Perspectives on Comedy and Performance as Radical Disability Activism

I consider myself a disability activist who is using the arts to effect equality. More specifically, I have chosen the vehicle of comedy and humour as a way of bonding with an audience in order to promote critical thinking and dialogue around the meaning of disability. According to the late comedian Victor Borge, humour is the shortest distance between two people.¹ I remember discovering at a young age the power of laughter to make others feel comfortable around me. I realized that if I could make people laugh, they were more flexible in including me as a disabled person.

My performance career began over 20 years ago in stand-up comedy. Though I have since branched out into theatre and storytelling, comedy and humour remain prominent features of my performance practice. I have performed in a variety of venues such as night clubs, professional theatre halls, high schools, as well as conference and community settings across North America, Australia, England, Bermuda, and Taiwan. My comment here focuses on the artistic and cultural choices that I make within my work to engage audiences within a critical discussion around impairment and disability. Evidence of actually promoting critical dialogue, however, lies only in the circumstantial evidence of my having sustained a 20-year career, plus a handful of reviews, and feedback from the audience. This comment is divided into two parts. The first section focuses on my stand-up comedy, while the second covers my theatre practice.

Stand-up Comedy

Modern stand-up comedy is dominated by personal and social commentary. Most comics discuss issues and topics that they feel strongly about, which may include their gut feelings, their fears, their anxieties (Carter 4). The issues I have chosen to discuss highlight the barriers that I face as a disabled person. For example, I typically begin my act by recounting going out to dinner with my brother:

When we sat down, the waiter addressed my brother with the question, “How many menus do you want?” I decided to answer that question with, “Well, there are two of us sitting at the table. Why don’t you bring us four menus?”

I start this way because the subject of the joke is an everyday activity to which everyone can relate. People expect to be able to walk into a restaurant, be given a menu, and be served without incident. I tell the story as if I expect to be able to do this as well. My delivery is light-hearted, told with a funny thing happened to me type of tone. The humour arises from my exaggerated response. Yet, it is precisely my response that frames the way the waiter reacts to me as ludicrous and absurd.

Beginning my act in this way works to establish a rapport. Since I typically perform in mainstream venues, I am likely to be seen as an outsider by much of the audience. John Morreall notes the bonding effect of shared humour, “especially” when it is “based on either some perceived strength in the group or some shortcomings in opponents of the group” (67). Here, the shortcoming is in the waiter. I tell the story as if members of the audience would never do what the waiter did. They are treated as my confidant – as if we are in this ludicrous situation together. My tone is not instructional. I am obviously enjoying the waiter’s awkwardness and I am inviting the audience to share this enjoyment. The majority of my audience likely shares the viewpoints that I am ridiculing. The nature of this joke forces the audience to identify with me not getting a menu. Yet, they probably also strongly identify with the waiter’s uncertainty about how to deal with me because of my impairments. This joke always gets a huge laugh precisely because the audience identifies with the waiter. Comedy and humour has allowed me to make fun of the audience’s own ideas of disabled people.

Disability oppression is not a hot topic within comedy by any stretch of the imagination. Impairment and disability still remain taboo topics within...