NPX Weekly Round-Up: Do Not Resuscitate: A Mini Play About the Able-Bodied by H. Avery

Lately I’ve been hearing from some playwrights that I’ve covered here— which surprises me, because I don’t know how they found me! All good things, and I’ve enjoyed every conversation I’ve had with a fellow artist about their work. I figure I must be doing something right, because without doing much marketing (I’ll get on it at some point hopefully lol) these playwrights are finding this SubStack.

So, hello fellow playwrights! I knew you were out there, but now I REALLY know! I’m so happy you’re here!

In the spirit of playwrights supporting playwrights, I picked a play to read this week from a fellow queer and disabled playwright (take a shot of water every time I say ‘playwright’), H. Avery. This work is called Do Not Resuscitate: A Mini Play About the Able-Bodied.

Let’s take a look at the summary from NPX:

Meredith and Ted are... *concerned* about their daughter's... um, what do you call it? They visit a specialist to explore options.

Very succinct, but gives a distinct flavor that a lot of us may pick up on, especially those of us who are disabled or otherwise “other-ed”— the unmistakable taste of prejudice. Mmmmm…gross. There is a content warning at the beginning of Avery’s work that states: “This play contains blatant ableism. In fact, that’s the point.”

Consider me intrigued.

And another important note before I dive in, this play takes place in the distant future, which makes it make a whole lot more sense. You’ll see.

A couple enters into a doctor’s office. Instead of regular arms and hands, it seems that in this future, humans have evolved to have upper limbs more like tentacles. The doctor enters and also has these tentacle arms, and the three begin to discuss the couple’s unnamed daughter. This child, apparently, has one regular hand.

The existence of this hand is treated as a tragedy, used to dehumanize the child to the point of her parents occasionally calling her “it”. The doctor recommends that they cut the child’s hand off and enroll her in touch aversion therapy.

Any of this sounding…strangely familiar? If you’re autistic, have autistic loved ones, or have ever been a special education teacher, I can guarantee it is. While this metaphor could be ably applied to almost any disability, for me it struck me very deeply as a metaphor for autism. The idea of “removing” the problem, phrases like “evolution missed this one”, and the “touch aversion therapy”, which just sounded like a lot of abusive ABA therapies, truly made me cringe. The point comes across clearly— lots of abled people and parts of the medical community view disabled people as burdens, or problems to be fixed. Of course this isn’t everyone’s mentality, but it is prevalent enough to cause issues for many disabled people on the daily.

Avery does a great job of creating a satire that makes the audience face the problem but in a ridiculous and also sort of hilarious way. While this play did bring up memories for me of microaggressions I’ve faced as a disabled person, it also made me think of other ridiculous satirical moments in TV shows like The Simpsons or South Park. I imagine this work is a bit of a hoot to see in person, especially with the whole tentacle/noodle arm situation! It’s like Mary Poppins said, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” or in this instance, a spoonful of comedy helps the social critique to settle more easily into someone’s mind.

Something I’m taking from reading this work is to embrace the ridiculous and the absurd, to not judge an idea as “too silly”. Sometimes, absurd is exactly what is needed to explore a theme or message. That’s why Theater of the Absurd as a movement exists in the first place! Theater of the Absurd exists to probe into human’s ideas of meaning, purpose, and communication, making it a great platform to discuss something like disability that effects people’s ideas of human purpose.

Here’s my official recommendation from NPX:

As a disabled playwright, I adored this little work. I found it hilarious and terrifying at the same time (and not just because the characters had tentacle arms-- spoiler alert!), which reminded me of satirical cartoons like The Simpsons and South Park in some ways. Seeing this on stage would be a hoot, what with all the potential for slap-stick-esque humor, but I think it would also get a very important point across that I think a lot of able-bodied people ignore: that the world at large views us as a burden, and that's incorrect. Great little play!

Let me know if you read this play and your own thoughts by replying to this email or messaging me on SubStack!

Here are three other plays I added to my NPX Reading List this week:

• Assassinating Zeus by Daniel Prillaman

  • Described as a “goose therapy thriller”. Color me interested!

• Muthaland by Minita Gandhi

  • The playwright moved me with the summary alone— immediate add.

• 650 Meters, 15 Knots by Ky Weeks

  • The summary makes it sound like a sci-fi horror and we need more of that onstage in my opinion!

Have a good week, and happy reading!

~Brynn