O’Reilly’s In Water I’m Weightless: Forming a Community through Monologues of Multiple Bodies

Abstract

This essay discusses Kaite O’Reilly’s disability aesthetics, concentrating on her monologue, In Water I’m Weightless, which is a result of her endeavors to find new theatre languages and alternative dramaturgies that can redress mainstream representations of disability. What she terms ‘d’ monologues consist of a series of first-person narratives which present multiple bodies and languages voicing the lived experiences of people with various disabilities. The play frequently involves directly addressing the audience and alternating between oral and “visual” languages, in order to upbraid non-disabled people’s prejudices as well as encourage differently-abled spectators to embrace their identities. As such, O’Reilly’s play allows the spectators to see things anew, and, more significantly, to form a sense of community in the process. This is not a homogeneous community, however, because of the “fear” of disability among the spectators, with narrators overtly differentiating “they” and “we.” The play, therefore, calls for a new community of spectators of differing bodily abilities, for the stage is where a community, albeit one yet to come, can be imagined.