Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Framing the singularities of actors with intellectual disabilities in theatrical performance

Chapter One: ‘A spotlight on the subject of retardation’: A Child is Waiting

Chapter Two: Mirror stages: Aldo Gennaro and Robert Wilson

Chapter Three: Parody, intermediality and postdramatic turns

Conclusion and afterword: Lines of flight

Index

About the Author

Tony McCaffrey is a Lecturer in Creative Industries at the National Academy of Singing and Dramatic Arts, Ara Institute, Christchurch, New Zealand. In 2004 he established the Different Light Theatre Company, an ensemble of performers with intellectual disabilities.

Reviews

"McCaffrey's research makes an original contribution to this rapidly expanding field, balancing his passion for the topic with deeply considered scholarship, revealing a form of theatre that is aesthetically innovative, plays with the boundaries of theatrical representation, is simultaneously beautiful and disturbing, and is located at the cutting edge of contemporary performance practice." - David O’Donnell, Victoria University of Wellington "Overall, the book gives voice to many of the questions that need to be asked in relation to the development of intellectual disability theatre. It does not pretend to offer answers to these questions but problematises them in a way that becomes essential reading for anyone planning to do further work in this area in the future, whether theatrical or theoretical." - Paul McNamara, University of Limerick, Ireland"This is a powerful contribution to scholarship in learning-disability theatre, offering a critical approach to understandings of what is at stake and for whom – practitioners, critics, theorists and audiences – further developing the field of learning-disability performance." - Margaret Ames, Aberystwyth University, Wales, Theatre Research International