Incapacity and Theatricality: Politics and Aesthetics in Theatre Involving Actors with Intellectual Disabilities by Tony McCaffrey (review)

Emerging only in the 1980s, the complex assemblage of critical Disability studies and theatre studies is still a developing field. There are not enough scholars doing this work, and, with accessible performances only recently becoming standard across international theatre communities, it is unsurprising that there is not much written about performers with intellectual Disabilities. Tony McCaffrey provides close readings of several key case studies in Incapacity and Theatricality to challenge fundamental performance frameworks and principles, including aesthetics, semiotics, and mimesis, through the lens of critical Disability theory. With prose that gently questions the construction, representation, and inclusion of intellectually Disabled artists, McCaffrey suggests that theatre incapacitates such acts of public discourse but yet renders those acts more intense, more open to a range of different modalities of perception and sensing (a re-distribution of the sensible) and reveals in the incapacitation or deconstruction of the customary social framing of these acts new and different ways of thinking, acting, and doing. (13–14)

Especially integral to critical Disability studies and theatre studies is McCaffrey's assertion that theatre with Disabled performers neither has to be a learning experience for the audience nor does it have to assume the audience is non-Disabled. Rather, theatre with Disabled performers provides an opportunity for dialogue between audience and performer that offers more than reflection: it maintains the potential to challenge and reframe how intellectually Disabled people are perceived and treated off the stage.

This book is a valuable contribution to Disability in performance and aesthetics. Each chapter closely engages with scenes of intellectually Disabled performers and addresses various injustices common for this community such as institutionalization, infantilization, lack of autonomy, and many others. McCaffrey opens with an exploration of John Cassavetes's 1963 film A Child Is Waiting and the complexities of spectatorship within Disabled performances. The second chapter delves into Chilean dramatherapist Aldo Gennaro's performance with residents of the Lorna Hodgkinson Sunshine Home, considers Chris Noonan's 1980 documentary Stepping Out, and concludes with a discussion of Robert Wilson's work with autistic performers. Interestingly, these first two chapters offer rich descriptions of cinematic moments because they are about performances documented on film, which reflects McCaffrey's desire to trace a larger history of performance and intellectually Disabled people. I imagine that the archival remnants of pre-1980s performance is scarce, and by turning to film McCaffrey acknowledges that performers with intellectual Disabilities existed before 1980 but lack representation in theatrical archives.

The third chapter is organized into three sections: the first considers Christoph Schlingensief in Freakstars 3000 (2004); the second is an extended analysis of three productions by the Australian-based Back to Back Theatre. The final section connects the concluding moment of Back to Back Theatre's performance of Ganesh Versus the Third Reich (2011) and the greater sociopolitical complexities that intellectually Disabled theatre addresses, and ultimately the support networks essential to doing this work. In the final chapter, McCaffrey speaks from his personal experience of working with Different Light Theatre Company in Christchurch, New Zealand, for 14 years. This ending grounds his arguments in the present and looks toward the future.

In chapter 2, "Mirror Stages: Aldo Gennaro and Robert Wilson," McCaffrey explores Wilson's much-touted adoption of Raymond Andrews, a Disabled (hard of hearing) black adolescent in the late 1960s, and considers how that experience inspired Wilson to work with autistic poet Christopher Knowles. That is, Wilson's caring for people with Disabilities inspired him to make inclusive work, and empowered him to come forward about past experiences with his own Disabilities. This narrative could be analyzed through the lens of critical care studies, and in particular through James Thompson's "Towards an Aesthetic of Care" (2015), which examines the white male privilege of taking care of someone who is not a part of their biological family, while also learning about care from them. This argument...