Feminism and Theatre

158 Pages·1988·14.122 MB·English

by  Sue-Ellen Case (auth.)

NEW DIRECTIONS IN THEATRE
General Editor Julian Hilton
Feminism and Theatre
NEW DIRECTIONS IN THEATRE
Published titles
FEMINISM AND THEATRE
Sue-Ellen Case
PERFORMANCE
Julian Hilton
Forthcoming titles
IMPROVISATION IN DRAMA
Anthony Frost and Ralph Yarrow
NEW DIRECTIONS IN THEATRE
Julian Hilton
REPRESENTATION AND THE ACTOR
Gerry McCarthy
SEMIOTICS OF THE DRAMATIC TEXT
Susan Melrose
TRANSPOSING DRAMA
Egil Tornquist
Feminism and Theatre
SUE-ELLEN CASE
M
MACMILLAN
©Sue-Ellen Case 1988
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 978-0-333-38999-7
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1988
Published by
Higher and Further Education Division
MACMILLAN PUBLISHERS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the word
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Case, Sue-Ellen
Feminism and theatre.-
(New directions in theatre)
1. Theater 2. Women in the theater
I. Title II. Series
792 PN2037
ISBN 978-0-333-39000-9 ISBN 978-1-349-19114-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19114-7
To my parents, Frank Leslie and Flora Gregory Case
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
General Editor's Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 Traditional History: A Feminist Deconstruction 5
2 Women Pioneers 28
3 Personal Theatre 46
4 Radical Feminism and Theatre 62
5 Materialist Feminism and Theatre 82
6 Women of Colour and Theatre 95
7 Towards a New Poetics 112
Notes 133
Bibliography 139
Index 145
Acknowledgements
The members of the Feminist Colloquium at the University of
Washington - especially Sydney Kaplan, Sandra Silberstein,
Susan Green and Juli Thompson - have taught me how to
discover, read and discuss feminist theory and criticism. Carolyn
Allen has guided much of my reading and has given her time and
expertise in reading many sections of this book. Jeanie Forte has
aided in the preparation of the manuscript and the section on
performance art. But it is Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano who has
provided the major intellectual, editorial and psychological
support for this project. Funds for time and research have been
provided by the School of Drama, University of Washington, the
American Council of Learned Societies, grant-in-aid and the
summer stipend from the Graduate Research Fund, University of
Washington. Additional funds from the Seattle Consulate of the
Federal Republic of Germany have served to introduce me to
German women playwrights. My Berkeley feminist family,
especially Marian Chapman and Lory Poulson, and the Los
Angeles branch, with Ann Siegel and Lili Lakich, have served as
my model of feminist political practice. For my training in
dramatic criticism, I shall always be indebted to Ruby Cohn.
S.-E. C.
General Editor's Preface
In the past ten years, Theatre Studies has experienced remarkable
international growth, students seeing in its marriage of the
practical and the intellectual a creative and rewarding discipline.
Some countries are now opening school and degree programmes
in Theatre Studies for the first time: others are having to
accommodate to the fact that a popular subject attracting large
numbers of highly motivated students has to be given greater
attention than hitherto. The professional theatre itself is changing,
as graduates of degree and diploma programmes make their way
through the 'fringe' into established theatre companies, film and
television.
Two changes in attitudes have occurred as a result: first, that
the relationship between teachers and practitioners has significantly
improved, not least because many more people now have
experience of both; secondly, that the widespread academic
suspicion about theatre as a subject for study has at least been
squarely faced, if not fully discredited. Yet there is still much to
be done to translate the practical and educational achievements
of the past decade into coherent theory, and this series is intended
as a contribution to that task. Its contributors are chosen for their
combination of professional and didactic skills, and are drawn
from a wide range of countries, languages and styles in order to
give some impression of the subject in its international perspective.
This series offers no single programme or ideology; yet all its
authors have in common the sense of being in a period of
transition and debate out of which the theory and practice of
theatre cannot but emerge in a new form.
University of East Anglia JULIAN HILTON
Introduction
I have not organised this book along either developmental or
chronological lines. Instead, it is organised like a sampler of
feminist critical techniques, theories, political positions, issues,
explorations and theatre practices. Each chapter and each of its
constituent sections is relatively complete in itself, allowing the
reader either to read it in the order in which it appears, or to pick
out for independent reference a section on a single author, such
as Aphra Behn, a single position, such as materialist feminism, or
a single theory, such as semiotics. However, in attempting to
outline the overall relationship between the feminist movement
and work in the theatre, I have built the discussion on three
bases: history, practice and theory.
My discussion of the feminist uses of history and theatre begins
with a deconstruction of the classics of the canon (Chapter 1).
Because I work in the theatre, rather than in literary criticism, I
have tied the perspective on the classics to stage practice rather
than to a reading of the texts. Also, I have adopted an academic
style, since I feel that any feminist deconstruction of the
'masterpieces' is an invitation to the guardians of the tradition to
attack its weaknesses with the standards of quill and scroll. I hope
these re-visions of the masters can provide an overview of work
that has already been done in this area as well as suggest some
new ideas and future projects. I debated whether or not to begin
this book with works by men, but finally decided that many of us
originally adopted feminism because of the pain and anger we felt
when we encountered the prejudices and omissions of the
traditional theatre. This deconstruction is only one of many ways
for feminists to think their way out of its patriarchal prescriptions.
Chapters 2 and 3 focus exclusively on women's works. I wanted
to separate their achievements from those in the canon. I have