Performance and madness : modes of correction and the theatrical ruse

Christopher Durang's absurdist comedy Baby with the Bathwater dramatizes a number of episodes in which the audience is subjected to repeated displays of grossly dysfunctional parenting. In the first act of the play we witness proud new parents, Helen and John, attempting to make their new child act "normally" and be cheerful. In so doing, they resort to various methods of coaxing, coaching, and castigation. The crux of Helen and John's dilemma is also the central focus of this paper and can be introduced by a number of related questions: Does the child have a mental condition or is it just acting? Is this pathology or strategy? Is it mad or just playing with them? The aim of this essay is to trouble some of the presuppositions on which these questions are most likely predicated: it will seek to problematize the stability of the opposition between "madness" and "acting" on which such decisions are repeatedly founded.