Tony McCaffrey is a Lecturer in Creative Industries at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Arts, Ara Institute, Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2004 he established the Different Light Theatre Company, an ensemble of performers with intellectual disabilities.
Incapacity and Theatricality acknowledges the distinctive contribution to contemporary theatrical performance made by actors with intellectual disabilities. It presents a close examination of certain key theatrical performances across a variety of different media, including John Cassavetes´ 1963 social issues film A Child Is Waiting; the performance art collaboration between Robert Wilson and Christopher Knowles; and the provocative pranksterism of Christoph Schlingensief´s talent show mockumentary FreakStars 3000.
Tracing a global path of performances, Incapacity and Theatricality offers an analysis of how actors with intellectual disabilities have emerged onto the main stage, and how their inclusion calls into question long-held assumptions about both theatre and intellectual disability.
For postgraduate students, or anyone interested in the shifting dynamics of twenty-first century theatre, McCaffrey´s work offers a vital consideration of the intersubjective relations between people with and without intellectual disabilities and ultimately addresses urgent questions about the situation and representation of the contemporary subject caught up somewhere between incapacity and theatricality.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Framing the singularities of actors with intellectual disabilities in theatrical performance
Chapter One: `A spotlight on the subject of retardation´: A Child is Waiting
Chapter Two: Mirror stages: Aldo Gennaro and Robert Wilson
Chapter Three: Parody, intermediality and postdramatic turns
Conclusion and afterword: Lines of flight
Index
Incapacity and Theatricality acknowledges the distinctive contribution to contemporary theatre made by actors with intellectual disabilities. This book offers an analysis of how these actors have emerged onto the main stage, and how their inclusion calls into question long-held assumptions about theatre and intellectual disability.
"McCaffrey's research makes an original contribution to this rapidly expanding field, balancing his passion for the topic with deeply considered scholarship, revealing a form of theatre that is aesthetically innovative, plays with the boundaries of theatrical representation, is simultaneously beautiful and disturbing, and is located at the cutting edge of contemporary performance practice." - David O´Donnell, Victoria University of Wellington
"Overall, the book gives voice to many of the questions that need to be asked in relation to the development of intellectual disability theatre. It does not pretend to offer answers to these questions but problematises them in a way that becomes essential reading for anyone planning to do further work in this area in the future, whether theatrical or theoretical." - Paul McNamara, University of Limerick, Ireland
"McCaffrey moves discourse surrounding Disability and performance away from narratives reliant on inspiration porn or providing a lesson on Disability to the audience. By pushing the analysis to critical theatre theory (the scholarship surrounding Disabled performances has — until this point — relied on fair representation and inclusion, identity politics, and Disabled content), McCaffrey has paved the way to shift discussions to aesthetics, affect, and audience engagement, and moves beyond ableism to advocate for more intellectually Disabled work." - Jessica Watkin, TDR
Über den Autor
Tony McCaffrey is a Lecturer in Creative Industries at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Arts, Ara Institute, Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2004 he established the Different Light Theatre Company, an ensemble of performers with intellectual disabilities.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Framing the singularities of actors with intellectual disabilities in theatrical performance
Chapter One: 'A spotlight on the subject of retardation': A Child is Waiting
Chapter Two: Mirror stages: Aldo Gennaro and Robert Wilson
Chapter Three: Parody, intermediality and postdramatic turns
Conclusion and afterword: Lines of flight
Index
