ABSTRACT
Theater actors are often imagined as bearers of an “aesthetically neutral body” which can then be reshaped to portray a character or role. Yet, anthropology and disability studies both eschew the existence of any such normative “neutral” human body, instead viewing the very idea of a normal body as an artifact of particular cultural imaginaries. This chapter examines the potentially liberatory possibilities of leaving behind the imagined neutral body for anthropological theater praxis. Drawing on observations from disability theater stagings the ethnographic play I Was Never Alone (Hartblay 2020a) and related performance ethnography fieldwork about disability and social inclusion in Russia, this chapter reviews the specific Russian drama history of the idea of bodily plasticity in acting, and offers an ethnographic consideration of disability theater’s call for interpretive flexibility when the bodies of theatrical performers and characters defy cultural norms of aesthetic neutrality. Instead, the author calls for the generative potential of complexity in theatrical interpretation, rooted in a disability studies and performance ethnography praxis.
