Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism

by Kirsty Johnston, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Editor), Patrick Lonergan (Editor)

Overview

A critical companion to disability theatre, encompassing both disability theatre productions of modernist plays and criticism of these plays from a disability studies perspective.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408184493
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/21/2016
Series:	Critical Companions
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

Kirsty Johnston is associate professor in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her publications include the monograph Stage Turns: Canadian Disability Theatre (2012) and she has also published in such journals as Modern Drama, Theatre Topics and The Journal of Medical Humanities.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Critical Survey of Disability Theatre Aesthetics, Politics, and Practices
1. What is Disability Theatre?
2. Critical Embodiment and Casting
3. Staging Inclusion
4. Inherited Plays and New Approaches
Part II: Critical Perspectives
5. “Every Man his Specialty”: Beckett, Disability, and Dependence Michael Davidson (University of California, San Diego, USA)
6. Reclaiming the Ordinary Extraordinary Body: Or, The Importance of The Glass Menagerie for Literary Disability Studies Ann M. Fox (Davidson College, USA)
7. Access Aesthetics and Modern Drama: An Interview with Jenny Sealey on Graeae Theatre Company's The Threepenny Opera and Blood Wedding Kirsty Johnston
8. Shattering the Glass Menagerie Terry Galloway, M. Shane Grant, Ben Gunter, and Carrie Sandahl (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Notes on Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

A valuable, generative book ... Johnston has written a book of interest to students, theatre practitioners, scholars, and people who reflect on representation in critical ways or who are interested in considering disability and theatre in tandem ... Johnston's work demonstrates the benefits of thinking creatively about how to navigate ableist attitudes and structures. Throughout, she makes a convincing case that disability has a historical role in modern theatre and that attentiveness to disability theatre practices offer creative, compelling choices within this art form. The creative impact of a sustained inquiry into disability theatre is apparent throughout this work; often, the political reverberations are evident as well.
Comparative Drama

An accessible academic analysis of the current state of affairs ... [This book offers] a tour through its subject matter that will be equally helpful and illustrative to the novice as to the seasoned scholar.
South African Theatre Review

In Disability Theatre and Modern Drama, Kirsty Johnston and her collaborators provide indispensable contributions to both theatre studies and disability studies. They incisively demonstrate how attention to disability enriches enduring contestations of both the "modern+? and the "drama+? of "modern drama+? ... Disability Theatre and Modern Drama is a timely contribution, remarkable for both its breadth and its depth, including Johnston's impressive integration of disability theory from Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. Individually and collectively, the book's chapters are exceedingly teachable and should find their way to classes in modern drama, disability studies, and performance studies. Moreover, historians and theorists of disability theatre and performance, as well as scholars of modern drama more broadly, would do well to heed the book's numerous prompts for further inquiry.
Modern Drama

From the Publisher