ABSTRACT
There is nothing unusual about a female Richard III on stage today. But in the midst of increasing parity and diversity, there is still one aspect largely overlooked in our theatres: the representation of physical difference and the actors who portray characters with disabilities. This chapter provides an account of how we have ‘re-cripped the crip’ in richard III redux—an alternative and irreverent solo disability performance responding to Shakespeare’s historically and anatomically inaccurate representation of Richard III as a Machiavellian ‘villain’ with his ‘twisted body/twisted mind.’ What happens when the ‘hideous… deformed, hobbling, hunchbacked cripple’ is portrayed by a female performer who is funny, feminist, and with the same form of scoliosis?
