AT 18, Teresa Plane wanted to be an actor but was advised that in the theatre you saw “a lot more dinner times than dinners”.
Setting her sights on nursing instead, Teresa became one of the state’s most senior and respected members of the profession. A pioneer in palliative care, she set up and ran the first palliative care unit in NSW at Mount Carmel Hospital in Seven Hills.
However, Teresa’s dream of greasepaint and stage lights never died and at 86 the Darlinghurst retiree achieved her ambition of treading the boards in her stage debut in the bittersweet short play The Dancing Lessons.
“I took up acting two years ago with the Kings Cross Actors,” she said. “There are 16 of us; we’re all over 60 and we’re all very keen thespians.” When a casting call went out for someone to play the part of Miriam in The Dancing Lessons, Teresa applied for and got the role.
“I told them they wouldn’t need make-up, I had all the age lines already,” she said.
The play, by Connie Schindewolf, tells the story of Catherine, a woman struggling to reconnect with her ageing mother who is suffering from dementia.
One of more than 120 entries in this year’s Sydney Short and Sweet Theatre Festival, it won its round last month and now takes on 12 of this year’s top plays in the finals from April 5-7 at the Tom Mann Theatre in Surry Hills.
“It’s a beautiful play. When I first read it I cried. It’s very sad,” said Teresa, who works as a volunteer with dementia patients at the Montefiore aged care facility in Randwick.
“Dementia is terrifying and confusing for the person involved but there is also enormous loss and grief for the family,” she said.
Teresa’s role as a dementia suffer is non-speaking and she portrays the anguish of her character’s life and experience through facial expressions and body language.
She recommends acting for older people. “You have to remember lines, it keeps you socially engaged and you make enduring friendships. It’s a lot better than sitting at home watching TV or doing the daily crossword.”
If Teresa has a motto to live by it would be “seize every moment”. When she’s not acting and volunteering, she’s singing in a choir or reading publications for 2RPH radio. She has also written her own play, which she hopes to have produced next year.
“I’m not growing old gracefully. I have lines on my face and my back and knees ache but you cannot just stagnate. I have to have a reason every morning to get up and get out.
“So many older people just sit at home and say, ‘I’m too old’. But you really need to live life to the full. You need to stay engaged... to keep renewing yourself.
"Life has got to be a perpetual adventure.”
