Jane Malone Thesis
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Cohabitation: Placing disability centre stage Jane Elizabeth Malone ATCL (Teaching) (Hons), BSc (Med) MBBS (Hons), FAFRM (RACP) Supervisor Dr Errol Bray (Principal) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Research) Playwrighting Cohort Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology 2011 KEYWORDS: playwriting, performance, disability, paraplegia, wheelchair, Australian theatre. ii AUTHORSHIP The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted to meet the requirements for an award at this or any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made. Signed………………………………………………….. Dated…………………………………………………… iii ABSTRACT The play Cohabitation places disability centre stage by creating a three dimensional protagonist who is also a wheelchair user. The accompanying exegesis examines the challenges associated with creating such a character for theatre, using a practice-led methodology. During the process of writing my case study play, I have investigated the international literature, reflected on my experience as a physician specialising in rehabilitation and collaborated with members of the Australian and international disability communities. I have also reflected on the historical stereotypes associated with disability and integrated the contemporary experience of wheelchair users into my script. By organising a production of the play in Australia and directing a rehearsed reading of the play in New York, I was able to scrutinise my additional goal of casting an actor who was also a wheelchair user. My research illuminates the issues involved in writing and producing a play in which the lead character also has a physical disability, and I would hope, offers insight into the creation of such a character and script. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank: • Dr Errol Bray, my supervisor, for his help, patience and advice, and especially for agreeing to conduct a supervisor’s meeting in New York. • My family- John, Lois, Naomi, Therese, Fran, Elio, Luella, Tommy, Alissa, John and Jimmy- for their support always. • Steph Hughes, Jules Kong and Naomi Malone who produced the play in Sydney. • Jim Malone, Lou Robinson, Heidi Turnock, Paul Sullivan, Kate O’Brien, Chris Callinan and Jane Stanton for their support during the Sydney production. • The After Party Project advisory committee, team and volunteers, especially James Hutton, Ben Slack, Nicole Slack and Will Uther, who worked to ensure the Sydney production was universally accessible. • Anthony Masterson and John Maclean for their guidance and wisdom. • Christine Bruno, Mitch Longley and the Alliance of Resident Theatres, New York. • Kerryn Payne for her assistance, and Jane Carroll and Fran and Elio Cordaro for their final encouragement. • All the family, cousins, friends, actors, writers and directors making up the loose collective of Roscoe St Readers circa 2005-2010. • The Three Weeds Writers. v TABLE OF CONTENTS KEYWORDS……………………………………………………................. ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP………………………………………… iii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………………. v TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………... vi DEDICATION……………………………………………………………... viii CHAPTER ONE……………………………………………….. 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………… 1 CHAPTER TWO……………………………………………… 4 Literature Review……….………………………………………………….. 4 Contextual Review…………………………………………………………. 8 i. Disability and Character……………………………………………… 8 ii. Disability and Casting………………………………………………...12 CHAPTER THREE…………………………………………… 17 Methodology……………………………………………………………….. 17 i. Practice-led research………………………………………………... 17 ii. Interviews…………………………………………………………... 18 iii. Journal Writing……………………………………………………... 20 iv. Productions…………………………………………………………. 21 CHAPTER FOUR……………………………………………... 22 Creative Process……………………………………………………………. 22 i. Introducing the Character…………………………………….…….. 23 ii. Introducing the Wheelchair………………………………………… 24 iii. Creating a Second Draft……………………………………………. 26 iv. Script Consultation…………………………………………………. 28 v. Stage and Set Design……………………………………………….. 29 vi CHAPTER FIVE………………………………………………. 31 Reflective Analysis of My Writing Process……………………………….. 31 i. Plot…………………………………………………………………… 31 ii. Character…………………………………………………………….. 35 iii. Subplot…………………………………………………...………….. 37 iv. Structure……………………………………………………………... 38 v. Dialogue……………………………………………………………… 39 vi. Editing……………………………………………………………….. 40 CHAPTER SIX………………………………………………… 41 The Sydney Production…………………………………………………….. 41 CHAPTER SEVEN……………………………………………. 45 The New York Reading……………………………………………………. 45 CHAPTER EIGHT……………………………………………. 48 The Play Script – Cohabitation…………………………………………….. 48 CHAPTER NINE……………………………………………… 196 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….. 196 APPENDIX…………………………………………………….. 198 Appendix A - Theatre Companies for Persons with Disability.......................198 Appendix B - Television and Film Referenced in Exegesis……………….. 199 Appendix C - Interviews…………………………………………………… 201 Appendix D - ‘Fred’ in January Draft……………………………………… 202 Appendix E - Gina Grumpy Exercise……………………………………… 203 Appendix F - Edited Scene……………………………………………….… 204 Appendix G - Deleted Scene Beginning 2.2……………………………….. 205 Appendix H - Deleted Comedic Scene .……………………………………. 206 Appendix I - ‘My Venn Diagram of You’ song……………………………. 207 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………....209 vii DEDICATION For Naomi viii CHAPTER ONE Introduction After working in theatre for five years as a playwright, I began to ask myself why, as a part-time doctor specialising in disability and rehabilitation, I had not yet placed a character with a disability at the centre of one of my plays. Some of my favourite plays are about characters who exist on the margins of society, for example, The Elephant Man (Pomerance, 1979), Children of a Lesser God (Medoff, 1982), and Endgame (Beckett, 1957). Yet to date, the plays I had written were largely about middle class white people who seem to spend much of their time sipping lattes lamenting the demise of left-wing politics. It was Hamlet, playing at being a director perhaps, who declared the purpose of theatre is to hold ‘the mirror up to nature’ (Shakespeare, 2000). In doing so, he was echoing classical authors whose view it was that drama be a form of truth. Just under one in five Australians have a disability, be it sensory, intellectual or physical (ABS, 2009) yet the representation of people with disabilities on stage is significantly less. Prior to my research, I was aware of some plays about characters with hearing impairment, vision impairment and intellectual impairment, but on reflection, I was unaware of any plays that focused on a character with paraplegia. Through my work as a Rehabilitation Physician, I was familiar with the key biological, psychological and social issues experienced by wheelchair users. I was also aware of some of their key fears, hopes and frustrations. I 1 knew one of these frustrations to be a lack of community understanding about paraplegia, and the tendency by some members of the community to view people with paraplegia as disabled, rather than as an ordinary person who just happens to use a wheelchair for mobility. I decided to set myself the challenge of writing a play with a character at its centre who is also wheelchair user. It was my goal that this character would be viewed by the audience first and foremost as a three dimensional person, rather than as a person with a disability. Indeed, I hoped to create a character in which the wheelchair would be seen as secondary to the character's intellect, romantic sensibility, ambition and dreams. In embarking on the project I recognised that I would need to investigate the local and international literature, integrate my clinical expertise of paraplegia into my proposed script, and consult wheelchair users themselves. I anticipated my medical experience in the management of spinal cord injury would inform the creative work and the exegetical component of the research as well. A further and significant aim for me was to create a role that could be performed by an actor who was a wheelchair user himself. As a Rehabilitation Physician, I have seen the lives of many athletes with paraplegia transformed by opportunities in wheelchair sport. There are limited opportunities for actors who are wheelchair users in the theatre. In 2008 Australia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (ADDC, 2008). Some of the specific articles of the Convention include full and effective participation and inclusion in society and 2 equality of opportunity (UN, 2008). Theatre is one area in which participation, inclusion and equality of opportunity are less than optimal. I could see the possibilities of creating a model of theatre practice that might encourage producers of theatre to use actors with disabilities in their productions. I set out in the hope that the knowledge gained might provide myself and other theatre practitioners with a helpful framework for writing for wheelchair users and actors with other disabilities in the future. For the purposes of this study, it is my intention that my play should be weighted at 70% of assessment marks and the exegesis at 30%. In keeping with the practice within the profoundly deaf community, ‘Deaf’ will be capitalised. 3 CHAPTER TWO Literature Review Representation of disability on stage has