Women's Comedic Art as Social Revolution: Five Performers and the Lessons of Their Subversive Humor

269 Pages·2011·1.444 MB·English

by  Domnica Radulescu

Women’s Comedic Art
as Social Revolution
ALSO BY DOMNICA RADULESCU
Feminist Activism in Academia:
Essays on Personal, Political and Professional Change
(McFarland, 2010)
Women’s Comedic Art
as Social Revolution
Five Performers and the Lessons
of Their Subversive Humor
D R
OMNICA ADULESCU
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
Portions of Chapter One originally appeared as “Isabella’s Trick or
What a Sixteenth-Century Comedienne Can Teach Us Today,” in
The Theater of Teaching and the Teaching of Theater, ed. Domnica
Radulescu and Maria Stadter Fox (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington,
2005), 161–188.
LIBRARYOFCONGRESSCATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATIONDATA
Radulescu, Domnica, 1961–
Women’s comedic art as social revolution : five performers and
the lessons of their subversive humor / Domnica Radulescu.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-6072-4
softcover : acid free paper
1. Women comedians—Italy—History. 2. Women
comedians—France—History. 3. Women comedians—
United States—History. 4. Women in the theater—Italy—
History. 5. Women in the theater—France—History.
6. Women in the theater—United States—History.
7. Feminism and theater—Italy—History. 8. Feminism and
theater—France—History. 9. Feminism and theater—
United States—History. I. Title.
PN1590.W64R34 2012
792.702'80922—dc23
[B] 2011043811
BRITISHLIBRARYCATALOGUINGDATAAREAVAILABLE
© 2012 Domnica Radulescu. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, i ncluding photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without p ermission in writing from the publisher.
Front cover design by David K. Landis (Shake It Loose Graphics)
Manufactured in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Je›erson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
For my mother,
and for all the women who survive,
resist and thrive through laughter
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge Washington and Lee
University for support with research and travel funding
and in particular for the Lenfest grants that have provided
invaluable summer time for the completion of this man-
uscript.
I owe a large debt of gratitude to Shirley Richardson
for her competent help with various logistical aspects of
this project.
I am very thankful to Bess Ruff for the meticulous
work in helping format the manuscript.
I am grateful to the staff of the Bibliothèque de
l’Arsénal in Paris and the Newberry Library in Chicago
for help with the study and research of archival docu-
ments. Deep thanks are owed to Traci Mierzwa for her
superb help with indexing and other important editorial
details.
I am grateful to all my funny, empowered and loving
women friends who have inspired me and aided in the
production of this book with their stories, sparkle, sug-
gestions, and support.
vi
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Preface 1
Introduction 5
ONE. Isabella’s “Tricks”: Carnival and Mimicry in Sixteenth
Century Italy 27
TWO. Caterina Biancolelli: Seventeenth Century Trickster and
Parisian Coquette 69
THREE. Franca Rame: Militant Isabella, Feminist Colombina
in Twentieth Century Italy 119
FOUR. Contemporary American Colombinas: The Personal,
the Public, the Political, the Intimate, and the Comical 167
FIVE. The Heritage of the Commedia dell’Arte for Today’s
Feminist Theaters, Comedy and Activism, and Radical
Acts by Women Artists 187
Chapter Notes 233
Bibliography 245
Index 251
vii
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
Women’s Comedic Art as Social Revolution celebrates several exemplary
women artists who created, each in a different historical period, revolutionary
forms of comic performance and discourse, defying the flagrant prejudices
about women being either incapable of creating humor other than as objects
of male laughter, or being linked to humor other than laughing at the jokes
of men. The works and modes of comic theatrical expression discussed in this
book fall into the category designated by Jill Dolan as “utopian performatives,”1
as they offer subversions of the status quo of patriarchal societies, communities
and structures through laughter and in doing so they “describe or capture
fleeting intimations of a better world.”2These particular performances create
communities through laughter and a comic response to the insults and injuries
inflicted upon women through sexist humor and to various forms of gender
inequity in society at large. The women artists who populate this book tell
their stories in their own voices and through the lens of their own comedic
imaginations and, as they do, so I wholeheartedly join with Jill Dolan in this
statement: “To see women onstage, alone, telling stories is still, for me, a
political moment, one I can’t (or won’t) take for granted.”3
Several times while I was researching and writing this book, I was served
by some of my male colleagues, both in the U.S. and in France (where I trav-
eled quite often to engage in archival research for the book) with some of the
following priceless attempts at a joke: “Women actually have humor?!” or “I
didn’t know women did comedy,” or just simply a pretense of wonderment:
“Women and comedy?!” For some reason these colleagues must have thought
their joke was funny, for they laughed heartily at their lame attempts at humor,
even though I stared at them without even a smile (on my most courageous
days) or attempted a strained smile (on my more timid, reconciliatory “I don’t
want to embarrass the people who insult me” days). Invariably, a comment
by a feminist humor critic would come to mind as I stood in front of the
1