Abstract
The article focuses on the Swedish documentary theatre play Kurage (2020) in which three protagonists look back on how Sweden handled the “AIDS crisis” in the 1980s. In doing so, the play challenges the narrative of exceptional social conditions in Sweden and delivers a queer perspective on welfare state politics. Specifically, in the aesthetic conception of the play, the complex relation between welfare state and illness comes to the fore. I argue that Kurage not only builds on persistent metaphors of illness in literature but also expands epidemic narratives and thus exposes mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization in the welfare state. Finally, the article investigates in what ways pathology, medical institutions, or in a more general way: the understanding of medicine as a “neutral” science play a part in eliminating bodies, writing them out of the body politic and thus allowing for suffering and disappearing.
Highlights
The article focuses on the Swedish documentary theatre play Kurage (2020) in which three protagonists look back on how Sweden handled the “AIDS crisis” in the 1980s
Division into “healthy” and “sick” triggers social hysteria and stigmatization? Put another way: Who is meant with Palme’s “we”? With these questions in mind, I will look closer at the Swedish play Kurage, which premiered in March 2020 and looks back from today at how the Swedish welfare state dealt with the so-called AIDS crisis
I will first consider the extensive repertoire of metaphors connected to representations of illness in literature and theatre
Summary
The article focuses on the Swedish documentary theatre play Kurage (2020) in which three protagonists look back on how Sweden handled the “AIDS crisis” in the 1980s. Using interviews with the non-fictive people PO, Ulla-Britt and Krister, which the collective of authors conducted in the preliminary stages of the work, the play points to its own documentary-like character.
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