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The seeing place: Talking theatre and medicine

Bowman, D; Bowman, J (2018) The seeing place: Talking theatre and medicine. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 17 (1). pp. 166-181. ISSN 1474-0222 https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022217732873
SGUL Authors: Bowman, Deborah Faye

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Abstract

A Professor of Medical Ethics and a theatre director, also mother and daughter, talk about health, illness, suffering, performance and practice. Using the lenses of ethical and performance theory, they explore what it means to be a patient, a spectator and a practitioner and cover many plays, texts and productions: Samuel Beckett’s Not I and All That Fall, Sarah Kane’s Crave, Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree, Enda Walsh’s Ballyturk, Annie Ryan’s adaptation of Eimear McBride’s novel A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing, Duncan MacMillan’s People, Place and Things and Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. These were selected because first we have seen, studied or worked with each and they have continued to inspire us. Second, they offer rich and revealing insights into the ways in which meaning(s) is/are both negotiated and contested in relation to health and illness. It is the iterative negotiation of meaning(s) that, it is argued, is the essence of narrative practice, be it in medicine or in the theatre. The difference and divergence of perception, response and interpretation to dramatic performance can test relationships, be they professional, creative or familial. Yet, the capacity to understand, and embrace, disagreement and uncertainty is vital; fundamental to a flourishing life. For it is by recognising our part in creating narratives, broken and otherwise, that we can begin to recognise the necessary interactionism and humanity of both medicine and theatre.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: © The Author(s) 2017. Users who receive access to an article through a repository are reminded that the article is protected by copyright. Users may download and save a local copy of an article accessed in an institutional repository for the user's personal reference. For permission to reuse an article, please contact Sage Publishing.
Keywords: 1302 Curriculum And Pedagogy, Education
Journal or Publication Title: Arts and Humanities in Higher Education
ISSN: 1474-0222
Dates:
DateEvent
12 January 2018Published Online
February 2018Published
30 June 2017Accepted
Publisher License: Publisher's own licence
URI: https://openaccess.sgul.ac.uk/id/eprint/110552
Publisher's version: https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022217732873

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