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Autism Vox

Rain Man the Play

by Kristina Chew, PhD on September 19th, 2008

A theatre production of the 1988 movie Rain Man opens this week at the Apollo Theatre, today’s 24dash reports. The National Autistic Society has been involved with the production from the script and even rehearsals, and Caroline Hattersley, head of information, advice and advocacy, says:

“For many people, the film of ‘Rain Man’ was where they gained their first knowledge of autism, so we are very excited to be so involved in this production and we’re delighted that they were so keen to represent autism accurately.

“A lot has changed in our knowledge of this serious, lifelong condition in the 20 years since the film was released. We now have much more knowledge about autism and how people can be supported to live more independently.

“One thing we are keen to emphasise is that savant skills like Raymond’s are exceptionally rare. Although there is no doubt the Rain Man film put autism in the public mind for the first time, we hope that this new stage production will give us the opportunity to discuss more about how autism affects people in different ways and what further support is needed”.

The movie Rain Man is regularly cited as the source of the “Rain Man Myth—that every autistic person has extraordinary, savant-like qualities. Is a theater adaption of the film necessary, or helpful?

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POSTED IN: Drama, Movies, Myth, Stereotypes

5 opinions for Rain Man the Play

  • Phil Schwarz
    Sep 19, 2008 at 7:50 pm

    As Jerry Newport has so cogently pointed out, if they’re really keen to “discuss more about how autism affects people in different ways and what further support is needed”, then they need a different ending to the story: Raymond should not go back to the institution.

  • ASDmomNC
    Sep 19, 2008 at 8:49 pm

    But…but… Kim Peek, the man who inspired the movie, isn’t even autistic. That’s what bugs me.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Peek

    I’m more inclined to think it will hurt autism awareness, because messages like the ones portrayed in movies and plays stay with you. I was always positively TERRIFIED of autism because as a child, I watched the movie “Son-Rise.” Because of that movie, I grew up with the idea that all autistic people sat in corners, spinning things and flapping, totally lost in their own world. That one little exposure at the tender age of 6 years old was all it took. To this day, I still have people ask me if my son has savant abilities when I tell them he’s autistic. Either that or they regale me with some story of some autistic savant that their neighbor’s cousin’s sister’s dog groomer knows, and how wonderful it all is. I can just see this play reinforcing that old stereotype.

  • Kristina Chew, PhD
    Sep 21, 2008 at 8:03 pm

    Here is a review of the production in the September 22nd Telegraph—there’s an unfortunate reference to the play’s “damaged hero” and this of actor Adam Godley’s performance as Raymond:

    Miraculously, this version, adapted by Dan Gordon and directed by Terry Johnson in a series of anonymous Pinteresque rooms, works superbly. Indeed, I was more moved and amused by the show than the film.

    This has a lot to do with the communal atmosphere of the theatre. You can feel the whole house getting behind Adam Godley’s performance as the autistic hero who cannot bear to be touched, is overcome by twitching, yelping panic attacks whenever his routine is interrupted, yet somehow, sometimes, conveys a sudden grace and generosity of spirit.

    It’s a sentimental picture of autism - hardly any sufferers from this cruelly isolating condition are blessed with the near miraculous talents of memory and numbers evinced by Raymond Babbitt.

    But with his hoarse, almost mechanical voice, sticky-out ears, gangling limbs, and sudden, heart-stabbing glimpses of empathy, Godley manages to be deeply affecting without excessively milking the pathos.

    Indeed, his performance seems to be drawn from somewhere deep inside his own character, whereas Hoffman’s, technically brilliantly though it was, basically added up to little more than a series of tics, tricks and stutters.

    It won him the Oscar for best actor, though, and there will be little justice if Godley doesn’t also pick up gongs for his brilliantly timed acting, in which he constantly seems to be a split-second out of synch with everyone else on stage.

  • Larry
    Sep 21, 2008 at 9:53 pm

    There are no autistic savants. There are plenty of autistic geniuses, but “savant” implies the intelligence is limited to a particular field.

    Actually, intelligence is intelligence. Unfortunately, the autistic savant only displays one particular aspect of his genius, so the dumb knucklehead researchers (so-called) can’t imagine anything subtle and covert about an autistic personality (as if self-concealment weren’t the essence of autism!!!). To them, the human brain is nothing more than a bunch of wires and circuitry existing independently of a body, devoid of hormones and innate drives. According to the reductionistic modern experts, autism is a *neurological issue.*

    Just because a so-called savant refuses to open up to people he doesn’t know and doesn’t trust doesn’t mean he isn’t a genius. Like I keep on saying; Bettelheim made the most reasonable suggestion about autistic savants I have ever heard: All infantile trauma results in a predisposition to autism, and precociousness at birth is traumatic–to say the *least.*

  • Larry
    Sep 21, 2008 at 9:59 pm

    “But…but… Kim Peek, the man who inspired the movie, isn’t even autistic. That’s what bugs me. ”
    ———-

    To ASDmom:

    I hope you aren’t the one who wrote that goofy Wikipedia article. I think I’ll go and edit that RIGHT NOW!

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