Expanding Inclusivity: adapting from the margins

Expanding Inclusivity examines the power of radical adaptation to create inclusive versions of traditional plays. This thesis aims to further close the gap between radical and text-based theatre, and to invite marginalized communities into closed-off traditional theatre texts. By turn, this affords those locked out of theatre the chance to grow in their practice; creating an alternate canon of theatrical work for diverse theatre artists to find themselves in. In ‘Keywords for Disability Studies’, Victoria Ann Lewis writes that both queer and disabled artists “spin mainstream representations or practices to reveal dominant assumptions and exclusionary effects”. A disabled queer playwright, Bryant uses crip and queer theory to assess the ableism inherent in Peter Weiss’ Marat/Sade, and adapt it from his particular lived experience. Through the subversion of established power dynamics, this project posits that we can instead begin to alter them.