Age

In the category of “it ain’t over til it’s over and then some,” I just read the niftiest news in The New York Times.  Cicely Tyson, 78, will be back on Broadway for the first time in almost 30 years and Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones will be back together on stage in the West End of London next fall.  Jones, who is 81, and Redgrave, 75, will play a pair of lovers in Much Ado About Nothing.  

  

I remember once seeing Shirley MacLaine singing and dancing on an awards show. At the time she was 50 and I was in my 30’s. I experienced some kind of seismic shift in my sensibilities about age at that very moment. I thought I knew what 50 looked like but this woman did not look or dance like whatever I thought 50 was. She seemed 35. I was wise enough then, I guess, to know that was really cool. Fifty didn’t have to be any certain thing.

Nor do 81, 78, or 75.