1st Edition

Peering Behind the Curtain Disability, Illness, and the Extraordinary Body in Contemporary Theatre

Edited By Kimball King, Tom Fahy Copyright 2002
    194 Pages
    by Routledge

    200 Pages
    by Routledge

    This volume addresses disability in theater, and features all new work, including critical essays, interviews, personal essays, and an original play. It fills a gap in scholarship while promoting the profile of disability in theater. Peering Behind the Curtain examines the issues surrounding disability in many well-known plays, including Children of a Lesser God , The Elephant Man , 'night Mother , and Wit , as well as an original play by James McDonald.

    Part 1; Chapter 1 Between Two Worlds: The Emerging Aesthetic of the National Theater of the Deaf, Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren; Chapter 2 “Better Me Than You”: Children of a Lesser God, Deaf Education, and Paternalism, Robert C. Spirko; Chapter 3 Violence, Pain, Pleasure: Wit, Pamela Cooper; Chapter 4 Making an Art out of Suffering: Bill T. Jones's Uncle Tom, Tess Chakkalakal; Chapter 5, Ruby Cohn; Chapter 6 Depression—the Undiagnosed Disability in Marsha Norman's 'night, Mother, Sarah Reuning; Chapter 7 “Some Unheard-of Thing”: Freaks, Families, and Coming of Age in The Member of the Wedding, ThomasFahy; Chapter 8 Young Doctors Come to See the Elephant Man, JohannaShapiro; Part 2; Chapter 9 Acting without Limits: Profiles of Three Physically Disabled Performers, Lilah F. Morris; Chapter 10 Two-Act Play, Nancy Bezant; Chapter 11 An Interview with James MacDonald, Thomas Fahy; Chapter 12 Balance Is Stillness, James Macdonald;

    Biography

    Thomas Fahy, Kimball King