Disguise, thou art a Wickedness... A History of Women in Theatre Part 1 of 3

RESEARCH: Historical & Personal

"Man, [John] Ruskin said, was 'the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. ' By contrast, Woman's intellect 'is not for the invention or creation but for the sweet ordering, arrangement...Her great function is Praise.'"[1]

The Playwright, Historical and Social Context:

During the 19^th century and earlier, most female playwrights wrote under a male pseudonym, a practice so widespread it is impossible to calculate how many women writers there actually were.  All plays came under the heavy hand of the Censor in 19^th century England.  “Censorship of drama in England began in the sixteenth century as a means of ensuring that no pro-Catholic propaganda crept into scripts, England having officially embraced the Reformation. A secondary purpose was to control the influence of actors, whose morals and religious views generally were suspect. The latter attitude would linger at least through the nineteenth century.”[2]

If the Censor knew that a play was by a woman, his idea of what was acceptable for her to discuss was likely to be so narrow so as to edit the play out of all existence. For most of our history, it has been a counter-cultural act for a woman to express any view publicly.

 Women writer's views were often political. [3]  "Gay Gibson Cima writes: 'Because women playwrights…were at least potentially more publicly exhibited and more closely associated with actresses than their literary counterparts in the novelistic trade, they faced unique challenges.'"[4]

Victorian sensibilities constrained women's expression.  From the corset to the page, an exhaustive social attempt was made to mold women into prescribed roles. Plays that represented women in less than an ideal light, or as active participants in their own destiny were criticized or submerged. "There are many examples of a woman's exposure as a writer for performance being equated with sexual self-exposure.”[5]  Shakespeare was heavily censored.  Less obviously, women playwrights like Emma Robinson, also assumed the illusion of male authorship as a means of receiving honest criticism for their work, desiring neither to be patronized nor unfairly condemned.  “'She is more afraid of her work being defended' because it is by a woman than attacked; 'she wants a fair hearing'”.[6]  

Complex Relationships: Self and Other

A recent study conducted in the US by then economic student Emily Glassberg Sands finds that play texts receive significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response bearing a woman's name than the same play texts marked with a man's name.[7]   These results were drawn exclusively from responses by female artistic directors and literary agents.  Men on the other hand, evaluated the same plays equally, regardless of the perceived gender of the writer.  There are a number of relevant factors that the study did not examine, such as whether women expect more of themselves than they do of men, and whether they hold other women to a higher standard when it comes to the portrayal of women characters (the mirror of the self) in women’s work.  The plays in the pool were four in number, all by women; there were none by men.  

 It is unsurprising to find that women have played a role in their own exclusion, and for diverse reasons.  Take for example my own reaction to hearing that ‘Shakespeare’, may have been written by a woman.

In Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? author Robin P. Williams presents an impressive body of evidence pointing to Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke as author of the Shakespeare plays and sonnets.[8]  The woman who introduced me to this book was my voice teacher at UC Davis, Lisa Porter.  She was often heard to say, “Shakespeare was actually a woman…” rejoining,  “…but that’s another story.”  

While Lisa’s comments peaked my interest, my initial reaction to her words was skepticism. I suspected Lisa of a far-fetched bias, which largely stemmed from my own fear of being seen to be 'unbalanced' or reactionary in my views.  In believing that the writing we ascribe to the actor Shakespeare was written by a woman, would I be likened to the character of the Greek father in the film “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” who believes that every important aspect of modern culture stems from the Greeks?[9]

Robin P. Williams’ book regarding Mary Sidney is factually compelling, but how to contain this earth-shaking secret, were I to give in to belief?[10]   I’d be unable to restrain myself from telling everyone I meet, on the street, at University, in Safeway:  ‘Shakespeare’ was written by a woman!  Would I not ‘halloo’ her ‘name to the reverberate hills and make the babbling gossip of the air cry out’: “No!” in disbelief?[11] Leading them to assume that I am…a feminist? 

In my imagined modern rewrite of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; the two swap lines about, and adlib, moodily:[12] 

ROMEO:         Art thou not Juliet, and a feminist?

JULIET:          Neither fair saint, if either thee dislike.

ROMEO:         My only love sprung from my only hate.  Tell me thou art not a Feminist!

JULIET:          I know not how to tell thee who I am.  My name, Dear Saint, is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee.  Had I it written, I would tear the word.

ROMEO:         (scribbling one word on a piece of paper, he hands it to her) Go on then… 

Enter, The Actress:

“A woman playing a woman? Where's the trick in that?”[13]

Women in England were banned from performing publically for centuries until pleasure-seeking Charles II lifted the ban against women acting.   Performance by women was deemed indecorous, sinful, and immodest.  Did the King, a famed sensualist and connoisseur of the female form, reveal himself to be an early appreciator of pornography by this act?   By all accounts, women who clambered up to tread the boards performed in the glow of the pornographic public gaze.

“Disguise, thou art a wickedness!” [14] In a reversal of fortune, male actors, trained from boyhood in the art of playing women, were now forbidden by the King’s edict to play female roles. Men who specialized in the female role were not asked to share the stage; they were replaced.  Acting became one of the first professions open to women. 

CHARLES II: Why shouldn't we have women on stage? After all, the French have been doing it for years.

SIR EDWARD HYDE: Whenever we're about to do something truly horrible, we always say that the French have been doing it for years.[15]

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[1] Julie Hankey, Victorian Portias: Shakespeare's Borderline Heroines (Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 4, Winter, 1994) pp.426-448

[2] Frank Northen Magill, The Theatres Act Ends Censorship of English Drama: Great Events from History II: Arts and Culture Series Ed. (Salem Press, Inc. 1993 eNotes.com 12 Sep, 2013)

[3] Susan Croft, The Way to the World: Emma Robinson and the Dilemmas of Identity: Auto/biography and Identity: Women, Theatre and Performance edited by Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press 2004)

[4] Ibid., p. 80

[5] Ibid., p. 81

[6] Ibid., p.89

[7] Emily Glassberg Sands, Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender: An Integrated Economic Analysis of Discrimination in American Theater (Submitted to Princeton University Department of Economics: April 15^th, 2009) http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/theater/Openingthecurtain.pdf

[8] Robin P. Williams, Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? (Berkeley, CA: Wilton Circle Press, 2009)

[9] "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" was produced Gold Film Productions, & HBO (among others), 2002, directed by Joel Zwick and written by Nia Vardalos who played a leading role in the film

[10] I’ve since given in

[11] Viola, disguised as the boy Cesario, to the woman Olivia, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

[12] Perhaps they are texting

[13] Jeffrey Hatcher, Compleat Female Stage Beauty (New York, NY: Dramatists Play Series Inc., 2006)

[14] Viola, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare

[15] Ibid.

Receiving Feedback: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman: Part 1

BACKGROUND

“Do you not know that I am a woman?  When I think, I must speak.”
[1]

Performing Identities:

Theatre Director Michael Barakiva introduced us to concepts of Performing Identities, in our first ‘Core’ class at UC Davis.  Through showcasing his personal preoccupation with identity, he encouraged us to do the same.  I began to be aware of the myriad of roles I play, and furthermore, how specific roles (that of actor and playwright) are colored by gender.  I began to examine a challenge I’ve had in believing that my work as a playwright can be ‘understood’ by my male mentors (in the UK), in whom I have witnessed a desire to push my work into the linear/literal.  Their critiques seem to express a preference for hugely dramatic events (high action).  How to receive feedback from people viewing our work through the lens of their own bias? 

In sifting through their words for ‘truth kernels’, I discover that my beloved male mentors in the UK are right when they identify an issue, but frequently prescribe a remedy that doesn’t fit my aesthetic or intention.  While at UC Davis, I had access to a wide range of feedback for my work for the first time.  During the intensely two years of the MFA, I learned to use feedback more efficiently: I compile it and puzzle through it, excited when I realise how apparently different bits of feedback seem to point to the same issue.   I couldn’t proceed effectively in my work as an artist without mentors, audience and friends who are willing to act as ‘an outside eye’.  In this manner, all of my work feels collaborative.  I am interested that the women in my life who currently critique my work tend to do so by questioning, rather than critique, which I find extremely useful.  I attempt to emulate this myself by supporting fellow artists and friends with more questions and less opinions in general.  

Further on gender: inhabiting UC Davis alerted me to a particular discomfort I habitually experience in hierarchical environments.  Class reading material on gender, imbibed in this institution has further awakened my awareness.  I note that my discomfort with hierarchy appeared to be shared by the women in the group, who tended to seek lateral collaboration.  I began to reflect on my past life as a woman and a woman artist.  I became ignited by statistics: women are radically under-employed in theatre by a ratio of 2:1.  Thus emerged the desire to contextualize this shared experience in Possession, and to realize a potential as actor-writer to create work for myself. 

Writing about Men, this strange love affair...

Put Your Characters Through Hell

I'm never short of ideas. But I am often sorely challenged to focus and whittle them down, working out what is most important in the story and what or whose story am I ultimately telling.  If I can't do this, the play doesn't work. 

A dear friend, playwright/director Stephen Beresford once pointed out that I empathised too much with my characters, that in fact I was loathe to hurt them.  He said to me:  "You must be like a Greek God!" and with relish:  "Put your characters through hell."   It's a thought that keeps me analyzing my motives as a write.  Am I treating these characters as friends?  Professional boundaries must be applied.  Who is to stage an intervention between myself and my characters...?

The Love of Other

Confession: I often become fascinated by my central male characters.  Excuse: the sole female in our house, I am surrounded by males...  And yet I am writing a woman's story .   Both men and women may write authentic male and female characters.  Yet gender is a strong factor in how we view the world, as is race, economic privilege etc.   For this reason it is crucial that both genders, and all races be adequately represented in theatre and film – until we are all so prolific that we begin to see the world through the lens of the other.  Unconsciously, our ideas about our society and the world are reinforced or changed through the art we view.  And yes, series appearing on HBO are mind-shaping art.  Even “The Kardashians”!

Although I often empathize with men, I can only empathize with them from the outside looking in.  I am energized and intellectually stimulated by apparent differences between the genders, analyzed in psycho-physical terms.  I think we are more similar than not, through the fact of our embodied humanity.  Much as across cultures, or the real/perceived boundaries of society and class and race etc. a great commonality exists.  This condition of humanity can unite us in shared understanding if we allow conditions to ripen...

The Archetype Within

A next evolution for the two genders in seeking equity and nourishment within a male/female partnership is to acknowledge and seek to understand some of these more typical differences, while still treating one's partner/children/friends /colleagues as distinct individuals. It is also my belief that we all carry archetypal male and female characteristics within ourselves.  Much of my work seems to be about this, an attempt to unite the male and female within.

It appears that my male characters are giving voice to an outgoing, active side of

myself, the more psychologically aware side - whereas my female

characters are harder for me to discover.  Mysterious and

introverted, they appear to hide from me as I write in much the way I hide from myself!

It’s suffocating in here! But ultimately in each new piece I am striving to bring out my ‘female’ voice more centrally.  My focus as I whittle down in a play spotlights the female character/s.

The Ruler is Watched

Women have watched men closely since time immemorial.  Reflecting on a time not so long ago in Europe (and still current in much of the world) in which the man has the final say and is center of the household, I can imagine the women in a household watching the male center like a hawk, attempting to guess his next move.   And what’s more I have seen this happen.  And done it myself…

I had the opportunity of staying for a prolonged visit with family members (in one of the top ten poorest nations in the world) who are in this situation today.  The culture is a classically macho one. The women in the family tend to hide their motivations and their activities in order to gain small freedoms. Their brothers and fathers are 'allowed' to interrogate and berate the women in a way that would be completely counter-cultural in reverse.  The women defend, in soft voices, but never attack.  They often lie to protect themselves.

Education is Crucial

As a voice teacher I was struck at how high the voices of the women are...without exception. They’ve learned to manipulate - a natural defense of the disempowered...  Their worlds are enclosed; the subject of their conversation: their neighbors and other family members.  In this culture too, there is a greater valuing of the woman as the center of the home, a deep loving of the mother, a greater embracing and caring of older people.  Family is truly valued.  

On the other hand, the women have had very little access to education and know nothing of the world outside.  Theirs is a seraglio of invisible yet tangible enclosures.  Education is a door to one’s own world, which furthermore can open endlessly onto other worlds.  The women in the family who have education are different, although they still have had to bow to their husbands.  Those women may stand out in the family and be discouraged by the other women from leaving the home to work.  If anyone does not feel concern about the attempt in some parts of the world to deny education to women, they need to make these connections.  The best way to maintain control over a person or a society is to deny them education.  Is this not the present racial inequity in our society today here and now?  Poverty is an oppression multiplying itself within the hearts of its victims.  Education is a way out.   And by education, I simply mean access to knowledge and the possibility of using that knowledge.

Gender as a License to Abuse

While the men go out and take enormous license, particularly in terms of unrestrained sexual freedom the women must stay indoors more or less, traveling between the market and their home, or other family members homes, their whereabouts questioned on a daily basis.  Friendships with women outside of the family are regarded with suspicion.  'Who knows what those women might be plotting.'  Infidelity is not unheard of for women but it is the norm for the men in this culture.  Clarifying the heading of this paragraph, at it’s most extreme, this is a place where armed thugs wait outside of schools and steal young girls.  They do so without consequence.  Most of these children are never seen again.  The few who return may commit suicide. The violence endemic to this place has come about partly through prolonged civil war (an effect of endless colonization by a number of European/American entities both overt and covert), corrupt government, the West’s thirst for drugs.  An entire blog is required to give this discussion justice.

It is important to acknowledge that this type of violence is also alive in wealthier, colonizing cultures.   Public outcry, laws and law enforcement, a greater ability to protect our children and greater empowerment of women have forced it underground. 

Getting back to centuries of women watching men, it came to me that negative stereotypes about women being manipulative, conniving, deceptive and gossipy have come about entirely as a result of disempowerment.  Think about negative stereotypes of the poor and unprivileged today.  Where do disempowerment and stereotype convene?

Hit by Love the Drug

In our own culture, I think women often find that when first love hits, their lives are subsumed by the male object of this love (much as I am distracted by my male characters in the first flush of writing, for indeed writing a play is to me like being very much in love)!  I spoke to a married male friend about this, whose wife is a younger woman in her early twenties.  She followed his movements closely. Her world revolved around him.  It appeared that she herself resented this absorption in him and wanted to strike out and do some of the things that he was doing in his life.  Yet she continued to make him the center.   He had apparently encouraged her to broaden her own horizons.  I tried to explain that as a married woman in her mid-twenties she might even be biologically wired to focus on her husband, as everything in her being is preparing for creating a family whether she actually wants to have children or not.  Just a theory…which seemed appropriate to this particular couple.  No, actually I was at the time reading “The Female Brain” by Louann Brizendine, M.D. and was very intrigued by the power of biology as described by her in this book...

Reading this book, I recognized much of what Brizendine describes.  As women grow older, they put themselves at the center of the circle - having experienced the opposite posture from early (heterosexual) relationships (I shall have to ask a friend who is in a female partnership how she sees this playing out for herself). 

Women at this time of life engage in a self-focus akin to the younger male, focusing on their careers, caring less what people say about them, become more self-directed and confident.  Women's careers are sometimes forged later in life, particularly artistic work.  It is fortunate when this coincides with a male partner wanting to stay home more and focus in on family a bit more. Of course many young women are striking out as well.  But it still appears to be a choice for women between children and personal advancement/development one way or another during different stages in life.

Introduction: The Futility of Ignoring The Artist's Gender

To the Actor: “….After studying and rehearsing him for a length of time, you ought to know the movement of the author’s thoughts.  They must affect you.  You must learn to like them.  Their rhythm must infect yours.  Try to understand the author.  Your training and nature will take care of the rest…

The emotion of the character is the only sphere where the author should pay attention to the actor’s demands and adjust his writings to the actor’s interpretation.  Or, an actor is justified in adjusting the author’s writing to achieve best results for his emotional outline of the part.”

                                                                                               -Richard Boleslavsky

INTRODUCTION: The Actor/Writer:  Hiding in Plain Sight

Imagine that we embark on a social examination of actors and playwrights, agreeing to omit all mention of gender.  Imagine too that this discursive experiment takes place before an audience, in whose presence each artist’s career and personal particulars are examined at length.  Yet in this public weighing of artist’s lives no clue to gender may be revealed.  

Next, we attempt to build statistics on our pool of genderless artists.[1] Struggling to organize our data in a cohesive manner, we fall to arguing as to ‘which genius it was had this brilliant idea, to omit genus?’   Without the frame of gender, we find ourselves proverbially at sea in our efforts to draw significant results.  While similar in some respects, the lives of male and female artists differ significantly.  To ignore gender is to ignore our own sociology, of which the theatre is a part.  In ancient Greek, the word theatre can be found to mean “the seeing place”.   Theatre is the mirror of society.  The story of gender within the theatrical professions tells an anthropological tale. 

"For a woman artist is after all a woman - that is her "problem" - and if she denies her own gender she inevitably confronts an identity crisis..." [2] 

Theatre artists themselves generally fall into two camps:  male and female, within which race, culture and sexual orientation play significant roles.  I cannot escape my own worldview for it is the lens through which I peer outward.  Therefore, it bears stating that these articles are framed by my female gender, and my experience of working in British and American Theatre as a bi-national, heterosexually identified Caucasian actor.   Theatrical traditions are diverse, and vary throughout the world.  Unless specified, it is to be assumed that I am referring to English speaking theatre and culture.

While I have always understood that gender played a factor in my experience of being a playwright and actor, it is not something I’ve discussed much with others.    Often after a performance, and within the confines of a pub, actors engage in discussions about acting processes and what it ‘means’ to ‘be’ an actor.  Viewed anthropologically, such discursive habits allow for a ritual ‘unwinding’ after theatrical events.  Expressions of dissatisfaction regarding ‘the industry’ at large and in particular may be aired at length during such sessions.  For the most part, I haven’t enjoyed the anatomizing aspect of these rituals:  Dissection has never seemed as appealing as doing.  Until now! 

My artistic life has been rejuvenated by my experience of higher education.  As a mature student I was exposed to artistic processes via the analytical, awakening in me a new desire to debate matters from a wider perspective than likely to be encountered in the post-show ritual.  One actor’s theatrical anecdote may be entertaining, yet actors’ experiences have greater relevance and purpose when placed within social and historical contexts.  

Jacky Bratton on gender and biography finds that “theatre people” of both genders write about their lives not to assert their own “particular importance in the world, so much as to construct a group identity in which their individual identity is seated”.   Furthermore, female autobiography in general seeks to define self-identity in relation to significant others:  “interdependence and community is key in the development of woman’s identity”.[3]  I am a woman who takes to the stage and writes for the stage.  By identifying myself within a community of women actor-playwrights, I opened a door to a personal and collective historical past.

The percentage of female playwrights produced lags well behind their male counterparts as do the percentage of women acting on stage and screen.[4]  Women artists are hiding in plain sight through lack of access.[5]   We fight for stage space, yet when granted access we choose to possess this space indirectly through the curious obfuscation of actor and playwright.  Working in a public forum, all actors reveal aspects of the self while donning borrowed masks.  Metamorphosed personal truths are revealed in stories told by playwrights.  Historically, artistic women have felt a particular need to protect their identity even while they long to be seen, a subject to be further explored in these articles.

The innately hierarchical relationship of actor and writer creates a challenge to the artistic process.    Within a complex social arena, what dynamics of revelation and control does the female actor-playwright enact, towards the shared goal of character manifestation?  Through the creation of the practical aspect of my MFA thesis, of which this article formed a part, I investigated the dynamic and elliptical relationship of female actor/writer, from dis/ease to productive collaboration.

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[1] Julie Jordan, Julie Jordan’s Speech, Town Hall Meeting NYC (New York, NY: Town Hall Meeting, New Dramatists, 27^th October, 2008) www.womenplaywrights.org

[2] Sandra Gilbert & Susan Gubar, The Madwoman in the Attic:  The Woman Writer and the 19th Century Literary Imagination (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1979) pp. 65-66

[3] Maggie B. Gale and Viv Gardner, Auto/biography and Identity: Women, Theatre and Performance (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004) p.4

[4] Patricia Cohen, Rethinking Gender Bias in Theatre (New York, NY: The New York Times: June 24^th 2009)

[5] Statistics generally agree that while 40% of playwrights submitting their work in the UK and the US are female, about 17% of new plays produced are by women.  If you add previously produced plays to the number of women being produced, the number goes up to 19%.