Staging the Spectrum: Theatrical Fantasies of Autism

Abstract

How is autism represented on the theatrical stage, and to what effect? Extending Ellen Samuels’ fantasies of identification, I argue the theatrical performances examined within can be best understood as reifying I term the deficit fantasy, the illusory but inevitable identification of autism as an inherently deficient state of being. In so doing, I showcase how autism – through mimetic representation, dramaturgical framework, and ontological materiality – is a condition only ever diagnosed through, made apparent in, and identified by its recognizably autistic performances. Relying on theatre and performance studies, disability studies, and critical autism studies, I advance this argument across three productions: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Simon Stephens (2012), Body Awareness by Annie Baker (2008), and All in a Row by Alex Oates (2019) – examining how they make autism identifiable, why, and to what effect. Ultimately, this project points towards how autism and theatre are parallel operations of performative fabrication: identities and sites which are never ontologically intrinsic, but rather subjectively performed into being.