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Facets of the experience of disability from the insiders' perspective
though the disability rights movement grew up alongside other identity-based movements in the 1960s and '70s, the particular forms of discrimination disabled people have sufferedattitudinal, employment and architectural barriers; educational and social segregation; institutionalization; even forced sterilization-kept many isolated from one another. This made the formation of disability subcultures difficult, if not impossible. Only after several decades of disability activism-which has brought about landmark civil rights legislation, independent living centers and the formation of a distinct community-has the disabled-American voice begun to reach wider audiences, both off and on stage. A growing number of playwrights and performance artists have given artistic expression to the experiences and culture of disability from an insider's perspective.
Here are excerpts from seven such plays. These excerpts differ from one another in terms of genre and tone, but taken as a whole, they offer a "snapshot" of significant dramaturgical strategies and themes common to many disabled playwrights. To begin with, these insider plays consistently challenge notions of physical impairment as a metaphor for evil, sin, helplessness and psychological trauma or, conversely, innocence and saintliness. It's not that they ignore such metaphors, but they confront them head-on, taking them apart and exposing their effects on the actual lives of the disabled. In addition, the characters in these plays cannot be "reduced" to their impairments; disability is only one part of these characters' lives. Unlike those portrayed in TV movies-of-the-week or mainstream films, these characters are not obsessed with "overcoming" or "curing" their conditions, but take their bodies as givens, exploring the intersection between their subjective and complex experiences of disability and the larger culture's often objectifying and limiting perceptions.
What makes the work of these playwrights even more interesting is the attention paid to the seemingly mundane routines of daily life with a disability, details often given short shrift by the non-disabled. Personal care and hygiene, adaptive equipment, clothing and transportation take on a surprising importance. It is in this detail, which can only come from experience, that the most complex situations often emerge.
The excerpts express a vibrant disability culture movement in the process of its self-definition. This body of work reflects very much the bodies that created it....