COMMENTARY : ‘Light’ a Small Step in Right Direction

For years, disabled people have suffered under an art output filtered through able-bodied people. The results are too often “inspirational” films and plays that may please the able-bodied but throw the disabled into a blue funk. Only occasionally does a “My Left Foot” come along, and even it put a sheen on Christy Brown’s life that could not be found in his autobiographical novel “Down All the Day.”

The Available Light Workshop’s presentation of seven vignettes written primarily by playwrights with disabilities is a welcome attempt. Shakespeare’s “King Lear” serves as a leitmotif for the playlets.

Lynn Manning’s “Shoot,” which deals with the double-whammy of being a disabled black male in contemporary society, is a knockout. Manning, the blind judo gold medal winner in the 1990 World Games for the Disabled, was pressed into service for the lead when the scheduled actor got a film assignment. As a blind man who buys a gun, Manning finally gains parity.

While dealing directly with the burning need for dignity for black blind men, Manning speaks to the degradation of disabled people, black men, all men in an era of feminism. It deals with the danger to society of marginalizing men. It deals with the arms race in a surprising final twist.

Manning makes magnificent use of the urban language of blacks and whites; it vibrates, swings and bounces in a way few writers capture. Manning should be careful not to lose what he has found.

In another area, it was hard not to notice that the disabled are far outnumbered among the total production staff, even though the stated goal of the workshop is to integrate the two.

More effort should be made to make the disabled the dominant culture within the workshop, with particular focus on finding and developing more hard-hitting disabled writers, introducing more disabled people into administration and production and working harder on giving disabled actors sufficient experience to unleash more powerful performances.

Also, more thought should be given to the fact that being in a wheelchair doesn’t mean that a performer can’t move. Too often during the evening actors in wheelchairs were set in one place, and were tended to by others. More wheelchair choreography and wireless miking should be used to enable full-range movement.

Though billed as wheelchair accessible, most of the wheelchair seating was, typically, far to the side and, worse, next to the orchestra.

Why were sign language interpreters only made available for last weekend’s performances? Admittedly, interpreters are expensive. Yet, as a wheelchair user, I would dislike being told that I could not attend the coming performances because ramps were only going to be available two nights. Of all performances, those devoted to the subject of disabilities should be produced so that all people with disabilities can enjoy them.