In the Armenian documentary Outliving Shakespeare, directors Inna Sahakyan and Ruben Ghazaryan follow a group of retirement home residents staging a play, revealing how performance becomes a means of confronting memory, displacement, and aging. Mariola Wiktor reflects on a film that blends theatricality with lived experience.
Aging human skin—its texture, spots, and wrinkles—not coincidentally juxtaposed with the peeling walls of halls and corridors, make up the opening scenes of the documentary Outliving Shakespeare, directed by Inna Sahakyan and Ruben Ghazaryan. Close-ups of skin, which is a reflection of our lives, not only foreshadow the themes of transience and old age but also introduce an element of theatricality. Skin, the body, is a costume, a mask beneath which emotions and memories pulse, but also unresolved traumas from the past. These are sufficient reasons why Garnik Seyranyan, a theatre director, organizes a group of a dozen or so residents of an Armenian retirement home in the film to stage a play titled Shakespeare’s Sins.
A creative project that soon turns into something more. We observe the actors throughout the entire process of preparing for the play. We are with them as they read their lines, during rehearsals, and in breaks filled with personal conversations. Theatre reignites their energy and restores their dignity, transforming the retirement home into a space of imagination. Yet offstage, loneliness still hangs in the air. Shakespeare’s tragedies ultimately find their echo in the actors’ lives. They, too, like Shakespeare’s characters, have experienced love, betrayal, grief, and exile. One woman finds and loses her Romeo, another is rejected by her son, and yet another is forced to return to the facility after running away from home following the latest forced resettlement of the Armenian population.
Bagrata Saroyan’s camera closely observes the facial expressions of the seniors, the dilapidated Soviet-era building, yawning cats, billiards, nostalgic portraits of Stalin hanging on the wall, and a strange talking device showing old Russian cartoons. Yet amidst all this, the directors reveal a tragic event that disrupts the peace within these rooms: radio and television broadcast news of tens of thousands of refugees fleeing to Armenia from the Artsakh region—the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh—following attacks by Azerbaijani forces.
As the performance progresses, the line between drama and reality becomes increasingly blurred. The dilapidated building itself, though bearing traces of its former glory, becomes part of the stage; a bright and almost carefree portrait of aging transforms into a profound exploration of loneliness, exile, and loss. Yet in the collective power of theatre, there remains the possibility of being seen, heard, and loved once more.
Outliving Shakespeare is part of the art therapy movement, a genre of films that explore healing through art. The biographical film Frida depicts how Frida Kahlo began painting after a serious accident, which became her way of coping with physical and emotional pain. In the prison drama Caesar Must Die, inmates prepare Shakespearean plays, allowing them to rehabilitate, develop empathy, and understand their own emotions. And finally, Łukasz Ronduda’s Polish competition film at goEast, Tell Me What You Feel, is an unconventional romantic comedy that uses artistry as a starting point for a story about something far more intimate. As the characters undergo an emotional coming out, they confront their own traumas. Art and therapy help them open up and free themselves from the fears and demons of the past.
The same is true of the documentary Outliving Shakespeare, though what makes it unique among films of this genre is its unobtrusive sense of humour. The directors approach the characters with great empathy and tenderness, but this does not prevent them from noticing the characters’ incongruity with the situations they find themselves in. This is by no means about mocking frail old age, which cannot keep up with the seniors’ vigour. It is a friendly, warm-hearted perspective, yet one that captures the moments when the characters step out of their conventional roles as sedate old people, rebel, fool around, joke, surprise us with their humour and ideas, and remain authentic in doing so.
In Łukasz Ronduda’s film, there is a scene where the two main characters swap clothes. By putting on another person’s clothes, we are forced to adopt their mannerisms, gestures, and way of thinking. This allows us to truly feel what the other person is feeling and understand the motives behind their actions, leading to a deeper understanding of ourselves and our relationships with others. The costume becomes a “mask” or “armour.”
The seniors in the documentary Outliving Shakespeare also dress up in period costumes. On stage, the daily hardships of old age disappear; they take on new identities and feel that every performance could be their last, which fuels their determination to succeed and take on new challenges. Garnik compels his actors to look at themselves, to see the similarities between themselves and Shakespeare’s characters, and to share their past lives. “What was your first love like?” he asks. “I had a hundred lovers,” one of the women boasts, turning to the camera. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in particular gives the characters the opportunity to open up, search for lost loves, and reflect on the social constraints of their lives.
For the residents of an Armenian retirement home, Shakespeare is much more than just a recreational project. Between the stage and everyday life, they experience love, loss, exclusion, and exile firsthand, yet remain full of courage and vitality.
Mariola Wiktor
©FIPRESCI 2026