Скачать или смотреть Djuna Barnes (as Lydia Steptoe), Madame Grows Older: A Journal at the Dangerous Age.

The story written by Djuna Barnes under the pen name of Lydia Steptoe was first published in 'Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine' in 1924. I edited it here a bit to make it shorter and to focus more on its main motif: the emotional and sexual interest of a mature woman in a relationship with a much younger male lover. Today, despite the official announcements in lifestyle magazines stating that for women their 40s are now the new 20s, this kind of coupling is still as strange for the majority of society as a relationship of a man (at any age) with an older woman. As I am looking forward to my 42nd birthday in 2021, I have found very interesting material in this story for thinking about all that has changed during the past 100 years and all of this which simply hasn’t. The question 'Who am I?' (a basic, crucial question to ask when you're working on a character as an actress) splits here clearly into a few different (but of course strictly interconnected) issues which seem to be more urgent problems to consider: How do I perceive myself? How do I want and not want to be perceived by others? How does the society perceive me... and what does it mean for me? And, finally: what does it mean To Be Me at a certain age?