The unjust treatment of people with learning disabilities is placed centre stage in this springboard of ideas from Back to Back, the neurodiverse theatre company based in Australia. This is part education, part rebellion, and part warning for what’s to come.
We have been invited to a town hall meeting held by Scott Price, Sarah Mainwaring and Simon Laherty. A charismatic and argumentative trio, they play themselves and co-author the script alongside Michael Chan, Mark Deans, Sonia Teuben and director Bruce Gladwin. Holding the stage with ease, they want to change the way disabled people are treated. By explaining what people with learning disabilities have been subjected to through time, they hope to raise awareness, create a community, and stop the future from echoing the past.
Favouring conversation over plot, much of the meeting is derailed by questions of ethics, language and philosophy. Ideas of consent and hypocrisy are woven throughout, discussing the rules of behaviour and challenging intentions of empowerment. When Sarah panics about leading the meeting, Scott pressures her to continue, saying it’ll be good for her. Simon pushes back, asking how you can ever possibly know what’s good for another person.
These are morally complex topics and the team discuss the stark reality of violence and ignorance with no-nonsense honesty. With a simple stack of chairs, the minimalism of Gladwin’s direction allows the performers to carve out their own space in each argument. Simon is a calm mediator while Scott loses his temper at Sarah, who takes it until she tires, snapping back when he goes too far.
Then their focus takes a surprising step sideways, as they draw us into the imminent domination of artificial intelligence. Its inclusion is not subtle, but smartly drawn, suggesting that people without learning disabilities will be treated in the future by AI in the same way people with learning disabilities are treated today. Sarah’s furious interaction with the auto captioning screen behind her is a brilliant moment of creativity, more of which would increase the impact of their argument.
Humour and rage are twisted together with a current of playfulness running under the script. But this is more debate than drama, platforming a frank discussion of the complexity of terminologies for and attitudes towards disability, and the structures of support we all, perhaps unadvisedly, put our trust in.
The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes is at Battersea Arts Centre, London, until 22 October, then touring.
