ABSTRACT
This chapter examines performances, including Sulayman Al Bassam’s Richard III: An Arab Tragedy, performed (among other places) in Kuwait in 2008 and the UAE in 2009, and the 2015 production in Dubai of The Cripple of Inishmaan, Martin McDonagh’s rural Irish analogue to Richard III, featuring protagonists with disabilities in Arabian Gulf theatrical contexts. The chapter situates these plays—and their varying use of the Shakespearean source—in the larger regional context of recent efforts to counter the stigma that adheres to disability by using various types of performance to highlight the capabilities and accomplishments of people with disabilities, to educate Gulf citizens and residents about the ways in which social obstacles and practices marginalize those with disabilities, and to break the silence and stigma that surrounds disability, whether medically defined or socially imposed.
