Dickie Hearts and Ryan J. Haddad both portray Ryan in Dark Disabled Stories (photo by Joan Marcus)
DARK DISABLED STORIES
The Shiva Theater at the Public Theater
425 Lafayette St.
Tuesday – Sunday through April 2, $60
212-539-8500
publictheater.org
In Thomas Bradshaw’s The Seagull/Woodstock, NY, a modern-day adaptation of the Chekhov classic for the New Group currently running at the Signature Center, wannabe playwright Kevin tells Samuel, “I’m developing a new type of theater. A theater that’ll be of interest to people under eighty. Mother wants everything neat and pretty. That’s not who I am.”
Disabled actor, playwright, and autobiographical performer Ryan J. Haddad delivers an exhilarating new type of theater with Dark Disabled Stories, which opened a nearly sold-out run at the Public’s small and intimate Shiva Theater last night. Produced with the Bushwick Starr, the seventy-five-minute show features a series of vignettes in which Haddad, who has cerebral palsy and uses a metallic, posterior walking frame, shares his real-life adventures seeking companionship and traversing the city, particularly on buses and subways, where he encounters difficulties specific to his disability. The tales range from hysterically funny and touching to heartbreaking and passionate, but he’s not angling for any sympathy.
“Now, if you’re gonna look at me as sad or pitiable . . . If you came here to pity me, you can leave. We’re only one story in, you can leave. And don’t ask for a refund. I am not here to be pitied and I am not a victim, is that clear?” he says early on. “I try to make disability funny so that nondisabled people can understand it and open themselves to it and realize that it’s not so scary, so dark. And make it more accessible for them. Not tonight. I don’t feel like it. I’m not saying I won’t make you laugh at all. I’ll probably make you laugh a lot. I’m a naturally comedic person, but . . . not everything is accessible to us, so why should we try to make our experiences accessible to you?”
I’ve seen several shows that use ASL interpreters and open captioning in clunky, distracting ways that detracted from the overall narrative, the exception being Deaf West Theatre’s 2015 Broadway revival of Spring Awakening. But Haddad and director Jordan Fein have ingeniously integrated multiple inclusive techniques that make Dark Disabled Stories that much more powerful and involving while remaining wholly organic.
Ryan (Ryan J. Haddad and Dickie Hearts) share personal, poignant stories in world premiere at the Public (photo by Joan Marcus)
Haddad wears a long crew-neck sweatshirt that says “Ryan” on it, as does Deaf actor Dickie Hearts, who signs everything Ryan speaks. Meanwhile, just offstage by a ramp, disabled actor Alejandra Ospina, who uses a motorized wheelchair, provides audio description of what is happening, detailing the Ryans’ movements, shifts in the set, and the projections on the back wall, which range from color changes — shocking pink is a favorite — to large words.
“I’m not Ryan, I’m Dickie, and I’ll be playing ‘Ryan’ alongside Ryan, who will also be playing ‘Ryan,’” Dickie explains. “Ryan has cerebral palsy, CP, and I do not. I am Deaf and Ryan is not. I’m not an interpreter, I’m an actor.” His words are both described by Alejandra and projected on the screen. In addition, there is an open space off to the side where audience members can go if anything is making them uncomfortable, where they can still watch the show and touch a soft-sculpture wall hanging. A handout in the program advises, “We invite you to react as you need, make sounds, and move around in ways that feel comfortable to your body. People may have different reactions and ways of expressing themselves. This is exciting and welcome.”
The set, by dots, the collective that also designed the costumes, is a shallow rectangular pink box with three blue bus seats, a pair of metal columns wrapped in magenta sequin fabric, and the title of the play spelled out in pink pillowlike bubble letters at the top and bottom (where it is upside down). The lighting is by Oona Curley, with sound by Kathy Ruvuna and video by Kameron Neal, all meshing in a smooth harmony that allows the audience of about ninety-nine, in risers and expanded wheelchair and mobility disability seating, to experience the play as they need/want to. Andrew Morrill is the director of artistic sign language, with Alison Kopit serving as access dramaturg.
Haddad’s previous works include the solo show Hi, Are You Single?; a multimedia installation about swimming as part of Lynn Nottage and Miranda Haymon’s The Watering Hole at the Signature; and My Straighties, Noor and Hadi Go to Hogwarts, and Falling for Make Believe at such venues as Ars Nova, Joe’s Pub, Dixon Place, and La MaMa. He presented a sneak peek of Dark Disabled Stories in August 2021 for Lincoln Center’s Restart Stages program.
He takes a giant leap forward with this full version of Dark Disabled Stories, a bold and daring play in which he is as funny as he is brutally honest. The first vignette deals with a sexual encounter in a gay bar with a stranger in Cleveland. Haddad holds nothing back, except the name of the man, a high school English teacher, as he gives extremely graphic details about what they fif together. Haddad is not doing this merely to shock the audience but to reveal, right from the start, that disabled people have the same fears and desires as everyone else. “I am not a victim, is that clear? That was a completely consensual encounter,” he says. “Hot. Passionate. With just the right hint of scandal. Only without the happy ending I would have hoped.”
Ryan J. Haddad, Dickie Hearts, and Alejandra Ospina rehearse Dark Disabled Stories (photo by Joan Marcus)
Haddad’s stories take place on public transportation, at an important business meeting, coming home from the grocery store, and crossing the street, as he faces situation after situation in which well-meaning samaritans, inaccessibility to certain locations, and his own pride thwart his everyday life.
As he’s being offered “a fuckton of money” by a man from a major university to present one of his solo plays there, he suddenly has to go to the bathroom but he sees that he won’t be able to fit his walker through the narrow space between tables at the restaurant they’re at. “I can’t possibly ask this handsome gentleman to help me. How on earth will he take me seriously if he sees me as a disabled person who needs help to get to the bathroom?” Haddad admits. “Even though he’s offering me money to do an autobiographical show about being disabled, I can’t let him see that I’m disabled. I’ll just pee on my own time.” It doesn’t end well.
Alejandra (Claire’s Broom Detective Agency: The Mystery of the Missing Violin, Emily Driver’s Great Race Through Time and Space!) and Dickie (The Deaf vs the Dead, Tamales de Puerco) each get to share a story of their own, which lends insight to who they are as individuals. Dickie’s tale is particularly chilling, as it involves his losing access to his hands temporarily. “My hands are how I communicate,” he explains with great worry.
Among the many appealing aspects of Dark Disabled Stories are how and what it communicates. Is it the future of theater? It certainly holds the promise of the future of a specific type of theater, one that would make The Seagull’s Kevin/Konstantin happy, if not necessarily his vainglorious actress mother.