Nobody’s Perfect: Disability Identity as Masquerade

Abstract

In this chapter I interrogate performance identity through the lens of masquerade, with specific reference to the solo performance On the Verge by musician and actor Jez Colborne of Mind the Gap. Colborne’s work offers a unique opportunity for analysis since it is, to my knowledge, the only one-person show ever to feature a learning disabled performer. As Michael Peterson argues, the ‘performance art monologue’ tends to privilege ‘reality’ over ‘fictionality’, and gains its affects by acknowledging that the ‘author is present on stage in the body of the performer’ (Peterson 1997: 12). This imbues solo performance with a kind of authenticity, making the individual, implicitly or explicitly, representative of the social group to which they belong and thus creates the sense of unmediated presence: the ‘monologic apparatus’, therefore, has a two-fold effect of speaking for the individual but also their social category. An element of heroism also attaches itself to the solo performer, because they inhabit a largely bare stage and may call on few, if any, resources. Colborne’s performance is important both because it adheres to the conventions of the solo autobiography — direct audience address, self-reflective anecdote, adoption of multi-character personas, juxtaposition, or collage as well as straight narrative and lack of visible human support — and because it dissembles these conventions in surprising ways.

Daphne/Jerry: But you don’t understand, Osgood! [Whips off his wig, exasperated, and changes to a manly voice.] Uhhh, I’m a man!

Osgood: [Looks at him, then turns back, unperturbed] Well, nobody’s perfect!

Some Like it Hot (1959)