Representations of Disability in Dw Gregory's Dirty Pictures
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BODILY DIFFERENCE, INTERDEPENDENCE, AND TOXIC HALF-LIVES: REPRESENTATIONS OF DISABILITY IN D.W. GREGORY’S DIRTY PICTURES , THE GOOD DAUGHTER , AND RADIUM GIRLS A Dissertation presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy By BRADLEY STEPHENSON Dr. Cheryl Black, Dissertation Supervisor MAY 2015 The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the dissertation entitled BODILY DIFFERENCE, INTERDEPENDENCE, AND TOXIC HALF-LIVES: REPRESENTATIONS OF DISABILITY IN D.W. GREGORY’S DIRTY PICTURES , THE GOOD DAUGHTER , AND RADIUM GIRLS presented by Bradley Stephenson, a candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Dr. Cheryl Black ______________________________________ Dr. Suzanne Burgoyne _____________________________________ Dr. David Crespy _____________________________________ Dr. Julie Passanante Elman ____________________________________ Dr. Jeni Hart ___________________________________ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The chapter that analyzes Dirty Pictures is a revision and expansion of my previous essay on this play that won the American Theatre and Drama Society 2012 Emerging Scholar’s award and the South Eastern Theatre Conference 2013 Young Scholar’s Award and is currently under editorial review for publication with Disability Studies Quarterly . A version of chapter on The Good Daughter has been published in the Journal of American Drama and Theatre , issue 27.2 in 2015. A portion of the chapter on Radium Girls was presented at Theatre Symposium in 2015 under the title, Toxic Actors: Animacy and Half-Life in D.W. Gregory’s Radium Girls. Special thanks to Cheryl for your guidance and leadership through this process. Thank you to Suzanne, David, Jeni, and Julie for your support, time, and wisdom when I needed it most. Thank you to Lauren for your patience, understanding, and love even when I made it difficult to give. Thank you to Jeffrey and Emmett for letting daddy work on his computer for a just little while longer. Thank you to D.W. for sharing your life, your work, your art, and your vision with me and the world. S.D.G . ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……………………………………………………………… ii CHAPTER 1 – Introduction................................................................................................ 1 Purpose............................................................................................................................ 6 Justification..................................................................................................................... 8 Methodology................................................................................................................. 13 Literature Review.......................................................................................................... 19 Organization.................................................................................................................. 36 CHAPTER 2 – Whose Stage is it Anyway? Theatre and Disability Representation in Context from Captain Hook to Judy Knoll....................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 3 – Sexuality, Disability, and Subjectivity in Dirty Pictures ........................ 54 CHAPTER 4 – American In(ter)dependence, Disability, and The Good Daughter ......... 75 CHAPTER 5 – This In-Between Life: Enfreakment, Toxic Actors, and Half-Life in Radium Girls ..................................................................................................................... 97 Enfreakment.................................................................................................................. 98 Labor........................................................................................................................... 104 Charity......................................................................................................................... 114 Queer/Crip................................................................................................................... 119 Toxic Actors................................................................................................................ 124 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 133 CHAPTER 6 – Conclusions: Interdependent Subjectivities, Disability, and Agency.... 135 APPENDIX A – Comprehensive List of Plays............................................................... 144 APPENDIX B – Interview Transcripts........................................................................... 154 APPENDIX C – Additional Thoughts and Areas for Further Study.............................. 166 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................... 173 VITA............................................................................................................................... 184 CHAPTER 1 – Introduction Disability scholar Jim Ferris has argued that “a person with a disability often must struggle to be seen and treated as a full person, and not just as a disability or an object of pity.” 1 Attempting to address and understand these cultural oppressions, Disability Studies has emerged over the last few decades as a distinct and growing field of study. Disability as an embodied concept, meaning one that inhabits physical bodies in the real world, has been and is being theorized, deconstructed, and aestheticized in fashions similar to the more widely known critical fields of gender and race studies, queer theory, and post-colonialism. As the field grows, its application in interdisciplinary contexts is also becoming more prevalent. Histories and historiographies by Lennard Davis, Joseph Shapiro, Henri-Jacques Stiker, Kim Nielsen, and Douglas Baynton, for example, are challenging the way scholars have understood the past and how the notion of ‘normalcy’ fits within it. 2 In literary and cultural fields, scholars have long noted the use of disability as a metaphor for oppressive power structures, and many playwrights have embraced this metaphoric quality. 3 In literature, disability has historically been used as a symbol of otherness, typically either for the villain or the hero, as Victoria Ann Lewis describes in 1 Jim Ferris, “Uncovery to Recovery: Reclaiming One Man’s Body on a Nude Photo Shoot,” Michigan Quarterly Review 37, no. 3 (Summer 1998), 513. 2 See bibliography. 3 Carrie Sandahl, “Ahhhh Freak Out! Metaphors of Disability and Femaleness in Performance.” Theatre Topics 9 no. 1 (1999): 11-30. 1 her collection Beyond Victims and Villains .4 Disability as a dramaturgical device is as old as western dramatic practice itself: Oedipus limps and blinds himself; Richard III has a hunchback; Tiny Tim and Laura Wingfield have physical impediments that emphasize their mythic qualities of innocence and goodness. This conventional approach to the dramaturgy of disability frames it as a metaphor for the outsider, a lack to be filled or overcome, and a challenge to non-disabled identities. To counter these traditional (and arguably oppressive) practices, many theatre practitioners and scholars are using applied theatre with persons with disabilities, focusing primarily on actors with disabilities and plays by disabled playwrights about disabilities. This theatre – by, for, and about people with disabilities – is commonly called “disability theatre.” 5 For example, The DisAbility Project, a theatre program for people with disabilities founded in 1997, was created by theorists and practitioners of feminist theatre and has catalyzed the development of a “disability aesthetic” which is advancing our understanding of the complex relationships between theatre and disability. 6 This aesthetic continues the work of troubling our 4 Victoria Ann Lewis, Beyond Victims and Villains: Contemporary Plays by Disabled Playwrights (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 5 See, for example: Ann Fox and Joan Lipkin, “Res(Crip)ting Feminist Theatre Through Disability Theatre: Selections from The DisAbility Project,” NWSA Journal 14 no. 3 (Fall 2002): 77-98; Carrie Sandahl, “Why Disability Identity Matters: From Dramaturgy to Casting in John Belluso’s Pyretown, ” Text and Performance Quarterly 28 nos. 1-2 (January-April 2008): 225-241. 6 For more on disability aesthetic, see Tobin Siebers, Disability Aesthetics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010). For more on The DisAbility Project, see: Ann Fox and Joan Lipkin, “The Disability Project: Toward an Aesthetic of Access,” Contemporary Theatre Review 11.3-4 (2001): 119-36. “Feminist Theatre” in this context, is a kind of activist theatre written and performed by and about women on topics of sexual and gender equality, often with a bent towards social justice and overtly political content. 2 conceptions of bodily normalcy, yet a need remains for thoughtful study of the intersections of disability studies within contemporary western drama more widely. 7 Dramatists have represented disability on stage for millennia, contributing to some problematic and oppressive modes of representation. However, a few contemporary artists like Lynn Nottage, David Lindsay-Abaire, Nina Raine, Bruce Norris, Suzan-Lori Parks, and D.W. Gregory are transforming the way that dramatists approach the representation of disability on stage. 8 These playwrights