Play explores ‘unrelenting’ demands of kids with disabilities
May 12th, 2009
By reviewer Neil Genzlinger in the New York Times:
“A Nervous Smile,” a play premiering in New York, departs from the “sunny side” of disability to explore the “darker side,” as characters plot to escape the overwhelming demands of caring for their teenage children with cerebral palsy.
Genzlinger says the words written by playwright John Belluso, who died in 2006 at 36 and used a wheelchair himself because of a bone disorder, “have an extra level of perspective: they are him reflecting on what a burden he must have been to those responsible for his care.”
“This plan will work out fine,” [the character] Eileen tells the others, “as long as we all possess the will to walk toward the things we desire and away from the things we pity.”
Genzlinger praises the play as possessing “an honesty as commendable as it is brutal.”
(New York Times photo)
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May 12th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Wow. For the critic to assume that because of the “brutal nature” of the play and the playwright having had a disability himself, that he was seen as a “burden to those caring for him” is awful. Sure, say it’s not meant to be PC, but c’mon. What a terrible thing to assume for those both with disabilities, and for those who are family members and/or caregivers. A broad stroke for a such a more complex issue.