Winner of the TaPRA New Career Research in Theatre/Performance Prize 2016
This is the first scholarly book to focus exclusively on theatre and learning disability as theatre, rather than advocacy or therapy. Hargrave provocatively realigns the - hitherto unvoiced - assumptions that underpin such practice and proposes that learning disabled artists have earned the right to full critical review.
Foreword by Tim Wheeler Acknowledgements Prologue: Of moths and methods PART I: THE SURROGATE 1. The end of disability arts: theatre, disability and the social model 2. Pure products go crazy: the aesthetic value of learning disability 3. On quality: disability and aesthetic judgements 4. Genealogies: the cultural faces of learning disability PART II: A PROPER ACTOR 5. Nobody's Perfect: disability identity as masquerade 6. The uncanny return of Boo Radley: disability, dramaturgy and reception Conclusion Envoi: The Bartleby Parallax Sources and bibliography Appendix Notes Index
