Older Than They Look/Theatre

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of characters that are Older Than They Look in Theatre include:

  • Older Than Radio: In the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta Iolanthe, the hero, aged twenty-five, is caught embracing a woman who is not his fiancée and looks seventeen. She's actually his mother, a fairy, but the other characters think that's a staggeringly improbable cover story. "Her age upon the date of his birth", reasons one, "was minus eight."
  • In the Distant Finale of Vanities: The Musical, the women are in their late 30's or 40's, but are still "lookin' good", as the closing song in the off-Broadway version says.
  • Clara in The Light in the Piazza.
  • Raina Petkoff is 23, but gets mistaken for 17 in Arms and the Man.

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