Nikolay Kolyada’s Commotion of the Queer and Disability on Stage in 'Rogatka'

• In Event: Disability in Late-Soviet and Contemporary Literature and Film

Abstract

My paper deals with the sonic representations of disability and queer relationship in the late Soviet play of Nikolai Kolyada Rogatka (The Catapult, 1989.) I am going to inspect how the playwright builds up his poetics of despair and desire through mundane sounds of a Soviet lodging, sonance of the objects and environment, and the silences/reticence. My goal is to bring to light the anxieties connected to sexuality of an individual with disabilities as portrayed by Kolyada and trace the traits particular for the sound landscape characteristic to these anxieties.

Author

• Anna Sbitneva, U of Southern California