Lexington Books
Pages: 158
Trim: 6⅜ x 9½
978-1-7936-4507-4 • Hardback • September 2022 • $100.00 • (£77.00)
978-1-7936-4508-1 • eBook • September 2022 • $45.00 • (£30.99)
Jason B. Dorwart is assistant professor of global theatre studies at Hong Kong Baptist University.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: Framing Disability, Disabling the Frame: The Permeable Aesthetic Distance of The Cripple of Inishmaan
Chapter Two: Controlling Disability: Representations of the Elephant Man
Chapter Three: Eliminating Disability: American Horror Story’s Subtle Preference for Cripping Up
Chapter Four: Reframing Disability: Live Performance and Countering the Incorporeal Corpse
Chapter Five: Reviewing Disability: Public Taste at Play with Disability Studies
Bibliography
About the Author
“The Incorporeal Corpse is a timely intervention into current debates about disabled actors playing disabled roles. Jason Dorwart addresses the question of what difference disability makes in theater and, more specifically, what impact a disabled actor makes on audience expectations when playing a disabled character. Dorwart’s sophisticated treatment of work in theater, television, and performance makes this a vital contribution to both disability and theater studies.”
— Michael Davidson, University of California San Diego, author of Distressing Language: Disability and the Poetics of Error
“With this book, Jason Dorwart goes to the heart of the prejudice against disability in the performing arts. Dorwart demonstrates that since Oedipus’ blinding, performance has always had an uneasy relationship with real disability – often relegating disabled characters, when they are represented at all, to be killed off, and in any case typically having nondisabled actors play characters with disabilities. This, Dorwart argues, is because the liminality of disability, as a body supposedly suspended somewhere between life and death, does not gibe well with the liminality of the theatre, which blends fantasy and reality. This book is an incisive and timely addition to the study of disability in performance.“
— Michael M. Chemers, University of California