Disability Theatre and Modern Drama

Abstract

Bertolt Brecht’s silent Kattrin in Mother Courage, or the disability performance lessons of his Peachum in The Threepenny Opera; Tennessee Williams’ limping Laura Wingfield in The Glass Menagerie and hard-of-hearing Bodey in A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur; Samuel Beckett’s blind Hamm and his physically disabled parents Nagg and Nell in Endgame – these and many further examples attest to disability’s critical place in modern drama. This Companion explores how disability performance studies and theatre practice provoke new debate about the place of disability in these works. The book traces the local and international processes and tensions at play in disability theatre, and offers a critical investigation of the challenges its aesthetics pose to mainstream and traditional practice. The book’s first part surveys disability theatre’s primary principles, critical terms, internal debates and key challenges to theatre practice. Examining specific disability theatre productions of modern drama, it also suggests how disability has been re-envisaged and embodied on stage. In the book’s second part, leading disability studies scholars and disability theatre practitioners analyse and creatively re-imagine modern drama, demonstrating how disability aesthetics press practitioners and scholars to rethink these works in generative, valuable and timely ways.

Introduction: Disability in Early Modern Theatre

“…In Disability Theatre and Modern Drama, Kirsty Johnston applies to modern drama the principles outlined by Siebers in relation to modern art. 35 While the disability theatre Johnston outlines is a contemporary political movement, its insights into bodily difference, as well as aspects of stagecraft, communication, and collective response to difference, can offer insight into hitherto hidden aspects of premodern stages. Further, contemporary stagings of early modern plays can learn from the techniques and casting practices of modern disability theatre.…”

An Intimacy Choreography for Sexual Justice: Considering Racism and Ableism as Forms of Sexual Violence

“…To what disability or disabilities more generally? 62 "Western theatre has a long connection to the ideology of ability," 63 Johnston et al continue to search for redress for ableism within theatrical realism's meaningmaking systems, and with a focus on contemporary disability theatre companies. critique of modern drama by demonstrating the connections between eugenicist ideologies and practices, and the development of widespread "detective spectatorship" at the heart of realism's regimes of representation and spectatorship.…”

Práticas cênicas acessíveis e a interação entre artistas com e sem deficiência: um breve olhar sobre o trabalho dos encenadores Bob Wilson e Pippo Delbono

“…Assim, as representações de modelos corporais e os significados atribuídos aos atributos físicos nas artes da cena contribuem para as construções sociais que determinam padrões de habilidade e eficiência. Kirsty Johnston (2016) problematiza a representação da deficiência na dramaturgia teatral moderna, destacando como a deficiência é performada quando, por exemplo, associada a um desvio moral sinalizado através de uma marca corporal. Essa representação pode facilmente ser vinculada ao modelo médico da deficiência, aquele no qual a deficiência é intrínseca, privilegiando a ideia da ausência de algo, de necessidade de cura ou reabilitação.…”