[News Culture] South Korea is growing older at remarkable speed. Older people are now part of the everyday landscape—on streets and subways, in hospitals and within families. Yet society’s understanding of aging has not kept pace with that demographic change.
Growing old is a natural part of life, but old age is still frequently viewed through the language of burden and inefficiency. New World Theatre Company’s play ‘Erasing the Elderly’ brings that uncomfortable reality to the stage through the life of Jeong-bok, a taxi driver approaching his 80th birthday.
Following Jeong-bok as the life he has built begins to change, the production explores what aging means to the individual and how older people are seen by their families and society.
Jeong-bok is a veteran driver who has spent decades behind the wheel. After he is involved in a traffic accident, however, his family begins urging him to stop working.
For a man who has long found purpose and self-worth through his job, retirement is not merely the end of a career. It threatens the way he connects with society, proves his independence and understands the meaning of his own life.
Rather than presenting Jeong-bok’s crisis as an isolated family problem, the play expands his story into a broader portrait of aging in contemporary Korea. Retirement, dementia, caregiving and family responsibility emerge as interconnected pressures surrounding both Jeong-bok and those closest to him.
The production also exposes the conditions under which a person is allowed to remain visible. As long as someone can work and contribute, that person is recognized as a member of society. Once productivity declines, however, the same individual can quickly be pushed to the margins.
The word “elderly” contains a lifetime of experience and memory. In public discourse, however, it is often reduced to an image of decline, dependency or burden.
‘Erasing the Elderly’ confronts that perception through its deliberately provocative title. The play does not advocate the removal of older people. Instead, the title points to a society that gradually erases them by denying their place, autonomy and value.
In a super-aged society, old age cannot be treated as the story of a distant generation. It is a stage of life that almost everyone will eventually reach.
Yet many people struggle to accept that future. They try to preserve youth, remain competitive and continue proving that they are still needed. The production brings that fear into focus, showing how the desire to remain “useful” can shape the way people approach aging.
Through Jeong-bok’s struggle, the play asks what happens when human worth is measured largely by social function and productivity. It also questions what place remains for older people in a society governed by efficiency.
Director Kim Soo-jung found the starting point for the production while looking at her own gray hair. What began as a personal impulse to conceal the visible signs of aging developed into a wider examination of why people fear growing old and why society encourages them to turn away from it.
The production connects that private anxiety with the culture surrounding it. Youth is promoted as a sign of ability, opportunity and possibility, while old age is repeatedly associated with deterioration.
By placing those familiar assumptions within a theatrical setting, ‘Erasing the Elderly’ invites audiences to look at them from a different angle. Behaviors that appear ordinary offstage become unsettling when embodied by the characters in front of them.
New World Theatre Company has consistently addressed issues that contemporary society tends to avoid. Its previous productions have explored war, state violence, real estate and gender, using performance to bring social conflict into public view.
‘Erasing the Elderly’ continues that approach while remaining grounded in one man’s changing life. Jeong-bok’s experience extends beyond his individual circumstances, reflecting a future that awaits many audience members and a reality already confronting numerous families.
The conflicts unfolding around him also bring the question of care to the center of the production.
How should the lives and dignity of older people be protected? Should families bear the responsibility alone? What role should society play as the need for care continues to grow?
These are not abstract questions for a distant future. They are already shaping relationships inside homes and will become increasingly difficult to avoid as the population ages.
The play does not attempt to provide a definitive solution. Instead, it unsettles the standards audiences may have accepted without question. It asks whether age should diminish a person’s value and whether society has defined a meaningful life too narrowly.
At its center, ‘Erasing the Elderly’ is not simply a play about older people. It is a production about a society that has not learned how to accept aging.
The attempt to push older people out of view ultimately becomes an attempt to reject one’s own future. By following Jeong-bok’s struggle to hold on to his work, identity and dignity, the play turns a demographic reality into an immediate human drama.
What a super-aged society needs is not another way to resist growing old, but a way to live alongside people as they age.
‘Erasing the Elderly’ places that question before the audience, transforming aging and care into a theatrical encounter with the value of human life.
Reported by News Culture M.J._mj94070777@nc.press
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