dramatic ability
by Cate House

.: Peering Behind The Curtain: Disability, Illness, and the Extraordinary Body in Contemporary Theater. Edited by Thomas Fahy and Kimball King. Routledge, 179 pages, $75. Click to enlarge. :.

t one time or another, most of us have put on a blindfold and pretended we couldn't see. But have you ever imagined what it would be like for a blind person to pretend to be a seeing person?

As a blind actor, that's familiar territory for Nancy Bezant, one of 12 authors who contributed to Peering Behind the Curtain — a book of essays that addresses disabilities in the theater.

In her essay, Bezant argues that a blind actor can play a role as well as a sighted actor, but she also explains some of the obstacles a blind actor must overcome. For instance, in one performance Bezant starred in, the company changed locations to an outdoor venue. She explains that usually there are walls to contain and reflect sound, helping her judge the distance of the other characters on stage. But in this case, even though her costar was only a few steps away, Bezant writes, "It seemed like a million miles, and I didn't know how to get back to her, although I had performed the play several times in a couple of locations."

Edited by Kimball King, professor of English, and Thomas Fahy, a former graduate student in American literature, Peering Behind the Curtain also examines several well-known plays that deal with a major handicap.

Fahy, for example, is interested in how society views circus people and focuses his essay on freaks, families, and coming of age in The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers. He explains that the protagonist, Frankie Addams, on the threshold of adulthood, is confused about her sexuality and associates her conflicted desires with the sexually ambiguous freaks she sees at the fair.

An essay by Paula Cooper, associate professor of British and American literature, takes a look at Wit, a play by Margaret Edson in which the protagonist, a Shakespeare scholar named Vivian Bearning, discovers she has ovarian cancer. At the thick of the play is the physical ordeal Bearning sustains until her death. In her essay, Cooper draws comparisons between Francis Bacon's paintings of mutilated bodies and Bearning's disease, as both portray violence in the light of medical science.

he second part of the book includes an original play by James MacDonald, a British playwright with cerebral palsy who often gets mistaken for a drunk. "This is a real treat for us," says King, who met MacDonald while teaching a summer drama class in England. "MacDonald was impressed with our subject, so he saved the play for our book."

Entitled Balance is Stillness, MacDonald's play takes place in a rehabilitation center and shows how healthy people can be patronizing toward people with handicaps, saying things such as "Are we feeling better today?"

Also in part two, MacDonald discusses in an interview with Fahy some of the difficulties he's had getting his plays about disabilities published. He relates that many people have told him that his plays are "too depressing," even though he says they reflect his own life and experience of being disabled.

But the authors of Peering Behind the Curtain are optimistic that such books will help, as King writes, "foster a new awareness of a large segment of humanity frequently neglected on stage, as well as in life."

Peering Behind the Curtain is in the series "Studies in Modern Drama." King is series editor.

Cate House is a writer and production manager for Endeavors magazine and other research publications.
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