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Grafting Orchids and Ugly: Theatre, Disability and Arts-Based Health Research

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Abstract

Theatre-based health policy research is an emerging field, and this article investigates the work of one of its leaders. In 2005, prominent medical geneticist and playwright Jeff Nisker and his collaborators produced Orchids, his play concerning pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, to research theatre as a tool for engaging citizens in health policy development. Juxtaposing Orchids with a concurrent disability theatre production in Vancouver entitled Ugly, I argue that disability theatre suggests important means for building inclusiveness in this kind of research and complicates Nisker’s own call for international guidelines to delimit how journalists, playwrights, filmmakers, physicians and other media authors share genetics-based narratives in public.

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Notes

  1. J. Nisker, “Health-Policy Research and the Possibilities of Theater,” in Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples and Issues, ed. J.G. Knowles and A.L. Cole (Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2008), 615.

  2. Orchids program, 2005; J. Nisker, Orchids. Directed by Liza Balkan. Music by Allyson Koffman, Peter Linseman, Steve Hardy and Michael Barber. Featuring Robert B. Kennedy, Lee MacDougall, Jane Miller, Eliza Jane Scott. Roundhouse Community Centre (Vancouver, British Columbia, 2005).

  3. M. Decottignies and A. Houston, ed., “Theatre and the Question of Disability,” Canadian Theatre Review, 122 (2005); P. Kuppers, Disability and Contemporary Performance: Bodies on Edge (New York: Routledge, 2004); C. Sandahl and P. Auslander, “Introduction: Disability Studies in Commotion with Performance Studies,” in Bodies in Commotion: Disability & Performance, ed. Sandahl and Auslander (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 2005), 1–12.

  4. P.A. Darke, “Now I know Why Disability Arts is Drowning in the River Lethe (with thanks to Pierre Bourdieu),” In Disability, Culture and Identity, ed. S. Riddell and N. Watson (Harlow: Pearson/ Prentice Hall, 2003), 132.

  5. Abbas,.Church, Frazee and Panitch. “Lights… Camera… Attitude!”.; Kuppers, Disability and Contemporary Performance ; Sandahl and Auslander. “Introduction”; O. Wahl, Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995).

  6. J. Nisker and A.S. Daar, “Moral Presentation of Genetics-Based Narratives for Public Understanding of Genetic Science and its Implications,” Public Understanding of Science, 15 (2006): 113–123.

  7. J. Nisker, Orchids, Directed by Liza Balkan. Music by Allyson Koffman, Peter Linseman, Steve Hardy and Michael Barber. Featuring Robert B. Kennedy, Lee MacDougall, Jane Miller, Eliza Jane Scott, Roundhouse Community Centre, Vancouver, British Columbia, 2005.

  8. Orchids website. Canadian Institutes of Health Research. http://www.orchids-pgd.ca/about.html

  9. Nisker qtd. M. Munro, “Audience is Being Watched: Musical about Genetic Screening Gauges Public Opinion,” The Province, September 9, 2005, A24.

  10. Cox qtd. in Ibid.

  11. Health Canada Assisted Human Reproduction Implementation Office, “Issues Related to the Regulation of Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis [PGD] under the Assisted Human Reproduction Act,” 2005.

  12. S.M. Cox, M. Kazubowski-Houston and J. Nisker, “Genetics on Stage: Public Engagement in Health Policy Development on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis,” Social Science & Medicine, 68 (2009): 1475

  13. Nisker, “Health Policy Research and the Possibilities of Theater,” 618.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Cox, Kazubowski-Houston and Nisker, “Genetics on Stage,” 1475.

  16. M. Linton, “All in the Family,” C-Health. September 27, 2005. http://chealth.canoe.ca

  17. S.M. Cox, M., Kazubowski-Houston, and J. Nisker, “Plot Summary Orchids,” 3, Appendix to S. Cox, M., Kazubowski-Houston, and J. Nisker, “Genetics on Stage”.

  18. Orchids website. Canadian Institutes of Health Research. http://www.orchids-pgd.ca/about.html

  19. Cox, Kazubowski-Houston and Nisker, “Genetics on Stage,” 1472.

  20. Cox, Kazubowski-Houston and Nisker, “Genetics on Stage,”; Nisker, “Health Policy Research and the Possibilities of Theater,”; J. Nisker, S. Cox, M. Kazubowski-Houston, “Citizen Deliberation on Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, ” Report Prepared for Health Canada, 2006.

  21. Theatre Terrific Society, Ugly [program], Fringe Festival, Vancouver, British Columbia, September 2006.

  22. S. Uchatius, “Artistic Director Thoughts,” Theatre Terrific Newsletter (Fall 2005): 2.

  23. Theatre Terrific Society. Ugly.

  24. B. Young, “Review of Ugly written and directed by Susanna Uchatius, Vancouver United Church, Vancouver BC,” Vancouver Sun, September 14, 2005, C3.

  25. S. Uchatius, Interview by author, Vancouver, British Columbia, May 16, 2006.

  26. V.A. Lewis qtd. in K. Tolan, “We Are Not a Metaphor,” American Theatre, 18 (2001): 17.

  27. S. Cox, M., Kazubowski-Houston, and J. Nisker, “Plot Summary Orchids,” 3, Appendix to S. Cox, M., Kazubowski-Houston, and J. Nisker, “Genetics on Stage”.

  28. J.Nisker, Orchids, Production Draft, August 26, 2005, 3. Appendix to S. Cox, M., Kazubowski-Houston, and J. Nisker, “Genetics on Stage”.

  29. These scenes were performed by professional Toronto actors, Jane Miller, Amy Sellors and Alan Moon. More details about the Art with Attitude 2005 event hosted by the Ryerson-RBC Foundation Institute for Disability Studies Research and Education may be found at: http://www.ryerson.ca/ds/RBCevent_06%20.htm

  30. Sandahl and Auslander, “Introduction,” 255.

  31. C. Sandahl, “Why Disability Identity Matters: From Dramaturgy to Casting in John Belluso’s Pyretown,” Text and Performance Quarterly, 28 (2008): 236.

  32. Tolan, “We Are Not a Metaphor”

  33. Cox, Kazubowski-Houston and Nisker, “Genetics on Stage.”

  34. P. Boyd, Telephone interview by author, 3 Dec. 2007.

  35. Cox, Kazubowski-Houston and Nisker, “Genetics on Stage,” 1476.

  36. Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts website. http://www.inclusioninthearts.org/

  37. J. Nisker and A.S. Daar, “Moral Presentation of Genetics-Based Narratives for Public Understanding of Genetic Science and its Implications,” Public Understanding of Science, 15 (2006): 113–123.

  38. Ibid, 113.

  39. Ibid, 119.

  40. Ibid, 120.

  41. Ibid, 113.

  42. V.A. Lewis, ed. Beyond Victims and Villains: Contemporary Plays By Disabled Playwrights (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2006); Tolan, “We Are Not a Metaphor”; Sandahl, “Why Disability Identity Matters”; P. Kuppers, Disability and Contemporary Performance; Wahl, Media Madness.

  43. Wahl, Media Madness.

  44. G.T. Couser, Vulnerable Subjects: Ethics and Life Writing (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004), 202.

  45. E. Ignani and K. Church, “Disability Studies and the Ties and Tensions with Arts-Informed Inquiry: One More Reason to Look Away?” In Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research: Perspectives, Methodologies, Examples and Issues, edited by Knowles J. G. and A. L. Cole (Los Angeles: Sage Publications, 2008), 633.

  46. Ibid.

  47. C. Frazee, “Unleashed and Unruly: Staking Our Claim to Place, Space and Culture,” Presented to the Unruly Salon, Profiling Disability Performance and Scholarship. Green College, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2008. http://www.unrulysalon.com/forms/Frazee%20Opening%20Remarks.pdf

  48. P.A. Darke, “Now I know Why Disability Arts is Drowning in the River Lethe”.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Richard Ingram for commenting on an early draft, Ann Fox for her response to a related conference presentation, and to the anonymous reviewers. I acknowledge the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Canada).

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  1. Department of Theatre and Film, University of British Columbia, 6354 Crescent Rd, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z2, Canada

    Kirsty Johnston

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Correspondence to Kirsty Johnston.

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Johnston, K. Grafting Orchids and Ugly: Theatre, Disability and Arts-Based Health Research. J Med Humanit 31, 279–294 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-010-9119-z

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