and adventuresome life. To paraphrase the living woman, “You can have sadness and troubles at any age; so for now just smile.”