Performance, Madness and Psychiatry: Isolated Acts

240 Pages·2014·1.229 MB·English

by  Anna Harpin, Juliet Foster (eds.)

Performance, Madness and Psychiatry
Also by Juliet Foster
JOURNEYS THROUGH MENTAL ILLNESS: Clients’ Experiences and
Understandings of Mental Distress
Performance, Madness and
Psychiatry
Isolated Acts
Edited by
Anna Harpin
University of Exeter, UK
and
Juliet Foster
University of Cambridge, UK
Selection, introduction, conclusion and editorial matter © Anna Harpin and
Juliet Foster 2014
Individual chapters © Contributors 2014
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2014 978-1-137-33724-5
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication
may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency,
Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2014 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth
Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
and has companies and representatives throughout the world.
Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-46374-9 ISBN 978-1-137-33725-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9781137337252
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the
country of origin.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India.
To all the women, men and children who have spent
time in the spaces discussed in this book
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Notes on Contributors xii
Introduction: Locating Madness and Performance 1
Anna Harpin and Juliet Foster
Section I Historical Perspectives
1 Smart’s Authority and the Eighteenth-Century Mad-Business 19
Richard Stern
2 Performance in Bethlem, Fulbourn and Brookwood Hospitals:
A Social Psychological and Social Historical Examination 42
Juliet Foster
Section II Applying Performance
3 A Life of their Own: Reflections on Autonomy and
Ethics in Research-Based Theatre 65
Susan M. Cox
4 Whose Mind is it Anyway?: Acting and Mental Illness 85
Sarah Rudolph
Section III Contemporary Practices
5 Start Making Sense 111
Dylan Tighe
6 ‘No one ever listens’: Body, Space and History in RedCape
Theatre’s The Idiot Colony 137
Rebecca Loukes
Section IV Theatrical Maladies
7 Ophelia Confined: Madness and Infantilisation in
Some Versions of Hamlet 165
Bridget Escolme
8 Dislocated: Metaphors of Madness in British Theatre 187
Anna Harpin
vii
viii Contents
Afterword: Relocating Madness 216
Anna Harpin and Juliet Foster
Select Bibliography 219
Index 224
List of Illustrations
2.1 Programme for A N**ger Entertainment, performed in 1881 at
Fulbourn Asylum. Photo: Juliet Foster, courtesy of
Cambridgeshire County Archives 49
2.2 A Nativity tableau performed by staff at Bethlem Hospital,
Christmas 1933. Image reproduced with permission of, and
thanks to, Bethlem Art and History Collections Trust 52
5.1 Dylan Tighe in RECORD, Half Moon Theatre, Cork, 2012.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh 112
5.2 Aoife Duffin, Daniel Reardon and drummer Conor Murray
in RECORD, Half Moon Theatre, Cork, 2012. Photo: Ros
Kavanagh 117
5.3 Dylan Tighe in RECORD, Half Moon Theatre, Cork 2012.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh 125
5.4 Dylan Tighe and Aoife Duffin (with Conor Murray on
drums and Peter Green on screen) in the final moments
of RECORD, Half Moon Theatre, Cork, 2012.
Photo: Ros Kavanagh 133
6.1 The Idiot Colony. Photo: Nik Mackey, courtesy
of Turtle Key Arts 137
6.2 The Idiot Colony, a section of text from the
first ‘Wallpaper’ exercise. Photo: Rebecca Loukes 142
6.3 The Idiot Colony, Victoria drowning. Photo: Lisle Turner 144
6.4 The Idiot Colony, Joy. Photo: Lisle Turner 145
6.5 The Idiot Colony, Mary. Photo: Lisle Turner 146
6.6 The Idiot Colony, Victoria being bathed in Scene 4.
Photo: Lisle Turner 148
6.7 The Idiot Colony, Mary’s ‘baby’. Photo: Lisle Turner 156
8.1 4.48 Psychosis, TR Warsaw, King’s Theatre, Edinburgh
International Festival 2008. Image with kind
permission of Stefan Okolowicz 191
ix