Liam O’Dell: Disability-friendly theatre on and off-stage at the Donmar is incredibly refreshing

To describe theatre as ‘refreshing’ probably sounds a bit bizarre, but it’s perhaps just one word to sum up Teenage Dick at the Donmar Warehouse, which the theatre kindly invited me to see the captioned performance of earlier this week.

The play, a high school take on William Shakespeare’s Richard III (that monarch who they found in a car park in Leicester), sees Richard Gloucester – who, along with actor Daniel Monks who plays him, is hemiplegic – plan to rise to the top of Roseland High and become Senior Class President. After being marginalised in class because of his disability, the teenager becomes cunning, manipulative and resourceful in his pursuit of power.

I’ve already reviewed the play separately and in more detail on my own website, but in essence, the production used the Shakespeare tragedy to discuss a range of disability issues on-stage, the most prominent being the hero vs villain narrative which plagues discussions around the experiences of deaf and disabled people.

I’ve certainly seen it myself, and I’m sure you’ve seen it too. On one hand we see those videos of babies having their hearing aids switched on which, whatever your opinion on hearing technology, is sensationalised by the media as ‘inspirational’ perhaps a bit too much. On the other, requests for deaf access – such as subtitled services – are apparently ‘burdensome’ or ‘excessive’.

In essence, the play explores that idea through the studies of Machiavelli, whose comments on power are often used to describe Richard III’s progression in the play. Its discussion of power and marginalisation feels all too important and relevant watching as a deaf and disabled person myself, but I also felt reassured as I saw the show develop, too.

First and foremost, as I say, it was captioned. I’m sure I’ve said it in a blog post in the past here on The Limping Chicken, but I cannot sing Stagetext’s praises enough as a charity doing fantastic work to make the arts accessible to deaf and hard of hearing people like myself. Having had a few experiences with theatre whereby I still struggle to hear despite being close to the front (things such as projection can come into play), subtitled performances provide a comfort blanket of sorts when reviewing theatre.

Also, can we talk about the added bonus of captions when they tell us what song is playing? With Teenage Dick being soundtracked by the likes of Carly Rae Jepsen, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, I love it when subtitles give us the lyrics to songs or indeed their name, so we don’t have to rush to Google to track them down later on.

The other thing about Teenage Dick which was refreshing was the representation. Granted, there were no deaf performers on-stage, but the issues we face as disabled members of society are mostly the same regardless of our conditions. In turn, I know full well that the ideas explored in the play wouldn’t be as impactful as they were on Monday without the involvement of disabled actors and actresses in the production. Alongside Daniel Monks in the title role, Ruth Madeley (who previously starred in the dystopian drama Years and Years) stars as his friend ‘Buck’ – both, by the way, give excellent performances.

I’m cautious not to repeat myself, but I’ve said to others about Teenage Dick that it feels educational. We need more disability theatre to inform others about our experiences, and this production does a great job of doing that.

Add to that the fact that this particular performance was captioned and the chances are some audiences members will have left with a better idea about accessibility and disability issues. The possibility of that happening after seeing Teenage Dick is part of what made it such a refreshing – and indeed, enjoyable – show to watch. Can we have more of that in the future, please?

Teenage Dick runs at the Donmar Warehouse until Saturday 1 February.

Photo by Marc Brenner.

---

By Liam O’Dell. Liam is a mildly deaf freelance journalist and blogger from Bedfordshire. He wears bilateral hearing aids and can be found talking about disability, theatre, politics and more on Twitter and on his website.