abstract
Prior to the 20th century, when disabled characters appeared in dramatic literature, their disability typically served a symbolic or metaphorical purpose. Think of the blind prophet Tiresias in Oedipus Rex, or the deformed figure of the evil King Richard III in Shakespeare's history. In some ways, the fact that these characters' disabilities were exploited for poetic or narrative effect rather than explored for their own sake was derived from both the conventions of dramatic literature before Realism and from the role real disabled persons held in pre-20th century society. In the last fifty years, though, the emergence of the disability awareness movement (culminating in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) has changed in significant ways the role that disability plays in modern identity and culture.
Not surprisingly, dramatic literature has had to change its portrayal of disability to accommodate both the changing role of disability in modern culture and the progression of dramatic form. Dramatists and plays such as Peter Nichols's A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1967), Brian Friel's Molly Sweeney (1994), and Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis (1999) have made use of both conventional and unconventional non-Realistic devices to explore the disability of main characters. In each of these three plays the disability of the protagonist or of the protagonist's family member is not merely a literary device, but the very subject of the narrative. More interestingly, each of these plays departs from Realistic form in ways that specifically mimic the experiences of the disabled persons in the play. Nichols, Friel, and Kane all use the functional experiences of the characters to shape the literary form of the play.