Isaiah Matthew Wooden Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 32 1 Visit Journal Homepage Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze Isaiah Matthew Wooden By Published on November 6, 2019 Download Article as PDF Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze. Shane Vogel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018; Pp. 254 + xi. A trip backstage at the Imperial Theatre in late fall 1957 promised brushes with a number of black performers who would help radically transform the cultural and racial logics of the United States. In an effort to profit from the “calypso craze” fueled by the success of Harry Belafonte’s 1956 record Calypso , producer David Merrick teamed up with composer Harold Arlen, lyricist E.Y. Harburg, and playwright Fred Saidy to bring the original, conspicuously titled musical Jamaica to Broadway. The incomparable Lena Horne was tapped to lead a company that included such tastemakers and change-agents as Alvin Ailey, Ossie Davis, and Josephine Premice. As Shane Vogel outlines in his thoughtfully researched and compellingly written book, Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze , their musical proved much more than “a typical instance of midcentury Broadway Caribbeana” (133). Vogel reveals how the production not only “provided a surface for constantly shifting and destabilizing configurations of nation and race,” but also opened space for “political alternatives to be staged, sounded, and embodied, even in the face of the tourist economies and minstrel traditions in which black fad performance trafficked” (134-135). In so doing, this recent book exposes musical theater as one of the many potent sites through which black performers interpellated by the Jim Crow era’s various “Negro vogues” staged and embodied various acts of refusal. Vogel examines performances across multiple media-sound recordings, nightclub acts, film, television, dance, as well as musical theater—to highlight some of the sophisticated strategies black artists developed to negotiate the racist, imperialist, and appropriating impulses of the American entertainment industry. He brings particular attention to the ways these artists engaged performance to challenge, sometimes playfully, binaries such as “inauthenticity/authenticity, false/true, improper/proper, ungenuine/genuine, and insincerity/sincerity” (7). Stolen Time notably does not offer a comprehensive accounting of the calypso craze. Instead, the book explores several key examples that elucidate how black performers thwarted the representational imperatives and constraints demanded and imposed by American fad culture. As detailed in chapter one, the 1950s calypso craze was not the first “race craze” to generate widespread excitement during the Jim Crow period. Indeed, Vogel draws direct links between earlier crazes—notably, the ragtime craze of the 1890s and the Harlem vogue of the 1920s—and the midcentury thirst for Caribbeana, thereby exposing “the structural repetitions that shape[d] these fad cycles” (34). The chapter’s close readings of Josephine Premice’s nightclub performances and the two albums she recorded at the height of the craze, in addition to evidencing Vogel’s assertion that fad time is always already stolen time, shed important light on the tactics black performers deployed to make “the tempos and tastes of the marketplace” (66) align with their own motivations and aspirations. Vogel offers additional evidence and analysis of these tactics in subsequent chapters. Chapter two, for example, examines the cinematic calypso craze of the 1950s and the live nightclub revues coopted and reproduced on screen to illuminate the self-reflexivity of the “calypso program.” This chapter offers particularly astute readings of Maya Angelou’s performance as a calypso chanteuse in the low budget film, Calypso Heat Wave (1957), which serve to substantiate Vogel’s suggestion that the “calypso craze project[ed] nothing other than itself” (89). Chapter three turns attention to Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s 1957 live television presentation of their LP recording, A Drum Is a Woman . Vogel analyzes the event as an example of “radical counterprogramming”—that is, “an alternative to the middlebrow’s exploitation of blackness in the project of Cold War internationalism and a fundamental rewriting of the calypso program” (108). As “radical counterprogramming,” the live broadcast of A Drum Is a Woman stole back the time of the calypso craze and, in the process, “posed important questions about the relationship between nation and diaspora; African American and Afro-Caribbean cultural exchange; white commercial culture and black performance; and the sounds and gestures that reshaped cultural geographies in the twentieth century,” Vogel writes (108). Chapter four’s focus on the Broadway production of Jamaica further surfaces and explores the entwinements of race, nation, and diaspora. Vogel examines the production as a signal example of “mock transnational performance”—“a theatrical mode and performative stance that takes up the misuse of diasporic cultural indices to critique and refigure the politics of the nation-state and racialized national formations” (134). The chapter also considers how the show’s multiracial cast fostered and forged community on and offstage, thereby posing direct challenges to the white supremacist status quo. Through the careful attention he gives to Horne’s performance as Savannah in the musical, Vogel expands on some of the arguments he explores in his first book, The Scene of Harlem Cabaret: Race, Sexuality, Performanc e (University of Chicago Press, 2009), further illustrating the range of approaches black performers developed and deployed to frustrate the racial expectations and assumptions of their Jim Crow audiences. Chapter five’s considerations of the crucial role that dancer-choreographer-director-performer-designer-painter Geoffrey Holder played in stirring and sustaining interest in the calypso craze serve to underscore Vogel’s assessments throughout Stolen Time that the fad was often marked by and constituted through the avowals and disavowals of its most prominent participants. Even as he disavowed what he called “Manhattan calypso,” characterizing it as an amusing imitation of “true Calypso,” Holder, Vogel notes, disavowed his own disavowals, popularizing a new dance form, the “Limbo-Calypso,” with the public. He also drew on the craze for inspiration to develop work for the concert dance stage. Especially striking throughout Stolen Time is Vogel’s skillful weaving of history, biography, theory, and critical inquiry to contemplate the significance of the calypso craze and the ontological conditions of black fad performance. The book is rich with fresh insights and important methodological interventions that add complexity to our understandings of concepts such as race, time, performance, diaspora, transnationalism, and mass culture. Students and scholars across myriad fields—theater studies, performance studies, media studies, popular music, and critical race studies, among them—will no doubt benefit tremendously from rigorously engaging with each chapter. To be sure, there is much to be gleaned about the significant role that artists continue to play in prompting social, cultural, and political change from Stolen Time’s absorbing prose and its shrewd considerations of black performance in the Jim Crow era. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Isaiah Matthew Wooden Brandeis University Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity Black Movements: Performance and Cultural Politics Law and Sexuality in Tennessee Williams’s America Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze Staging Family: Domestic Deceptions of Mid-Nineteenth Century American Actresses Excavating American Theatrical History: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Neighbors, Appropriate, and An Octoroon Mabou Mines Tries Again: Past, Present, and the Purgatory of Performance Space Rehearsing Bereavement with Laughter: Grief, Humor, and Estrangement Affect in Sarah Ruhl’s Plays of Mourning Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Sharyn Emery Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 30 2 Visit Journal Homepage Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Sharyn Emery By Published on May 28, 2018 Download Article as PDF Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas . Sandra M. Mayo and Elvin Holt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016; Pp. 341. The history of black theatre in the United States tends to be analyzed as a product of the coasts, from New York City during the Harlem Renaissance to San Francisco during the Black Arts Movement. In the twenty-first century, we continue to look to Broadway and off-Broadway as significant sites for study, yet the development of black theatre runs throughout the US. Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas by Sandra M. Mayo and Elvin Holt turns the spotlight on the state of Texas and its remarkable history of community theatre, from small amateur groups to professional theatre companies. The book provides a historical overview of black-run companies in five cities: San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, and Houston, complete with a chronological list of productions for each company in each year of its existence. Most of these theatres have all-black administrators and produce mainly—though not exclusively—plays by black playwrights from throughout the African diaspora. Mayo and Holt emphasize that the book is “a people’s story” (xii) that honors and builds upon the work and scholarship of others, including James Hatch, Erroll Hill, Samuel Hay, and Leslie Sanders, even as it provides new insights. Holt and Mayo begin by noting a gap in scholarship in both general black theatre historiography and the study of the black experience in Texas. Before turning to parallels between the growth of black theatre in Texas and in the country at large, the authors carefully explain black theatre aesthetics and influences. Black theatre in Texas presents a significant challenge to the narrative of Texas’s own cultural identity, which is dominated by violent stories featuring white male heroes, often to the exclusion of minoritized people. Thus, Mayo and Holt create space for a new narrative, one that places black artists at the center of the cultural development of Texas. In Stages of Struggle and Celebration , the existence of these highly professional and successful black companies proves the significance of their work. The text also uncovers the close, fruitful relationships between black theatres and the black church, and between black theatres and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in Texas. Part I of the book establishes the theoretical framework of black theatre, providing a helpful overview of the debates as to what “black theatre” actually is. Beginning with W. E. B. Du Bois’s “criteria for Negro theatre,” Mayo and Holt trace the debate through the scholarship of Paul Carter Harrison and Mikell Pinkney, and the aesthetic theories of August Wilson. The afterword pulls together theory and praxis, evaluating the book’s research and history through the lens of the five questions: who, what, where, when, and why. These sections are beneficial for any reader unfamiliar with the history of black theatre, dating back to the Jim Crow era and moving toward the present day. Part II contains one chapter about each of five major cities in Texas using specific companies to represent the history of black theatre in each area. In the preface, the authors acknowledge that the availability of archival materials and other research sites vary widely by city and individual company. This means that in each chapter, some of the write-ups are much shorter than others, due to the disorganized nature of most of the companies’ archives. Yet the authors make the most of what they have, including detailed performance histories, racial/ethnic demographic information of each city, and, in some cases, frank analysis of problems that affected companies and their ability to stay productive. Examined side by side, these companies share many striking similarities. Plays such as Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Endesha Ida Mae Holland’s From the Mississippi Delta are performed regularly. The section concludes with a list of plays by African-American Texans. Chapter one focuses on San Antonio and offers the most interesting history of the entire book due to the longevity and variety of institutions in this city. Theatre began here earlier than in most other cities, at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, several companies, including the nearly 100-year-old Carver Community Cultural Center and the Hornsby Entertainment Theatre Company produce full seasons of theatre, sometimes in collaboration with local churches or other arts foundations. Chapter two explores black theatre in Austin, the only city in the book that does not currently have an active black theatre. The most recent company, Progressive Arts Collective, saw its founder pass away in 2005, and then it closed in 2012. Holt and Mayo use this example to unpack some inherent difficulties in sustaining a black regional theatre without regular funding and public support. When a theatre company runs almost entirely on volunteer power, it remains on the precarious edge between survival and failure. Dallas emerges as the city with the most theatrical companies as well as the largest population of African Americans. Chapter three covers two currently active companies in depth, the African American Repertory Theatre (AART) and the Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL), which is most famous for its collaborations with Tyler Perry. Perry began working with TBAAL in the late 1990s and developed several of his characters and scripts there that would later appear in his feature films. Chapters four and five cover Fort Worth and Houston, respectively. Fort Worth contains just two companies, allowing the authors to discuss thoroughly the Jubilee Theatre, which continues to produce work. In Houston, the authors uncover the Thespian Society for “Cullud Genman,” likely a minstrel troupe from the 1860s, but focus mainly on two currently operating companies, the Ensemble Theatre and the Encore Theatre. Stages of Struggle and Celebration is not a critique of persons involved in running the companies, or an evaluation of the companies’ productions, although the authors do analyze why certain companies failed to maintain funding and include some media reviews where available. Instead, this text is a chronological, mainly favorable rundown of the important work done by black theatre companies in Texas. This is a book for students and scholars to use as a starting point for further research. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Sharyn Emery Indiana University Southeast Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Kaldor and Dorsen's "desktop performances" and the (Live) Coauthorship Paradox Ecologies of Media, Ecologies of Mind: Embodying Authorship Through Mediaturgy Dropping the Needle on the Record: Intermedial Contingency and Spalding Gray's Early Talk Performances #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS: Weaponizing Performance of Identity from the Digital to the Physical Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Michael Y. Bennett Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 27 1 Visit Journal Homepage James Purdy as Playwright: A Retrospective Reading of A Day After the Fair and The Paradise Circus Michael Y. Bennett By Published on March 5, 2015 Download Article as PDF James Purdy (1914-2009)—a prolific American writer of fiction, drama, poetry, and essays—has been known almost exclusively as a novelist, recognized for his early portrayals of gay characters and themes. Accordingly, scholarship has focused almost entirely on his well-respected novels. Purdy’s most notable contribution to the theatre is indirect, by way of adaptation of his novel, Malcolm (1959), by Edward Albee in 1966. This article considers two of Purdy’s minor plays that span a large swath of his career. Why Purdy now? And why two of his minor plays? There has been a recent turn in Purdy scholarship that has been gathering steam to examine his plays, which have been mostly ignored by academia. In addition to the publication of James Purdy: Selected Plays in 2009, since 2000, four of the seven articles published on Purdy have been about his plays. Douglas Blair Turnbaugh documented Purdy’s career as a playwright and recounts how Purdy told Turnbaugh that he “would just as soon write plays as novels.” [1] Though Turnbaugh does not comment on this statement, this suggests that Purdy scholars should give his plays continued prominence. Turnbaugh claims that Purdy has an inherent theatricality and a flair for dramatic dialogue. [2] This is particularly evident in Albee’s adaptation of Malcolm . Similarly, Matthew Stadler writes, “Talk, in Purdy’s world, is the instrument of revelation.” [3] Purdy does not dwell on scene-setting exposition, character background, or speculative psychological depth. [4] Purdy focuses, instead, on “the awkwardness and abruptness of real speech.” [5] Like Stadler, Michael Feingold argues that Purdy does not pay much attention to plot. [6] Feingold discusses Purdy’s non-traditional dramatic style, which is characterized by anecdotal drama, and explains how the plays are about “why life is so full of suffering and why human beings cause each other so much pain.” [7] Purdy’s reputation as a playwright has historically suffered for two reasons. First, the success of his novels has turned the finite amount of attention towards his novels (and, therefore, largely away from his plays). And, second, what scholarship that has been written about Purdy’s plays has focused almost solely on the structure of his plays (and, largely, in comparison to the structure of his novels). While it is important that academic journals have begun to publish work on Purdy’s plays, the fact that these articles do not really consider the content of the plays, has not done much to further his reputation as a serious playwright to be studied . Besides his prolific output of novels (and poems), James Purdy wrote, in total, eleven full-length plays and twenty shorter plays during his many-decade career. While many of Purdy’s plays were produced in non-notable theatres with limited runs—between the 1966 publication of his first short play, Mr. Cough Syrup and the Phantom Sex , and the 2009 publication of his fifth collection of plays, Selected Plays , published only months after Purdy’s death—, most of Purdy’s plays were published either in book collections or in literary journals/magazines during his lifetime.Unlike other scholars, I do not focus on structure, but instead, read his two plays about circuses and clowns through the idea of “clowning around,” playing off of the well-studied and complex idea of the carnivalesque, as theorized by Mikhail Bhaktin. This essay focuses on one of Purdy’s earlier published plays, A Day After the Fair (written in the early 1970s and first published in 1977), and one of his plays first published in a recent anthology, The Paradise Circus (written in 1991 and published in 2009). Though their dates of publication vary by almost thirty years, interestingly enough, both of these plays revolve around the circus. The figure of the clown haunts the pages, offering a unique opportunity to assess a change in Purdy’s thinking with similar characters occupying similar environments in both plays. While reading these plays, we may ask, what is a clown? and what is a circus? This line of inquiry gets us far; however, there is a much larger issue at stake when we examine the figure of the clown: Purdy’s characters only become themselves when they don the mask of another. Using the figure of the clown in such a manner is a sophisticated technique to explore this (above) idea—an idea that is not entirely without precedent in the history of theatre (e.g., becoming the “brother” in Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan and “Bunburying” in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest ). In the earlier play, A Day After the Fair , as Joseph Skerrett says in “James Purdy and the Works: Love and Tragedy in Five Novels,” tragedy is “played out against a backdrop of more than vaguely symbolic chaos in the natural order and/or disruption of the social order” [8] as the younger destroys the older in order to reverse the hierarchy. Love is a dangerous and destructive force here, as in Purdy’s earlier novels, because the characters cannot conceive or pursue it purely. [9] However, in the later play, The Paradise Circus , though the social order is disrupted in the beginning of the play as Arthur sells his sons and Arthur is incapable of pursuing love in the correct manner, the boys come back and the witch doctor becomes the doctor once more—restoring the social order—and Arthur does learn how to love, even though he quickly dies thereafter. Circuses are scary places in Purdy’s early works: the clowns are outcasts, and their makeup cannot hide the pain. However, by the time we get much later in his career in The Paradise Circus , life, in the end, can produce smiles. As these two plays represent his earlier and later career and both contain clowns, they offer a unique opportunity to see Purdy contemplate similar ideas and characters, but arrive at a different conclusion, demonstrating a fundamental change in Purdy’s outlook over the years. In interpreting the content of these two plays by Purdy through investigating the complex characters of the clowns, this essay aims to legitimate Purdy as a playwright and deserving of further scholarly inquiry. In A Day After the Fair , there are two grown-up brothers who are clowns. The older brother, however, will not let the younger very innocent brother assume the role of a clown (not letting him put on his makeup or costume), because the older brother feels as though he is the master clown. Like the younger brother’s lover who is a hired killer, the younger brother must become a killer, must become cold and calculating like his older brother. Only in killing his older brother, can the younger brother put on his makeup and finally become a clown. Like The Good Person of Szechwan , the previously-innocent younger brother must don another personality to live the life that he wants. The Paradise Circus , set in 1919, is about the relationship between a father and his two sons. Arthur Rawlings is mourning the death of his son Rainforth, a captain in WWI. Arthur forsakes his two younger sons, Joel and Gregory, because they do not live up to the memory of their older, now dead, brother. Joel and Gregory spend their lives working on merry-go-round wooden horses. When Senor Onofrio of the Paradise Circus meets the two boys, he propositions Arthur, who is known to be a miser. For ten thousand dollars, Onofrio will buy the two boys for the circus. If it does not work out and the boys return, he will have to return the money. At first, Arthur is shocked, but then he reasons that his sons do not love him as much as Rainforth did and agrees to the deal. After a number of years, he misses his son and wants them to return. Spurning the advice of the country doctor, Arthur turns to a witch doctor, Alda Pennington, for advice. She convinces Arthur that he must burn the ten thousand dollars, which he does. A little later the two sons miss home and run away from the circus and return home. They have grown up and claim to have hearts of stone when their father greets them again. Onofrio comes to Arthur to get his money back, but when Arthur tells him that Alda burnt it, Onofrio goes to Alda. Alda tells him that ever since he bought those boys he has not been able to perform with women. Alda says that if he ever wants his manhood back, he must leave town, forget the money and never return. Soon after Joel goes to Alda to find out if his father really burnt the money. She gives the remaining ashes to Joel. By the time Joel returns he is too late to hear what his dying father said to Gregory. Arthur told Gregory that he loves them and his dying wish was to see the stone removed from their hearts. Both sons are touched and they have appeared to regain their emotions, ending the play in an embrace. Many of Purdy’s other plays also feature types/variations of complex role-reversals. Dangerous Moonlight (unpublished to date) is a hauntingly sadistic, cold, and calculating play about making the best of a no-win situation. The action between mother and daughter, who have grown up in the lap of luxury, revolves around Val Noble, a Stanley Kowalski-like brute who lacks even the pride that Stanley exhibited in Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire . Val is merely satisfied and accepts who he is—a veritable animal, a practical beast, whose needs are quite basic: first sustenance (taking the form of a large roast of beef) and then sex. By the end of the play, the three have made an agreement that the daughter will remain Val’s wife, while the mother will take the place of the daughter and become Val’s lover. In True (1977), Chester, a thirteen year old boy who witnessed his brother commit a murder ends up killing his brother, to demonstrate to him that he is not a liar and is true; that, “he will not grow up to be like his brother.” Here, Chester must become his brother, a killer, in order to become himself. Or Jack, in Down the Starry River (unpublished to date), is a washed-up drag performer. By the end of the play, Jack discovers that in order to make himself happy, he needs his costume to become his daily outfit; he needs to wear dresses not as an act, but in order to be himself. Donald Pease writes that Purdy laces his fiction with orphans, abandoned children, foundlings and outcasts. [10] In A Day After the Fair , the two brother-clowns are circus folk: certainly societal outcasts. Joel and Gregory in The Paradise Circus , are symbolically orphaned as Arthur sells them to the circus. The play A Day After the Fair has a pessimistic ending as the younger brother can only turn to violence in order to become what he wants. This holds true with what Pease writes when he says that there is an irreconcilable gap in their world and the world that cannot “adopt” them. [11] However, there is a very different ending in The Paradise Circus . The two brothers, who were symbolically orphaned, are reunited with their father at the end of the play as each party seems to forgive and love the other. This focus on outcasts and innocents is found throughout Purdy scholarship. Part of the reason for this reoccurring theme is that, as Skerrett documents, as a gay man, Purdy identified with a socially marginalized race. In an interview Skerrett cites in “James Purdy and the Black Mask of Humanity,” Purdy—aligning and/or identifying himself with what he sees as a powerless and stigmatized member of society—discusses that in dealing with his landlord, he felt like an oppressed black person: “They treat you like an old nigger tramp. . . . I feel like an old nigger after I’ve talked with him. I just feel like saying, ‘Well, white boss, you sho got to me.’” [12] Purdy expressed the same sense of oppression when he talked to Christopher Lane in a 1998 interview based on his sexuality. Purdy felt that his lack of recognition, stemmed from his perception of The New York Times as homophobic. [13] Reed Woodhouse writes how Purdy also felt personally attacked by members of the gay movement for not being “gay enough.” [14] Because of this, Purdy could most likely identify with his characters, and as Frank Baldanza says in “James Purdy on the Corruption of Innocents,” “A prominent feature in the microcosm of James Purdy’s six novels and numerous short stories is the relationship between a young innocent and the corrupt adult world in which he must make his way.” [15] The social outcast and orphan figure prominently in his two plays that I discuss here. In A Day After the Fair and The Paradise Circus , Purdy captures the human in the guise of a clown-suit. In order to live life, one must clown around in a world that we know to be a circus. Like a clown, Purdy’s characters must assume another self in order to be true to their own selves. In order for Purdy’s characters to live the lives that they want, they must assume the role of another: they must become another to become oneself. Though full of obvious play and humor, Purdy’s circuses, however, are no laughing matter. These transformations are painful to all involved; even clown makeup cannot hide the pain, and when the clowns fall, or get hit on the head, they really get hurt. In makeup, clown performers exaggerate their bodily expressions, and clowns take on almost universal guises. It is an easy leap to imagine a modern day circus as a Bhaktinian carnival: The body and bodily life have here a cosmic and at the same time an all-people’s character; this is not the body and its physiology in the modern sense of the words, because it is not individualized. The material bodily principle is contained not in the biological individual, not in the bourgeois ego, but in the people, a people who are continually growing and renewed. This is why all that is bodily becomes grandiose, exaggerated, immeasurable. [16] It is the body of the clown that becomes the focal point and not the speech. We focus on their makeup and actions. And it is in their action that the clowns grow and renew themselves. Clowns operate through degradation, but also by overcoming degradation until they do it correctly. As Bhaktin says, “the material bodily principle is a triumphant, festive principle.” [17] In the face of degradation, clowns triumph over folly. Bhaktin explains how regeneration comes out of degradation: Degradation digs a bodily grave for a new birth; it has not only a destructive, negative aspect, but also a regenerating one. To degrade an object does not imply merely hurling it into the void of nonexistence, into absolute destruction, but to hurl it down to the reproductive lower stratum, the zone in which conception and a new birth take place. Grotesque realism knows no other lower level; it is the fruitful earth and the womb. It is always conceiving. [18] At the moment when Purdy’s characters face degradation are they renewed. By permanently donning the mask of another, by degrading themselves and reducing their existence to a new bodily existence, by directly dealing with their orphaned status, they become themselves. The short play A Day After the Fair begins appropriately with the scene being set: “ A dilapidated unfurnished room in a lonely city near which loom up enormous skyscrapers and bridges .” [19] Immediately we think of the degradation that the two clown-brothers, Neil and Arnold, encounter every time they look out of the window. Their surroundings are indicative of success and human progress, though of the lonely sort, and the two live in a dilapidated room, reflecting their failures and the process of continual worsening conditions. The play begins with Neil playing cards by himself and wishing that he is allowed to once again put on his clown suit, which his older brother, Arnold, forbids. Instead of listening to Arnold, Neil puts on the clown makeup: “I’ll put on my Clown’s face too, though Arnold’s forbidden it. . . . And it will make me lose the blues. . . . ” (3). There is something about his ordinary state that saddens Neil, and this may be in part due to. Maybe part of it is the reminder of his poverty-stricken state. The assumption of the carnivalesque being cheers him up, but also makes him feel more like himself. “I was a Clown just like him,” Neil states (3). For reasons not entirely clear to the audience, Neil was stripped of his Clown title by the Clown Master. Neil and Arnold come from a family of clowns: I said I was a clown at heart, and I need to live with Arnold. . . . We are the only clowns! My father was a clown, and his father. And before him my great grandfather was a juggler. We have always followed the circus. (5) They have a heritage, but Neil’s clown identity was stripped away. Neil is in the precarious position of both returning to his old identity—one that no longer exists—and creating a new identity. The plot of the play is a series of complex love triangles. Oswin is married to Elga, who promised Neil’s mother to take care of Neil, but Oswin loves Neil, offering to take Neil away from his overbearing older brother, Arnold. Neil loves Oswin, but also feels the same, at least obedient, love for his brother, Arnold. Elga is in love with both Arnold and Oswin (and has a weird motherly love for Neil). Arnold is in love with Elga, but has a demanding love for Neil. And wrapped up in this series of intertwining love triangles, the Clown Master seems to have had relations with all of the characters, too. The basic action of the play has Oswin, in some sort of revenge for Arnold, kill the Clown Master. Meanwhile, Neil poisons Elga and in turn, Neil kills Arnold. The love triangles afford the characters the ability to take on different roles, ones not determined by obligation. Oswin is obliged to be Elga’s husband, but Neil offers Oswin the possibility of being a lover. For Elga, too, she is obliged to be Oswin’s wife, but Arnold offers her the possibility of being a lover, as well. Neil is Arnold’s brother, but Oswin also offers Neil the possibility of being a lover. In a sense, all characters are trying to become lovers, trying to shed their obligatory mates. These characters become emboldened through love and held back by obligation. In assuming the roles of lover these characters can be free of the parts of themselves that is wrapped up in obligation. But it is not just the idea of taking on another role that frees the characters from obligation. Instead, the assumption of these other roles is only successful with an accompanying degradation. As Bhaktin says, it is only through degradation that there can be a birth. Actually, in the case of Oswin, there is a rebirth. Oswin is described as an assassin, and Oswin is in a similar situation as Neil. In assuming the role of assassin, Oswin is returning to an old identity that no longer exists. Does he return to an old self, or is he reinventing himself once more by once again becoming an assassin? It is an obligatory act, though. Arnold, through force and persuasion convinces Oswin to assassinate the Clown Master. For Oswin, killing the Clown Master, and literally degrading his body as he cuts out his tongue, frees Oswin of Arnold’s overbearing demands. Once Oswin accomplishes this task, he expects to find himself free to pursue Neil. Through assuming the role of an old/new self, degradation is allowed to occur, paving the way for freedom from obligation. The ultimate act of degradation and birth or rebirth comes from Neil’s character. Neil’s obligation to his brother is the one most firmly established. One can always divorce a wife, but a brother will always be a brother. By killing Arnold, Neil destroys part of his natural-born lineage as a clown. Like Oswin, Neil cuts out Arnold’s tongue: this degradation raises the question of whether Neil is returning to clownhood or is reinventing himself as a clown . But what it, ultimately, determines is that Neil will be the only clown. He assumes the privileged position of that title. And, finally, in the murder of his brother, Neil becomes the overbearing brute that his brother was, bullying Oswin. Neil, in freeing himself from his brother, has, in part, assumed the role of his brother. What is it about being a clown that metaphorically fits the play? First off, clowns represent both social outcasts and misfits. Not being satisfied with their role as outsiders, they yearn to become a part of society. However, clowns have a subversive means of achieving their desired goals, and they are successful through roundabout ways. For instance, they stumble until they find a certain, usually wacky, method of success. For Neil, degradation offers a way of subverting the natural order of birth and hierarchy. By toppling his brother, Neil is able to assume his old/new true and free self. The Paradise Circus opens up with an author questioning Arthur about his son, Rainforth. The author is writing a book about soldiers from the American Revolution up until WWI. Rainforth received many citations and won many medals and, as the author says, deserves to be in the book. Arthur describes Rainforth only in opposition to his two younger sons. He says, “My two youngest boys can’t hold a candle to their brother, that’s certain . . .They’re retarded boys. Never finished school . . .” [20] Arthur really has nothing to tell the author about his son except about his name: “The world wants everything ordinary. And both his name and character were extraordinary. Rainforth was right for him, whether people like it or not” (88). This sets up a classic case of a parent favoring one child and forsaking others. As a result of Arthur’s preferential treatment, his two sons, obviously, are detached from him. And because the boys are detached from Arthur, he agrees to “sell” his sons. The rest of the play, then, concerns Arthur’s attempt to buy back his sons’ love. The situation is simple; the resolution is complex. Before Arthur “sells” his sons to Onofrio, he meets with the family doctor, Dr. Hallam. Dr. Hallam is both the raisonneur , the critical outside observer, and a confidant to Arthur, much like James Herne’s famous homeopathic doctor, Dr. Larkin, in his classic play, Margaret Fleming (1890). Hallam correctly diagnoses the problem: Sometimes young men can get sick for sheer want of a little encouragement and downright affection, Rawlings. . . . And all they hear from you, if you will pardon my frankness, is a steady diet of praises for Rainforth. (91) If Arthur could follow Hallam’s simple prescription, the conflict in the play could have been avoided. But the memory of Arthur’s perfect son haunts him. In the face of Rainforth’s supposed perfection, everybody would be a disappointment. As soon as Onofrio offers to “buy” his sons, Arthur hits upon this point: “they have been a bitter disappointment to me, both of them” (95). And so three years have past and Arthur is dying to see his sons. It is not for another year until he actually sees them. Hallam warns Arthur how much they have changed. They have grown beards and have become much stronger even though they still use Arthur’s last name. Their meeting is short and polite. As Joel says, “we weren’t sure you would want to see us” (103). After the boys leave, Arthur tells Hallam, “I wouldn’t have knowed them from Adam” (103). The boys have transformed and indeed look like the “first son.” The boys have taken on a “magisterial” aura (102), and have supplanted Rainforth in might and in Arthur’s mind. Arthur’s sole preoccupation, which used to be his “grief for Rainforth” (96), is getting his two sons to love him. Arthur cannot accept the prescription that Dr. Hallam gives him. Because of Arthur’s unwillingness, or inability, to follow the doctor’s orders,we get the first of two degradations that produce growth. In Purdy’s circus, even the raisonneur and confidant must don a different guise. The “doctor” becomes a “witch” in order to be a doctor. Arthur says that he has had enough of doctors and decides to visit the local witch doctor to see if she can help him get his sons back. The traditional remedy for the situation, giving his children encouragement and showing more love, gives way to an untraditional remedy from an untraditional healer, a witch doctor. The audience must be weary of Alda Pennington before she even says a word. The stage directions read, Antique furniture everywhere, beautiful carpets and mirrors. Fresh flowers. An air of restrained wealth and comfort, not the house one would associate with a midwife or “witch.” (104) We know that Alda must be good at what she does, or at least good enough to trick people out of their money and make enough to buy antique furniture and beautiful carpets. But we might also look at it in another way. This is a person in touch with reality. We do not see the normal collection of ghastly thingamabobs that a “witch” would collect. Instead her decorations are sensible, even refined. She has one foot in magic, but the other is in a life of privilege. Her magic, then, is less foreign. And the pills that she prescribes are easier to follow than if she was a prototypical witch doctor. Like Dr. Hallam, she is both raisonneur and confidant. She quickly assesses the situation: RAWLINGS : They did come to see me . . . But without wanting to . . . They were cold as the brook after snowfall . . . Hardly said a word. ALDA : Just as they were trained. (106) After years of paternal neglect, Joel and Gregory naturally have nothing to say to him. They were, in fact, trained not to love Arthur. Dr. Hallam’s medicine would have worked it seems, if Arthur worked in usual ways. But he sold his boys. And an unusual medicine is needed to remedy that. Alda tells him, The very first thing you must do in order to regain your hold on life and in fact bring back the boys you have lost, is to burn Onofrio’s money . . . Here, before my eyes . . . (109) Alda, then, becomes a carnivalesqe doctor, one who deals in performance and bodily gestures. Her medicine is one of exaggerated excess, where the action is degrading and almost self-destructive. But these actions are done to re gain a hold of one’s life. It is not enough that Arthur gets rid of the money. Alda tells him that he cannot donate the “blood money” to charity (34). He must burn it. He must symbolically rid himself of the “bargain” that was reached with Onofrio, who freed him of his sons, and will thereby free him from his own guilt, actions and despair. Arthur’s change as initiated by Alda, leads to the second of two degradations. Arthur must burn his own fortune and that of his sons’. Arthur is a miser, who, in part, defines himself by his money. He must destroy that part of himself. Alda says, “I would have staked everything on your not returning” (114). She thinks it impossible for him to take on this challenge. “I thought you at least would go on being yourself, resisting everything and everybody, that not even the lightning would touch your pride” (114). By becoming another, by becoming the opposite of a miser, one who would literally burn his own money, Arthur has become the man he always could be, a good father. In this destruction, something burns anew. When Arthur burns the money, he burns the intangible to make room for the tangible, his sons. Once the two degradations take place, that is, the degradation of a doctor to a “witch doctor” and Arthur burning his precious money, the end of the play features the rebirth of the Arthur. Arthur, paradoxically, is dying. But there is still time for this new Arthur to make an impact on the lives of his sons. And with this, Dr. Hallam returns. Now that the unnatural deed of selling his sons has been remedied by the unnatural act of burning the money, traditional medicine can once again take over. On his deathbed, Arthur says to Hallam, Greg and Joel. What can I say, what can I give them. HALLAM : You want my opinion? RAWLINGS : Oh I suppose, though your opinions always take the wind out of my sails . . . Well, go on give it to me, give me your unvarnished say, so why don’t you, though, I’ll probably choke on the words when I hear them. HALLAM : (pacing the room, his head lowered) I can only tell you what I think I’d say if I had two fine boys like you have, if also I had done to them what you have done. RAWLINGS: Sold them like cattle you said once. HALLAM : Did I now? Ah, well . . . RAWLINGS : And what would you say if you was in my stead, Doc. HALLAM: I would say . . . ( hesitates ) I would hope one day they would find it in their hearts to overlook my failings, and that when they were my age they would understand how hard it is to tell those we love how much we love them. (143) And this is exactly what Arthur tells Gregory (Joel was at Alda’s at the time). Even in the act of dying, something is reborn, not just in Arthur’s heart, but the stones are lifted from the hearts of his sons. As the Passover saying goes, “Our story begins with degradation, our telling ends with glory.” As evidenced by these two plays, maybe there was a softening in Purdy’s heart over the course of the years. A Day After the Fair is utterly pessimistic and tragic. However, there are signs of hope and the possibility of love, albeit brief, at the end of The Paradise Circus . In Purdy’s early novels and plays, there are numerous instances of “orphans” as societal outcasts who will never fit in and will always grasp for the love of family. This holds true in A Day After the Fair . The tale of the orphan is, as Frank Baldanza says in “Playing House for Keeps with James Purdy,” “a recurrent Ur -fable of the lonely, desperate orphan, cut off from any family intercourse in childhood, who spends his brief career ‘playing house’ with intense, doomed seriousness, frustrated in his search for metaphorical family relationships that will provide the authority, security, and warmth of familial feeling.” [21] But The Paradise Circus is different. Most of the play follows this same pattern, but forgiveness and love are ultimately shared among the characters at the end. However, maybe the more elegant way to explain this shift is to return to the idea of Bhaktin’s carnivalesque. Early in his career, Purdy hurled his orphans “down to the lower reproductive stratum.” There, in the “fruitful earth and the womb,” Purdy’s orphans could incubate and experience a “new birth,” so that years later these orphans are “continually growing and renewed.” References NOTES: Though much expanded here in this essay, some of the arguments about clowns and, especially, the section on The Paradise Circus come from my short article “Clowning Around in James Purdy’s The Paradise Circus ,” Notes on Contemporary Literature 38.3 (May 2008): 7-10. Earlier versions of this chapter were also presented at two conferences: “Clowning Around in James Purdy’s The Paradise Circus .” 16 th Annual American Literature Association Conference. Boston, May 28, 2005 and “Role-Reversals in Purdy’s A Day After the Fair.” 18 th Annual American Literature Association Conference. Boston, May 26, 2007. [1] Douglas Blair Turnbaugh, “James Purdy: Playwright,” PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art 20.2 (1998): 73. [2] Ibid. 73-74. [3] Matthew Stadler, “The Theater of Real Speech,” The James White Review 17.1 (Winter 2000): 7. [4] Ibid. [5] Ibid. [6] Michael Feingold, “The Basic Question: James Purdy’s Plays,” The James White Review 17.1 (Winter 2000): 40. [7] Ibid. 40-41. [8] Joseph Taylor Skerrett, Jr., “James Purdy and the Works: Love and Tragedy in Five Novels,” Twentieth Century Literature 15.1 (April 1969): 25. [9] Ibid. 26. [10] Donald Pease, “False Starts and Wounded Allegories in the Abandoned House of Fiction of James Purdy,” Twentieth Century Literature 28.3 (Fall 1982): 335. [11] Ibid. 335-36. [12] Joseph T. Skerrett, Jr., “James Purdy and the Black Mask of Humanity.” MELUS 6.2 (Summer 1979): 81. [13] Christopher Lane, “Out with James Purdy: An Interview,” Critique 40.1 (Fall 1998): 72. [14] Reed Woodhouse, “James Purdy (Re)visited,” Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review 2.2 (Spring 1995): 16. [15] Frank Baldanza, “James Purdy on the Corruption of Innocents,” Contemporary Literature 15.3 (Summer 1974): 315. [16] Mikhail Bhaktin, Rabelais and His World, Trans. by Helene Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984) 47. [17] Ibid. [18] Ibid. [19] James Purdy, “A Day After the Fair,” in Two Plays (Dallas: New London Press, 1979) 3. All subsequent references are indicated in parentheses. [20] James Purdy, “The Paradise Circus,” in Selected Plays (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Publishers, 2009), 87. All subsequent references are indicated in parentheses. [21] Frank Baldanza, “Playing House for Keeps with James Purdy,” Contemporary Literature 11.4 (Autumn 1970): 488. Footnotes About The Author(s) MICHAEL Y. BENNETT is Associate Professor of English and affiliated faculty in Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he teaches courses on modern drama. He is the author of The Cambridge Introduction to the Absurd (forthcoming 2015); Narrating the Past through Theatre (2012); Words, Space, and the Audience (2012); and Reassessing the Theatre of the Absurd (2011/Pb 2013). He is the editor of Oscar Wilde’s Society Plays (forthcoming 2015); with Benjamin D. Carson, Eugene O’Neill’s One-Act Plays: New Critical Perspectives , (2012/Pb 2014); and Refiguring Oscar Wilde’s Salome (2011). In addition, he is also Editor of The Edward Albee Review . Editorial Board: Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Managing Editor: Phoebe Rumsey Editorial Assistant: Fabian Escalona Advisory Board: Bill Demastes Amy E. 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Danielle Rosvally Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 36 2 Visit Journal Homepage Burning it Down: Theatre Fires, Collective Trauma Memory, and the TikTok Ban Danielle Rosvally By Published on June 1, 2024 Download Article as PDF Real Time Fires As a researcher of the nineteenth century, I am no stranger to the destruction of collective memory vis-à-vis archival failure. Theatre fires are an omnipresent force in dialogues about every aspect of nineteenth century performance history knowledge, particularly speculative thought about what we do not know. Consider, for instance, the Iroquois Theatre fire of 1903—the second deadliest single building fire in US history (second only to 9/11). (2) Jane Barnette has explored this historic event through spectator testimonials. (3) Barnette proceeds with caution because, as she argues, the spectator experience, and particularly performed spectator experience, is innately biased. This nuance is reinforced through Jewel Spangler’s exploration of the 1811 Richmond Theatre Fire—when it occurred, it was America’s deadliest urban disaster—in which Spangler reminds the reader that curation of the archive is a communal act of editorial significance. (4) Who is left out of the story is as important as who is kept in. Whose story is told, and how, is continually shaped and re-shaped by the things that are kept: the journals that were deemed important enough to pass down through history, the images that were created and saved and who they depict, and the generations of choices that archivists both formal and informal made about what should take up precious space in physical holdings say as much about the event these holdings document as their contents do. This question of space is greatly nuanced in the digital era as information becomes easier to store in smaller footprints. The question of performance, too, has experienced similar shifts as platforms for theatre and performance have become greatly diversified. While analog theatre spaces continue to host precious and precarious repositories of information, robust archives of performance also exist in the digital realm via many platforms including social media. (5) As I watch congressional proceedings and national conversation surrounding the threatening potential of a TikTok ban in the United States throughout 2023 and into 2024, I cannot help but feel an uncanny similarity between historical theatre fires and the impending potential destruction of a massive repository of performance. What have we lost to the ashes that we might not even know is gone, and what (then) might we lose if history repeats itself? The difference, of course, is that I watch this slow burn in real time; the possibility of a day when I open my phone to find a pile of burnt charcoal in place of the familiar stylized TikTok icon does not seem so far away. I have often longed for a time machine to access unburnt relics of the past, and I feel as though I am being offered just such an opportunity with TikTok. To those of us paying attention, there is the possibility of packing a fireproof safe with a few pieces of content for safekeeping should a ban occur. What is at stake if TikTok, like the Iroquois or the Richmond Theatre, burns to the ground? What would happen if the United States experienced the same ban that has already been enacted in India or Hong Kong? Users from these regions describe how, overnight, their access to the platform and even their own back videos, was completely gone. (6) Too many theatre historians and performance scholars dismiss TikTok as a frivolous platform for Gen Z to make viral dance videos, participate in trends, and review products. (7) This dismissiveness plays right into the current political narrative being pushed by those who actively seek to annihilate the TikTok repository. But there is more to this app than the surface-level reading of its detractors. TikTok is a keystone to contemporary culture-making and a critical artifact of life in the COVID-19 era. (8) Losing TikTok to government action would not simply be a shame for Millennials and Gen-Z micro-influencers, who would no longer have their virtual playground, but would in fact be a significant blow to the preservation of pandemic-era collective trauma memory. Historians are well aware of the wide-ranging impact of a loss like this in myriad ways such as: further marginalizing already-minoritized voices; allowing mass re-writing of historical information and erasing individual trauma from national memory; and pointedly glorifying certain groups while villainize others. At present, TikTok is poised to combat these threats, but only if it can persist as a repository of theatrical information. The Looming Threat As I consider the proverbial contents of my fireproof safe, let us examine the spark that threatens to engulf this collection. For the past several years, TikTok has been at the center of debates in the United States regarding data security. On August 6, 2020, President Donald Trump attempted to use executive power via Executive Order (EO) 13942 to create a ban specifically targeting TikTok citing threats to national security. The arguments he made boiled down to a perceived threat caused by Chinese ownership of TikTok’s parent company (ByteDance) and provenance of data collected via the app. (9) After multiple court cases which ruled in favor of TikTok, President Joe Biden signed further EOs that repealed and replaced Trump’s and pledged to create better policy for regulating sensitive user data across diverse platforms. (10) Since then, TikTok has been a topic of conversations centered in the idea of security risks. In December of 2022, Biden signed a bill that prohibited the app on government devices. (11) On March 7, 2023, the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act or the RESTRICT Act (S. 686) was introduced to the senate as a bipartisan bill aimed to ban foreign technologies from operating in the US if they pose a risk to national security. (12) While TikTok is not named explicitly in the bill, it is fairly transparent what is being targeted. On April 14, 2023, the Montana State Legislature passed Senate Bill 419, “An Act Banning TikTok in Montana,” becoming the first US state to ban TikTok. (13) SB419 was signed by Montana State Governor Greg Gianforte on May 17, 2023. (14) The bill was set to go into effect on January 1, 2024 but then TikTok sued the state in an effort to block it (an effort which was ultimately successful as a court ruled on November 30th 2023 that this was a violation of the first amendment). (15) On March 13, 2024, the United States’s House of Representatives passed HR 7521 a bill called the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” which would, effectively, ban TikTok in the United States. (16) This bill was later tied to an essential foreign aid package (House Resolution 815), unanimously passed in the House on April 19, passed in the Senate on April 23, and was signed into law by President Biden on April 24. (17) I argue these conversations center around “the idea” of security risks rather than their actuality because all publicly available information in early 2024 indicates that TikTok poses no greater threat to an individual user’s data than any other social media app in common use. In March 2023, the Internet Governance Project, an organization based out of Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy whose mission is to perform independent analysis of global internet governance, posted a study done by Milton L. Mueller and Karim Farhat which found, among other things, “The data collected by the TikTok app is very similar to the data collected by its peer competitors. This data can only be of espionage value if it comes from users who are intimately connected to national security functions and use the app in ways that expose sensitive information. These risks arise from the use of any social media app, not just TikTok. They can easily be mitigated without banning the app.” (18) I will return to the specific motivations behind targeting TikTok in spite of the evidence below. In considering this ban, I turn to the wisdom of Stephen King who—in the face of book bans—encourages kids to go to the library, “get a copy of what has been banned. Read it carefully and discover what it is your elders don't want you to know. In many cases you'll finish the banned book in question wondering what all the fuss was about. In others, however, you will find vital information about the human condition.” (19) While the information currently available to the public does not point to a TikTok-specific security risk, it does indicate something more sinister about a greater worldview. The consumer tendency to diminish the platform leans into this harmful rhetoric. As Stephen King urges, let us go to the proverbial library by way of a primer on what TikTok is and how it works. TikTok is a social media app where users create, share, view, reshare, and comment on short-form videos. TikTok built on the popularity of Vine, another short-form video-sharing app that lived a brief but formidable life from 2012-2017. Notably: Vine videos were capped at 10 seconds. (20) 2019 saw TikTok begin to flourish in the United States—growth that would continue in the pandemic years to come. (21) It was the “most-downloaded app of 2020” when users were stuck in their homes with no way to connect in real time. (22) Instead, clearly, they connected on TikTok. And, since TikTok archives even as it offers a platform for performance, this makes TikTok the most robust and egalitarian archive of pandemic-era life in current existence. I pause here briefly to consider my use of the term “archive” for this collection. In 2003, Diana Taylor introduced the terms “archive” and “repertoire” to refer to two very different but intertwined systems of knowledge preservation. The “archive,” to Taylor, represents a gathering of materials collected through objects—memories mediated by recording technologies. “‘Archival’ memory exists as documents, maps, literary texts, letters, archaeological remains, bones, videos, films, CDs, all those items supposedly resistance to change.” (23) The “repertoire” is a collection of embodied knowledge, “performances, gestures, orality, movement, dance, singing, in short all those acts usually thought of as ephemeral, nonreproducible knowledge.” (24) In her 2010 meditation on her prior work on Archive and Repertoire, Taylor added that: Digital technologies constitute yet another system of transmission that is rapidly complicating western systems of knowledge, raising new issues around presence, temporality, space, embodiment, sociability, and memory (usually associated with the repertoire) and those of copyright, authority, history, and preservation (linked to the archive). Digital databases seemingly combine the access to vast reservoirs of materials we normally associate with archives with the ephemerality of the ‘live.’ (25) Taylor has never conceived of the “archive” and “repertoire” as a binary (not in 2003 when she first introduced these paradigms, nor 2010 when she revised them to include the digital); rather Taylor has always argued that these three things “overlap and work together and mutually construct each other.” (26) To Taylor, the digital will never replace the archive since they require each other vis-à-vis this mutuality. Social media platforms have always enabled a form of performance; the putting-on of an avatar self to encounter the world in certain ways makes performance via social media innately entwined with social media use. (27) Theatre companies over the years have taken this invitation more literally and created full performance pieces over social media. (28) The pandemic ushered in a new wave of this phenomena: as we became isolated, we sought connection via digital art. Sarah Bay-Cheng asks “If we have seen the performance and the documentation, can we readily distinguish between the two? What if we have not seen the original performance, but we have seen detailed recordings? ... How do I delineate the performance I attended from the digital records I have collected, especially those that are personal to me in my mobile phone?” (29) Digital media blurs these boundaries and presents the opportunity for a broadened definition of memory spaces. (30) When considering TikTok’s applications to the pandemic-era audience and user base in light of the app’s pandemic-era popularity, part of this usage pattern lies in TikTok’s multiple facets as a platform. In addition to providing a viewing space, TikTok has a native editing client which allows users to turn their smartphones into recording suites: they can record, edit, upload, and shape videos all from the app itself. This reduces access barriers and effectively allows anyone with a smartphone to single-handedly become a content creator. (31) TikTok is also incredibly good at creating audiences by connecting users with niche interests. The app’s proprietary algorithm shows users content it believes they will like based on their interactions with other content. Unlike legacy social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter, TikTok’s user experience is largely driven by a rotating “for you page” (FYP) that greets users when they open the app. The FYP is a constant scroll of videos that the algorithm has discovered for the user. The more a user interacts with TikTok, the better the algorithm becomes at predicting a user’s interest and providing them with things relevant to these interests. Because of the strength of the algorithm, TikTok enables niche audiences to find each other (a feature, Trevor Boffone and I have argued, which amplifies the voices tend most to be marginalized from mainstream archives, namely: queer, POC, and femme voices). (32) This aspect of TikTok’s usage, along with its prominence as a repository of pandemic-era performance, makes TikTok a vital tool to understanding and remembering life during the COVID-19 Pandemic. TikTok and Collective Trauma Memory Like a theatre, TikTok enables community building and content on TikTok exists in robust multi-modal conversations. Cremation of this theatrical repository would also incinerate these community ties because, unlike an analog theatre, TikTok’s communities are connected almost exclusively via the app and its features. In essence: as a theatrical repository, TikTok enacts collective memory. Collective memory is the idea that memories are not individual experiences, but rather connected to a greater whole. In his 1925 meditation On Collective Memory, Maurice Halbwachs proposes that all memories are collective memories. Even individual memories, that is: something that one individual person remembers in a room by themselves, is connected to a bigger picture. It is impossible to remember, argues Halbwachs, without creating some kind of discourse or connecting with some other perspective of the memory and this makes memory collective. (33) Considering TikTok, this description perfectly encapsulates how the app functions. TikTok allows users to respond to each other directly on posts using various frameworks. There are, for instance, more traditional means such as comments (i.e. simple text responses). But TikTok has one-upped the comment by giving creators the option to either respond in old-school text, or to compose a video response in which the comment will be visible at the top of the screen for whatever duration the creator chooses to set (see Figure 1; Creator @theanissagarza Responds to a Comment with a Video ). (34) Additionally, creators have the option to “stitch” on to other videos (to take another creator’s video and append their own content to the end), or “duet” a video (to have another creator’s video playing in half the screen while they record something going on in the other half). Duet videos allow creators to discourse across time and space—to hear and react in the fractured time-space of the internet but nonetheless more directly than legacy platforms have previously enabled whether the duet shows togetherness (as in Figure 2 where dancers are moving synchronously together to do Bob Fosse’s iconic choreography to “Rich Man’s Frug” from Sweet Charity ), or conversation (as in Figure 3 where two singers are enabled to sing in duet even amidst 2020 lockdowns ). (35) In this way, TikTok facilitates not just community-building, but also citational practices since original creators are, by default, identified in stitch and duel videos, as well as para-textual commentary. Sometimes, a call to duet will so wildly circulate on TikTok that it inspires its own sub-movements (called a “trend”). The Rich Man’s Frug became one such trend. In noticing a dominating presence of white dancers putting out Rich Man’s Frug videos, user @djouliet made her own call to action with the sound and choreography—mimicking the trend’s original creator @markstephen60 by doing the dance in her kitchen but calling out “come on, Black girls, let’s go” to invite other femme Black dancers to duet her. User @itsjust_lydia took up the call (see Figure 4; Black Dancers Claim Space with the “Rich Man’s Frug” ). (36) This is one example of how TikTok enabled creators who did not see themselves represented in a certain conversation to take control of the narrative and add their voices to a growing archive. While such interaction paradigms differ from those enacted in more traditional theatrical performance spaces, performance scholarship is already equipped to deal with them. Pascale Aebischer calls such interactions “ platea -based engagement” (referencing the medieval paradigms of locus as the mode of performance where a performer is quietly in a world of their own behind the proscenium arch and the platea as the mode of performance that invites the audience to comment on or engage with the performance in the here and now). (37) Valerie Fazel has argued how Aebischer’s notion of platea -based engagement might be used to more deeply understand marginal commentary on digital performance, especially on YouTube. (38) TikTok is a new generation of platform, but some of its uses are common with its ancestors. As a collective model of platea -based engagement, TikTok’s opus represents a communal construction of memory, and (specifically) pandemic-era memory. But “communal” does not necessarily mean “collapsed.” Because of TikTok’s strength at allowing creators to find other members of their own communities, the platform is unique in its ability to enable vibrant individualism. In her work on theatrical production during the shelter-in-place era, Dani Snyder-Young recognized a melting pot-esque treatment of audiences by performers and platforms. (39) Not a single pandemic-era performance examined by Snyder-Young’s research team displayed exceptionalism when dealing with its audience, but rather treated them as an amalgam and erased nuance. This is not what TikTok does. Because the algorithm is so good at connecting content and audience, TikTok content creators are encouraged to “let their freak flag fly,” and they will be connected with others who enjoy even incredibly niche content. This aspect of the platform effectively democratizes the archive and allows voices that Spangler notes are not frequently preserved in disaster narratives guaranteed spaces in the story. In Spangler’s words: “The archives themselves, and what they contain, are shaped by the understandings, needs, and desires of the powerful. To be sure, we can search out sources that purport to allow the disempowered to speak, or seem less influenced by elite perspectives, yet we have to be aware that so long as the archive is still the well from which professional historians primarily draw, the problem of power will always be with us.” (40) Because of the ways in which the pandemic had an undue impact on communities of color, this is an important ethical element of preserving pandemic-era memory. (41) While TikTok’s user demographics broken down by race are not currently available, a 2021 study done by Pew Research Center speaks to a degree of diversity in TikTok users. (42) According to this study, 31% of Hispanic US adults polled self-identified as TikTok users, 30% of Black US adults polled self-identified as TikTok users, and 18% of white US adults polled self-identified as TikTok users. Accordingly, TikTok’s ability to highlight and encourage individuality is both unique and necessary and underscores the stakes of taking this repository seriously. The COVID-19 pandemic was a moment of global collective trauma, and it is no coincidence that TikTok’s rise to prominence paralleled this. The work of scholars like Dena Al-Adeeb, Noe Montez, and Belarie Zatzman have explored the ways populations who have experienced collective trauma have created collective memory. (43) Past theories of collective memory have located it as a nexus of projects generally connected with nationalization. In an analog world, this makes complete sense. But there are two extraordinary forces at play with collective trauma memory in regard to COVID-19 and TikTok. First: the global nature of the pandemic. Second: the fact that TikTok overcomes geographic boundaries by way of its accessibility and international presence. TikTok connects content creators over broad swathes of the world. Not only is TikTok accessible from a technological standpoint, but language barriers do not stand in the way of the several visually oriented genres that make TikTok’s bread and butter: dance challenges, culinary videos, cosplay trends, lip synch. Because of this, TikTok’s oeuvre is what Astrid Erll would call a study of “transcultural memory,” or a mnemonic device which transcends the containers of a single culture or incident and instead reaches a global community. (44) Erll coins the term “traveling memory” to encompass a sense of “the incessant wandering of carriers, media, contents, forms, and practices of memory, their continual ‘travels’ and ongoing transformations through time and space, across social, linguistic and political borders.” (45) TikTok serves as the medium for such traveling memory, and the destruction of the TikTok archive would mean an end to these proverbial transformations. It would mean not just a collective forgetting of the specifics the archive held, but also the destruction of the transformative possibilities that time and space could give to eccentric short-form videos containing incidents from day-to-day life and the creative reimaginings of collective trauma. Terri Tomsky devised the notion of “traveling trauma,” which is trauma which is able to move upon similar pathways as commerce in a digital world; either via analog or digital means. (46) To Tomsky, trauma can be viewed in similar ways that Edward Said views the notion of “theory” and “traveling theory”: it can be interpreted and re-interpreted by the communities who receive it globally. (47) Tomsky also created the idea of a “trauma economy” wherein trauma can be viewed under similar terms as production and capital: when the market is flooded with it, it becomes less valuable or holds less meaning. (48) I can think of few times in history when global trauma was as fungible on an international market than during the COVID-19 pandemic and assorted lockdowns. During this time, global isolation flooded the trauma market and human contact was a critical missing feature in our daily lives. So, while trauma was, perhaps, less meaningful (according to Tomsky’s paradigm) because of its prevalence, connection was more meaningful because of its lack. This market was part of TikTok’s recipe for success. Sarah Bey-Cheng has made the case that “the digital image is … not only a marker of memory… such images may now serve primarily as a kind of social connection.” (49) Boffone further argues that the pandemic-driven need drove massive global audiences to bond over “silly” dances, or share what life in lockdown was like via TikTok. (50) Tina Kendall highlights this function of TikTok in pandemic life, after all it offered “a means of working… performative play.” (51) In addition, Kendall argues, TikTok thrives off of the bingeability of its content— the never-ending scroll allowing a locked-down user endless access to more. (52) Thus TikTok provided a valuable commodity to a hungry market: the commodity of connection. Networking and community creation were a key part of TikTok’s marketing of itself in its early years and (as previously discussed) the app is exceptionally good at this task. (53) The marriage of market need with ready commodity availability is certainly one reason why the pandemic saw an uptick in TikTok usage, and in April 2020 the app crested 2 billion downloads which was the “best quarter for any app ever.” (54) In the United States at least, it is safe to say that TikTok is a commodity of the pandemic. If archival memory is political, and collective memory even more so, so is social forgetting. Francis X. Blouin Jr. and William Rosenberg emphasize this: “resistance to remembering is an equally powerful determinant of its moral, political, and social uses, especially if this resistance is abetted by the archives.” (55) Litigious action to try and exterminate the memorial cache that is TikTok threatens the collective memory of this trauma-driven time. There is, of course, a time and place for forgetting. Marita Sturken argues that forgetting is a necessary part of memory formation, and that “to remember everything would amount to being overwhelmed by memory…. Yet the forgetting of the past in a culture is highly organized and strategic.” (56) The politicization of this particular act of cultural forgetting entwines TikTok in the mire of racism that is linked with the pandemic in general. COVID-19, in its early days, was characterized by Donald Trump and far right followers as a “Chinese virus,” and this language has been called out as a root of xenophobia and anti-Asian racism during the pandemic era. (57) It cannot be ignored that the anti-TikTok legislation is flavored with the same type of xenophobia and anti-Chinese sentiment. Returning to an earlier thread: if the issue was about data security, as politicians contend that it is, then why not pass reasonable laws to govern that? Why target a single app? In Montana, the April 2023 attempt to make Senate Bill 419 apply to any “social media applications that send data to foreign adversaries” and shift the language of the bill from addressing threats posed by “the People’s Republic of China” to instead address “foreign adversaries” was rejected. (58) In her very first TikTok ( Figure 5: AOC’s First TikTok: A Statement on the TikTok Ban ), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez discusses these issues and the notion that proposed legislation has been put forth, purportedly, to combat a national security risk. (59) Ocasio-Cortez notes that such risks are, historically, presented to Congress via classified briefing when they are first identified and no such briefing had been provided regarding TikTok and Chinese data infiltration. The racism in anti-TikTok rhetoric became even more clear via the various congressional hearings regarding the app. On March 23, 2023, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was called to testify before congress regarding the app’s usage of data, and the company’s relationship to the Chinese government. (60) The word “communist” appears in transcripts of that testimony 97 times. The phrase “Chinese communist party” appears 51 times, the most frequently-repeated three-word phrase in the testimony. (61) On January 31, 2023, Chew was again called to congress (this time along with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and X CEO Linda Yaccarino) to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the impact of social media on children. (62) During this hearing, all three CEOs were asked detailed questions about child protections on their platforms but Chew (notably the only one of these businesspeople who is not white) was the only CEO asked about his nationality and relationship to China. Senate Republicans Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and Tom Cotton repeatedly hammered Chew about this relationship, Cotton going so far as to pester Chew about his citizenship through multiple questions as Chew continued to emphasize “I’m Singaporean.” (63) Accordingly, the undercurrents of xenophobia ring strong in the US attempt to institutionalize a massive act of forgetting. Despite allegations of national security threats via the app, the IGT report finds no evidence of a threat via TikTok to the US and, moreover, finds that, “Banning TikTok would impose unfair harms on millions of innocent American users of the app, who have established equity in their creations and followers. It would expropriate investors and eliminate hundreds of US jobs. … The attack on TikTok is really a kind of proxy war waged by a specific political faction in the US.” (64) It is once again time to remember Stephen King. Since the undertones of Anti-Asia(n) racism are now clear in anti-TikTok rhetoric, it is important that we take a closer look at what, exactly, this rhetoric is trying to make us forget. Let us go back to the library and check out some more banned books. Social Media, Social Memory Screens have an important place in the institutionalization of social memory. Sturken cites psychological research that “people often misremember the moment when they first heard of a national catastrophe by reimagining themselves in front of a television set. This particular mechanism of remembering, whereby we imagine our bodies in a spatial location, is also a means by which we situation our bodies in the nation.” (65) In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, this notion of re-envisioning the catastrophe in front of the screen was a process rather than a single moment. While the announcement of preliminary lockdowns certainly caused a wave of psychic shock, it was as the pandemic drew on for years that the true extent of collective trauma would begin to unreel itself. In 2024, we are still unpacking the effects of this trauma. Destroying TikTok’s repository of memory before history has been able to take full account of what is happening thus has destructive potential of unknown capacity. In trying to contend with what social media networks mean to the idea of collective memory, Andrew Hoskins argues that mediated memory can be viewed as a kind of “memory ecology” with each part of memory functioning like a part of a bio-organism. So, what happens when you amputate the leg of memory? Alison Landsberg’s theory of “prosthetic memory” addresses how mediated moments of history that an individual did not personally witness can be appended to a person’s memory like a prosthetic limb might be appended to a person’s body. Prosthetic memory, to Landsberg, is a memory that is “adopted as the result of a person's experience with a mass cultural technology of memory that dramatizes or recreates a history he or she did not live.” (66) While Landsberg’s theory might seem to answer my above query, unlike Landsberg’s prosthetic memories the TikTok archive of our shared pandemic time relates a history we all lived. It is not that dramatizing the pandemic in real-though-not-linear time introduces us to what pandemic living was like, but rather connects and connected us to aspects of this experience that were either very similar to or very different from our own. In this case, the mediated memory allows us to more fully engage with the collective trauma of pandemic living, and better understand how we (as humans living in the world) coped. As a case study, let us consider Stephen Sondheim. On November 26, 2021, Sondheim died at the age of 91. At this time, vaccines were available, but mask mandates were still enacted in states like New York. No at-home treatments were yet available for COVID-19. While Broadway had re-opened in September of 2021, audiences were still required to mask. The day of Sondheim’s death, TikTok user Jonny Perl posted a simple video of himself at a piano playing the opening notes of Sondheim’s “Sunday in the Park with George” (the opening number of his musical by the same name; see Figure 6: Jonny Perl at the Piano ). (67) Sondheim had a special relationship with this show. A piece about how artists relate to their work and legacies, Sunday in the Park with George contains lyrics that Sondheim would later use as the titles for two books of collected lyrics and autobiographic stories: Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat . (68) Accordingly, the selection of this music to accompany a short-form video memorial for its composer is fitting. Over the next few weeks and months, other TikTok creators used Perl’s sound to form their own memorial videos. Tyler Joseph Ellis, for instance, filmed a montage of himself visiting George Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” at the Art Institute of Chicago ( Figure 7 ). (69) User Sam Black choreographed a short dance piece to Perl’s sound ( Figure 8 ). (70) Other users dueted Perl with the spoken text that an audience would usually hear when this music was played in the theatre ( Figure 9 ). (71) Another user used Perl’s music to underscore a process video of themselves making a Sondheim-themed mask ( Figure 10 ). (72) Individually, these videos serve as touching tributes to a master of American musical theatre. As a conglomeration, they create a communal statement of memory in dialogue with each other. They allowed Sondheim fans to grieve in real time, though geographically distant from each other still in dialogue together. At a time when large gatherings entailed no small amount of risk, this connection created community. Sturken uses the term “technology of memory” to encompass not just the things that help memory (physical mnemonics such as objects, images, memorials, etc.), but also the body. The immune system, she argues, is a subset biological system of memory since it remembers the viruses it has previously encountered. (73) Sturken discusses this in regard to HIV and the AIDS epidemic, a period of history that has been widely compared to COVID-19 not the least because the leading national expect on both diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, was the chief American voice during both healthcare crises. As I have contended throughout this essay, TikTok is a crucial technology of memory for the cultural memory of the COVID-19 pandemic, a virus which is notoriously immune-evasive and tricky for our bodies to fight. This novel coronavirus is something science is working every day to uncover more about, to explain more about how the body does or does not remember encounters with it, and how and why long COVID manifests. The systemic forgetting of a TikTok ban would enable not just the destruction of a specific archive of embodied performance, but also can be seen as none other than a metaphorical blow to the social collective along the very same lines. Forgetting what the pandemic was like at its height is a matter of national security—a matter of protecting those most vulnerable in our society. It is an act of violence to forget how we coped with social distancing, the zany things we did to find connection, and the silly skits we made to try and take ourselves somewhere else. The pandemic is still too fresh for there to be a national memorial or act of institutionalized memory commemorating those lost. (74) TikTok is the closest we have to such a thing. Destroying this repository is baldly political, boldly detrimental, and would constitute an egregious act of erasure. Theatre history scholars would do well to remember how such acts have impacted our work over time, and how burning it down has created hierarchies of remembering in archival footprints. Theatre fires erase massive repositories of information from archival memory that can only be reconstructed through careful piecemeal work that has the high possibility of omitting critical under-represented stories. In the same way, TikTok enables remembering things we cannot afford to forget. Historians and scholars must pay even closer attention to its fate unless we tacitly approve such erasures from collective memory. Editor Note: All videos in this essay are available as a YouTube playlist here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ7A05JBnG_BgJdsklZt9mYtyFFVmNI9V&si=PipeRqsVDapSvMaQ This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. References The author would like to thank Trevor Boffone for his feedback on early drafts of this essay This data can be found on the webpage of the National Fire Protection Agency, the NFPA: “Deadliest Single Building/Complex Fires and Explosions in the US | NFPA,” National Fire Protection Agency, accessed May 6, 2024, https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-research/fire-statistical-reports/catastrophic-multiple-death-fires/deadliest-single-building-or-complex-fires-and-explosions-in-the-us . Jane Barnette, “The Matinee Audience in Peril: The Syndicate’s Mr. Bluebeard and the Iroquois Theatre Fire,” Theatre Symposium: A Journal of the Southeastern Theatre Conference 20 (2012 2012): 23–29. Jewel L. Spangler, “Slavery’s Archive, Slavery’s Memory: Telling the Story of Gilbert Hunt, Hero of the Richmond Theatre Fire of 1811,” Journal of the Early Republic 39, no. 4 (2019): 677–708, https://doi.org/10.1353/jer.2019.0086 ; The fire killed over 70 people including the Governor of Virginia. For more information on the fire specifically, see: Meredith Henne Baker, The Richmond Theater Fire: Early America’s First Great Disaster (LSU Press, 2012). Many scholars over the years have argued about this, but the most pertinent argument to this article can be found in: Trevor Boffone, “TikTok Is Theatre, Theatre Is TikTok,” Theatre History Studies 41 (2022): 41–48. An in-depth examination of this was done by Planet Money: “Nervous TikTok,” Planet Money, accessed January 3, 2024, https://www.npr.org/2021/01/13/956558906/nervous-tiktok . Trevor Boffone, “‘It’s Just TikTok,’” Conceptions Review, September 13, 2022, https://conceptionsreview.com/its-just-tiktok/ . For more on TikTok’s power to generate culture, see: Trevor Boffone, “The D’Amelio Effect TikTok, Charli D’Amelio, and the Construction of Whiteness,” in TikTok Cultures in the United States , ed. Trevor Boffone (New York: Routledge, 2022), 18. Federal Register. “Addressing the Threat Posed by TikTok, and Taking Additional Steps To Address the National Emergency With Respect to the Information and Communications Technology and Services Supply Chain,” August 11, 2020. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/08/11/2020-17699/addressing-the-threat-posed-by-tiktok-and-taking-additional-steps-to-address-the-national-emergency . Bobby Allyn, “U.S. Judge Halts Trump’s TikTok Ban, The 2nd Court To Fully Block The Action,” NPR , December 7, 2020, sec. Technology, https://www.npr.org/2020/12/07/944039053/u-s-judge-halts-trumps-tiktok-ban-the-2nd-court-to-fully-block-the-action ; The White House, “FACT SHEET: Executive Order Protecting Americans’ Sensitive Data from Foreign Adversaries,” The White House, June 9, 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/09/fact-sheet-executive-order-protecting-americans-sensitive-data-from-foreign-adversaries/ . David Ingram, “Biden Signs TikTok Ban for Government Devices amid Security Concerns,” NBC News, December 30, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/tiktok-ban-biden-government-college-state-federal-security-privacy-rcna63724 . Mark R. Warner, “S.686 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): RESTRICT Act,” legislation, March 7, 2023, 03/07/2023, http://www.congress.gov/ . “An Act Banning TikTok in Montana,” SB 419 § (2023), https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/billhtml/SB0419.htm . Ayana Archie, “Montana Becomes the First State to Ban TikTok,” NPR , May 18, 2023, sec. Politics, https://www.npr.org/2023/05/18/1176805559/montana-tiktok-ban . David McCabe and Sapna Maheshwari, “TikTok Sues Montana, Calling State Ban Unconstitutional,” The New York Times , May 22, 2023, sec. Technology, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/technology/tiktok-montana-ban-lawsuit.html ; “ACLU and EFF Applaud Ruling Halting Montana TikTok Ban,” American Civil Liberties Union (blog), accessed December 21, 2023, https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-and-eff-applaud-ruling-halting-montana-tiktok-ban . Mike Gallagher, “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” Pub. L. No. HR 7521 (2024), https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Protecting%20Americans%20From%20Foriegn%20Adversary%20Controlled%20Applications_3.5.24.pdf . Cathy McMorris Rodgers, “Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2024, and for Other Purposes,” H.R. 815 § (2024), https://www.congress.gov/118/bills/hr815/BILLS-118hr815enr.pdf . Milton L. Mueller and Karim Farhat, “TikTok and US National Security” (Internet Governance Project, March 1, 2023), 26, https://www.internetgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/TikTok-and-US-national-security-3-1.pdf . Stephen King, “The Book-Banners: Adventure in Censorship Is Stranger than Fiction,” The Bangor Daily News , March 20, 1992. TikTok videos recorded in the app are capped at three minutes and must be a minimum of fifteen seconds. One can, however, upload a video not recorded in the app that can be up to ten minutes long. Trevor Boffone, Renegades (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021), 1–3; Trevor Boffone, “The Rise of TikTok in US Culture,” in TikTok Cultures in the United States , by Trevor Boffone (New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2022), 5; Boffone, “TikTok Is Theatre, Theatre Is TikTok,” 42. Jing Zeng, Crystal Abidin, and Mike S. Schäfer, “Research Perspectives on TikTok and Its Legacy Apps,” International Journal of Communication 15 (2021): 3161–72. Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2003), 19. Taylor, 20. Diana Taylor, “Save As... Knowledge and Transmission in the Age of Digital Technologies,” Imagining America 7 (2010): 3. Taylor, 3. For more on this, see: Danielle Rosvally, “The Haunted Network: Shakespeare’s Digital Ghost,” in The Shakespeare User , by Valerie M. Fazel and Louise Geddes (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017). A few salient examples are Such Tweet Sorrow (a 2010 collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Mudlark Production Company which told the story of Romeo and Juliet via Twitter) and A Midsummer Night’s Dreaming (2013, Royal Shakespeare Company) which used the now-defunct Google+ to perform a digital version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Sarah Bay-Cheng, “Pixelated Memories: Performance, Media, and Digital Technology,” Contemporary Theatre Review 27, no. 3 (2017): 330. In another forthcoming essay, I propose the term “meso-archive” for these liminal spaces. For the purposes of this paper since I am not explicitly discussing the intricacies of storage and retrieval, I will use the term “archive” to reference TikTok’s collection of performance. Statistically, this is a large swathe of the US population. As of November 2023, 92% of US adults have at least one smartphone and the rate of smartphone ownership does not vary substantially by race or ethnicity. “How Many Americans Own a Smartphone? 2024 | ConsumerAffairs®,” November 1, 2023, https://www.consumeraffairs.com/cell_phones/how-many-americans-own-a-smartphone.html . Trevor Boffone and Danielle Rosvally, “Yassified Shakespeare: The Case for TikTok as Applied Theatre,” in Applied Theatre and Gender Justice , ed. Lisa Brenner and Evelyn Cruz (New York: Routledge, Forthcoming); Spangler also notes this omission of marginalized voices in her examination of how the voices of enslaved peoples are often lost from narratives about the Richmond Theatre Fire and archives in general: Spangler, “Slavery’s Archive, Slavery’s Memory.” Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory , trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 53. @theanissagarza. "Pandemic Theatre!!," TikTok, February 4, 2022. https://www.tiktok.com/@theanissagarza/video/7060995383224421678 . @oneinkimillion. "Love This Song and Show," TikTok, October 6, 2020. https://www.tiktok.com/@oneinkimillion/video/6880674673688841477 . Unfortunately, since @djouliet has since made her original video private, I cannot tell how many others did but I have seen several examples including: @itsjust_lydia. "Come on Black Girls - Let’s Get into That Fosse!," TikTok, April 30, 2021. https://www.tiktok.com/@itsjust_lydia/video/6957074188783914245 ; @mahoganymommy. "I’m Rusty, but I Gave It a Shot," TikTok, April 24, 2021. https://www.tiktok.com/@mahoganymommy/video/6954766488880336133 Pascale Aebischer, Shakespeare, Spectatorship and the Technologies of Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 13–28. Valerie M. Fazel, “‘A Vulgar Comment Will Be Made of It’ YouTube and Robert Weimann’s Platea,” in Shakespeare’s Audiences , by Peter Kirwan and Matthew Pangallo (Abingdon, UK: Milton: Taylor & Francis Group, 2021), 183–97. Dani Snyder-Young, “We’re All in This Together: Digital Performances and Socially Distanced Spectatorship,” Theatre Journal 74, no. 1 (March 2022): 1–15. Spangler, “Slavery’s Archive, Slavery’s Memory,” 677. J. Nadine Gracia, “COVID-19’s Disproportionate Impact on Communities of Color Spotlights the Nation’s Systemic Inequities,” Journal of Public Health Management and Practice 26, no. 6 (December 2020): 518, https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000001212 . “Who Uses TikTok, Nextdoor,” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, accessed January 11, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/chart/who-uses-tiktok-nextdoor/ . To name a few: Dena Al-Adeeb, “Trauma, Collective Memory, Creative and Performative Embodied Practices as Sites of Resistance,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 12, no. 2 (2016): 268–74; Noe Montez, Memory, Transitional Justice, And Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017); Belarie Zatzman, “Applied Theatre Encounters at Canada’s National Holocaust Monument,” Canadian Theatre Review 181 (2020 Winter 2020): 1, https://doi.org/10.3138/ctr.181.003 . Though, of course, TikTok has subcultures which emerge geographically, as well as regional nuance to its status as culture. TikTok is not viewed or treated the same way in every part of the world. For more on TikTok as regional culture, see the many wonderful projects affiliated with the TikTok culture research network: https://tiktokcultures.com/ Astrid Erll, “Travelling Memory,” Parallax 17, no. 4 (2011): 11. Terri Tomsky, “From Sarajevo to 9/11: Travelling Memory and the Trauma Economy,” Parallax 17, no. 4 (2011): 50. Tomsky, 51. Tomsky, 53. Bay-Cheng, “Pixelated Memories: Performance, Media, and Digital Technology,” 327. Boffone, “The Rise of TikTok in US Culture,” 5. Tina Kendall, “From Binge-Watching to Binge-Scrolling: TikTok and the Rhythms of #LockdownLife ,” Film Quarterly 75, no. 1 (September 1, 2021): 43, https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2021.75.1.41 . Kendall, 42. Milovan Savic, “From Musical.Ly to TikTok: Social Construction of 2020’s Most Downloaded Short-Video App,” International Journal of Communication 15 (2021): 3173–94. Craig Chapple, “TikTok Crosses 2 Billion Downloads After Best Quarter For Any App Ever,” accessed April 14, 2023, https://sensortower.com/blog/tiktok-downloads-2-billion . Francis X. Jr. Blouin and William G. Rosenberg, Processing the Past: Contesting Authority in History and the Archives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 110. Marita Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 7. Katie Rogers, Lara Jakes, and Ana Swanson, “Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism,” The New York Times , March 18, 2020, sec. U.S., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html . Blair Miller, “Montana House Advances TikTok Ban, Rejects Amendment to Make It Apply More Broadly,” Daily Montanan , April 14, 2023, https://dailymontanan.com/2023/04/13/montana-house-advances-tiktok-ban-rejects-amendment-to-make-it-apply-more-broadly/ ; Jameson Walker, “Amendment to Senate Bill No. 419,” accessed June 5, 2023, https://leg.mt.gov/bills/2023/AmdHtmH/SB0419.002.002.pdf . @aocinthehouse. "Some Thoughts on TikTok," TikTok, March 24, 2023. https://www.tiktok.com/@aocinthehouse/video/7214318917135830318 . The full hearing can be seen here: “Full Committee Hearing: ‘TikTok: How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms,’” House Committee on Energy and Commerce, accessed May 31, 2023, https://energycommerce.house.gov/events/energycommerce.house.gov . Justin Hendrix, “Transcript: TikTok CEO Testifies to Congress | TechPolicy.Press ,” Tech Policy Press, March 24, 2023, https://techpolicy.press/transcript-tiktok-ceo-testifies-to-congress . A full transcript of this hearing can be found here: Hugh Allen, “Senate Hearing with CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, Snap and Discord About Child Safety 1/31/24 Transcript,” Rev Blog, accessed February 29, 2024, https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/senate-hearing-with-ceos-of-meta-tiktok-x-snap-and-discord-about-child-safety-1-31-24-transcript . For a video of this incident, see: ‘I’m Singaporean!’: TikTok CEO Fires Back at GOP Senator Pressing Him about Possible Ties to China | CNN Politics , 2024, https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2024/02/02/tom-cotton-shou-zi-chew-singaporean-tiktok-testimony-vpx.cnn . Mueller and Farhat, “TikTok and US National Security,” 26. Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering , 26. Alison Landsberg, Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 28. @jonny.perl. "Original Sound," TikTok, November 26, 2021. https://www.tiktok.com/@jonny.perl/video/7035053268883590405 . Stephen Sondheim, Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (New York: Knopf, 2010); Stephen Sondheim, Look, I Made a Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany (New York: Knopf, 2011). @tylerjosephellis. "May His Memory Be a Blessing. Forever," TikTok, November 29, 2021. https://www.tiktok.com/@tylerjosephellis/video/7036160901216570630 . @samtheboynextdoor. "Sam Black," TikTok, December 14, 2021. https://www.tiktok.com/@samtheboynextdoor/video/7041666130166942981 . @ward027. "#duet with Jonny.Perl," TikTok, November 27, 2021. https://www.tiktok.com/@ward027/video/7035420095564270895 . @thebadjujudesign. "Sometimes People Leave You, Halfway through the Woods," TikTok, November 27, 2021. https://www.tiktok.com/@thebadjujudesign/video/7035113597479030062 . Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering , 12. Though several local memorials have been built, and there is at least one effort to create a national memorial: “Home,” COVID-19 Memorial Monument, accessed March 7, 2024, https://covidmemorialmonument.org/ . Footnotes About The Author(s) Danielle Rosvally is an Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University at Buffalo. Her forthcoming monograph ( Theatres of Value: Buying and Selling Shakespeare in Nineteenth-Century New York City , State University of New York Press, 2024) considers the commodification and economization of Shakespeare’s work in America’s nineteenth century. Danielle's interest in the digital has fueled past work on database methodologies in humanist text, social media, and the personification of Shakespeare by performers/users. Her next project, Yassified Shakespeare (co-authored with Trevor Boffone; @yassifiedshax on TikTok), is a multimedia exploration of how iterations of Shakespearean performance and Shakespeare’s cultural capital critically intersect with drag and drag aesthetics. Her work has been seen in Theatre Topics, The Early Modern Studies Journal, Studies in Musical Theater, Shakespeare Bulletin, and Fight Master Magazine. She is the co-editor of Early Modern Liveness (Bloomsbury 2023), and the forthcoming special issue of Shakespeare dedicated to contingency titled "Inessential Shakespeares: Contingency, Necessity, and Marginalization in Early Modern Drama." Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Editorial Introduction America Happened to Me: Immigration, Acculturation, and Crafting Empathy in Rags Burning it Down: Theatre Fires, Collective Trauma Memory, and the TikTok Ban “A Caribbean Soul in Exile”: Post-Colonial Experiences of a Jamaican Actor Archiving a Life in Theatre: The Legacy of Michael Feingold Cracking Up: Black Feminist Comedy in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Century United States Staged News: The Federal Theatre Project's Living Newspapers in New York Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating, and Creating Beyond the Theatre Another Day's Begun: Thornton Wilder's Our Town in the 21st Century Appropriate Snatch Adams and Tainty McCracken Present It’s That Time of the Month MáM Scene Partners Oh, Mary! Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

A green city-wide pop-up-park festival of creative, innovative, and inspiring environmental art works in the boroughs of New York City. Free. Outdoors. Off-grid. No electricity. Rain or shine. Bridge Matter / The Reach Bridge Matter / The Reach Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone Weather Weather Bridge Matter / The Reach Bridge Matter / The Reach 1/13 Prelude in the Parks performances for the planet SEE SCHEDULE FREE | OUTDOORS | OFF-GRID/NO ELECTRICITY | RAIN OR SHINE A green city-wide pop-up parks festival of creative, innovative, and inspiring environmental art-works by artists addressing environmental & climate change issues. Co-Curated by Frank Hentschker & Robin Schatell / Mov!ngCulture Projects; The Martin E. Segal Theatre Center at The Graduate Center CUNY. June 7th @ 6pm, June 8th & 9th @ 3pm What's On: Performance I Dance I Music I Theatre I 13 Presentations Where It's Happening: Parks & Gardens City-Wide: Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island – all 5 Boroughs Partners: Bronx River Community Garden; Eastside Outside Community Garden; Manhattan , Hunters Point Park Alliance/Queens ; ID Studio Theater/Bronx ; Social Practice CUNY; Newtown Creek Alliance/Brooklyn ; Roc-A-Natural Cultural Foundation/Staten Island ; Summer on the Hudson/Riverside Park Conservancy/Manhattan What's On Performance I Dance I Music I Theatre I 13 Presentations in 5 Boroughs Friday, June 7 - All performances @ 6pm Brooklyn Pliable Futures Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble Fort Greene Park, Brooklyn Manhattan Devrai (Sacred Grove) Richard Move / MoveOpolis! Riverside Park, Manhattan Manhattan Bridge Matter / The Reach Kinesis Project dance theatre Inwood Hill Park, Gaelic Field, Manhattan Queens Guinean Environmental Stewardship Traditions Sidiki Conde and Tokounou Dance Company Hunter’s Point South Park, Queens Saturday, June 8 - All performances @ 3pm Bronx Land Connections: Reflections with Dennis Dennis RedMoon Darkeem Bronx River Community Garden.,The Bronx Manhattan The Heat Will Kill Everything Keith Josef Adkins Riverside Park South, Manhattan Bronx Dance in Connection ID Studio Theater and Daniel Fetecua Barretto Point Park, Viele Avenue, The Bronx Staten Island Mixed Use | Cyn | M.A. Dennis | Manners and Respect | | Thomas Fucaloro | Tappen Park, Staten Island Brooklyn WATER RISES Artichoke Dance Company Newtown Creek Nature Walk, Kingsland Ave, Brooklyn Manhattan Community Poetry and Tea Tea, Arts & Culture Eastside Outside Community Garden, Manhattan Sunday, June 9 - All performances @ 3pm Brooklyn Brooklyn is Not a Sacrifice Zone Al Límite Collective Newtown Creek Nature Walk, Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn Brooklyn Resilience Thinking Walkscape Rafael de Balanzo Joue and Daniel Pravit Fethke Endale Arch, Prospect Park, Brooklyn Brooklyn Weather Anh Vo Brower Park, Prospect Place, Brooklyn Locations City-Wide: Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan, Queen Staten Island – all 5 Boroughs Meet The Team Robin Schatell Co-Curator Robin Schatell is a creative producer who works with artists, arts group, cultural and community organizations and city agencies to shape, design, develop, and organize creative visions for activating their public spaces with arts and cultural programming. Co-Founder , Mov!ng Culture Projects, Director of Museum Mile Festival for 20 years, Founder and Artistic Director of Riverside Park’s Summer on the Hudson Festival, Executive Director of River To River Festival, Director of Programming for Madison Square Parks’ Mad Sq Art program, Curator of Public Programs for the Van Alen Institute, Managing Director of Performance Space 122, and Ralph Lemon Company, Founder of The Puffin Room, Manhattan Community Board 3 Member, Contributing Cultural Writer for TheLoDownNYC.com. Gaurav Singh Nijjer Web and Digital Producer Gaurav Singh Nijjer is a theatre-maker, creative technologist and designer whose artistic works explore technology and media in live performance. He is one half of the Indian performing arts collective Kaivalya Plays, and also works as a freelance artist and arts manager with collectives in India and abroad, currently as Digital and Web Producer at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center at the Graduate Centre CUNY. He is a former German Chancellor Fellow and a Chevening scholar. He trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Apart from theatre, Gaurav also works as a freelance marketing, design and creative consultant for diverse organizations. Frank Hentschker Co-Curator Frank Hentschker, who holds a Ph.D. in theatre from the now legendary Institute for Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, Germany, came to the Graduate Center in 2001 as program director for the Graduate Center’s Martin E. Segal Theatre Center and was appointed to the central doctoral faculty in theatre in 2009. Currently executive director and director of programs at the Segal Center, Hentschker has transformed the center into the nation’s leading forum for public programming in international and U.S. theatre and theatre studies; each year, he curates and produces more than forty events—staged readings, lecture-demonstrations, symposia, works-in-progress, and conversations with theatre scholars, theatrical luminaries, and emerging voices in the international, American, and New York theatre scenes. Among the vital events and series he founded at the Segal Center are the World Theatre Performance series; the annual fall PRELUDE festival, which features more than twenty New York–based theatre companies and playwrights; and the PEN World Voices Playwrights Series. Hentschker also led CUNY’s nineteen performing arts centers in founding the CUNY–Performing Arts Consortium (C–PAC), producing the consortium’s first joint festival in 2009. Hentschker edited the MESTC publications Jan Fabre: I Am A Mistake, Seven Works for the Theatre (2009) and New Plays from Spain (2013), and he served as president of the board of PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art from 2005 to 2009. Before coming to the Graduate Center, Hentschker founded and directed DISCURS, the largest European student theatre festival existing today; he acted as Hamlet in Heiner Müller’s Hamletmaschine, directed by the playwright; performed in the Robert Wilson play The Forest (music by David Byrne); and worked as an assistant for Robert Wilson for many years. Producer, General Operations Manager Teresa Soraka Next Generation Fellow Nurit Chinn For queries, feedback and any more information get in touch with us at segalcenter@gmail.com

Jennifer Schmidt Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 31 3 Visit Journal Homepage Unruly Reproductions: The Embodied Art of Mimicry in Vaudeville Jennifer Schmidt By Published on May 13, 2019 Download Article as PDF The Belle of Mayfair , a musical comedy composed by Leslie Stuart with book by Basil Hood, Charles Brookfield, and Cosmo Hamilton, premiered in London in 1906. The comedy was loosely based on Romeo and Juliet , which did not prevent it from including a number called “Why Do They Call Me A Gibson Girl?” commenting on the American fashion craze sparked by Charles Dana Gibson’s illustrations. The lyrics for the song instructed the listener on how to “affect” the Gibson style: And a monumental curl, And walk with a bend in your back, Then they will call you a Gibson Girl. … The girls affect a style As they pass by With down-cast eye, And a bored and languid smile, … They do their best, for they’ve seen the pictures. [Chorus: They’ve missed the point of the Dana picture,] Which are intended, don’t you see, For all in perfect type should be.[1] For the New York production, which ran from December 1906 through March 1907, Valeska Suratt, a milliner from Indiana, used the role and her dressmaking skills to launch her acting career. Commenting on the hit song for the production’s Baltimore transfer, a review in The Sun exclaims that “Miss Surratt…looks like she had just stepped out from one of Charles Dana’s $1,000 sketches.” The reviewer also notes that the chorus featured a different look than the typical “chubby chorus girls,” stating, “Their places were well filled by tall, willowy creatures, called Gibson girls, who wore the most stunning gowns imaginable and who lifted up their chins in preference to their toes.” [2] This new, aloof physicality and the uniformity sent up by the lyrics of the song—“for all in perfect type should be”—correspond to a general trend in depictions of women in the United States. In Imaging American Women , Martha Banta argues that “ the woman as image was one of the [Progressive] era’s dominant cultural tics.” [3] The allegorical figure of Columbia, for instance, the young attractive woman representing America, appeared with great frequency during this period in political cartoons or as a brand symbol, such as in Columbia Records and Columbia Pictures. Other female allegorical figures towered over the United States in the form of the Statue of Liberty and the 65-foot Statue of the Republic at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition or graced the facades of buildings like the Four Continents statues at the United States Customs House. [4] Matching these stately figures were Gibson’s pervasive drawings of narrow-waisted, large-busted women with upswept hair, button noses, and distant gazes. As Adams, Keene, and Koella discuss in Seeing the American Woman , the Girl was “unindividualized”: “she generally looked down or away…or she danced and promenaded in lines of similar beings.” [5] Thus, as the United States entered the twentieth century, the types of women presented to the public in mass media and entertainment were often idealized, generalized, and detached. With the cultural turn to the visual, “woman as image” became increasingly separated from the living, breathing, individual bodies of women. As images of the American Girl proliferated, however, solo female performers in vaudeville offered alternatives to the disembodied anonymity of these aloof female types. In particular, the practice of mimicry allowed performers like Gertrude Hoffmann, Cissie Loftus, and Elsie Janis to break the “girl” mold with their vividly individualized impersonations of celebrities. Hoffmann, Loftus, and Janis brought attention to the manufactured nature of womanhood in the public sphere through an embodied form of imitation, which allowed them critical, creative space to comment on the celebrity culture of their time. The malleability of their form, in which they embodied several figures at once, gave them an unusual freedom from the strict types and categories for female performers, and their abilities as shape-shifters emphasized a bodily rather than an artificial or mechanical means of reproduction. In response to the commercialization and replication of the female image in the Progressive Era female mimics in vaudeville countered the mass-produced, male-created depictions of women, seen in magazines and chorus lines, with their own unruly reproductions. [6] At the beginning of the twentieth century, mimicry became a highly popular act on variety stages, and while both male and female mimics thrived in vaudeville, women especially dominated the field. A retrospective Variety article from 1948, titled “Vaudeville: Mimics,” reveals the prevalence of female mimics. The author, Joe Laurie, Jr., recalls the “heyday” of mimicry on the vaudeville stage, claiming that “There was an epidemic of imitations in vaudeville from 1905 to 1930.” [7] In a list of the “great artists” of mimicry, the majority are women, and of the artists he mentions who created original material for their acts, all five are women: Cissie Loftus, Juliet Delf, Elsie Janis, Gertrude Hoffmann, and Venita Gould. These mimics “used their own special material,” and Laurie, Jr. considered this to be a superior practice than simply copying material from the acts they were imitating. The majority of imitations in vaudeville, however, like the Gibson acts, consisted of more direct copying. The success of Suratt’s Gibson act, for instance, lay primarily with the gown—in her ability (as a dressmaker) to copy, make, and wear the “$1,000” look. Thus, while the Gibson Girl moved from two-dimensions to three, the emphasis remained on the visual, a priority that was in keeping with the period’s image obsession. In her book, Women and the American Theatre , Faye Dudden discusses theater’s turn to the visual, arguing that the commercialized theater at the end of the nineteenth century was part of an entertainment industry that created a “new kind of public realm.” [8] This new public realm “was not concerned with politics or community interests, but rather aimed at private profit and derived its publicness from the breadth of its marketing ambitions.” [9] While female audience members made an enormous impact on the growth of the mass entertainment market, the period also saw the mainstream success of the “leg business.” This type of entertainment, designed for the male gaze and formerly prevalent only in entertainments for working-class men, became standard fare in vaudeville and on Broadway. Perhaps the best theatrical example of the new public realm and its exploitation of feminized bodies and images was Florenz Ziegfeld’s “Follies,” the annual musical revue that ran from 1907 through 1931 and centered on its spectacular displays of chorus girls. In Seeing the American Woman , Adams et al. discuss the chorus girl as an incarnation of the Gibson Girl, explaining that Ziegfeld “sought primarily the Gibson look for his chorus girl.” [10] Sharing the Girl’s elegant but undifferentiated appeal, these choruses likewise represented youthful beauty and vigor, were vehicles for displaying the latest fashions, and were meant for replication, requiring hordes of women to fill the ranks. Often the extravagant costumes worn by Ziegfeld’s choruses functioned more like scenery, explicitly framing the women as objects and set pieces. Further emphasizing their conformity, the choreography comprised precision line dancing and “geometric formations” that, Susan Glenn argues, “mirrored the early twentieth-century industrial culture” and turned the chorus into a “disciplined female mass.” [11] The “new public realm” also corresponded to the explosion of print media, which, like commercialized theater, increasingly relied on exploitation of the female image. Matthew Schneirov dates the beginning of the “new era” in magazine publishing from 1893, “the year S. S. McClure established McClure’s ” as well as “the year that Frank Munsey cut the price of his magazine to ten cents—well below the cost of unit production—and made his profit through advertising.” [12] Other magazines quickly followed Munsey’s example, and advertising became the chief means of profit, driving down prices for periodical publications and making weekly and monthly illustrated magazines affordable for a broad swath of consumers in the United States. Like the magazines they funded, advertisements became increasingly visual, cutting down on text and relying on imagery, especially that of young, attractive women, to sell their products. The replicable nature of the Gibson Girl led her to be the perfect tool for selling the latest fashions. The Girl, according to Martha Patterson, “created the first national modeling of the one right look ,” and walking down the streets of an American city in the early 1900s meant encountering a sea of Gibson Girls, wearing the uniform of the New Woman. [13] Some of the Girl’s attributes disseminated progressive ideas about womanhood; she was often shown as independent, athletic, and assertive. The popular magazines, in which the Girl appeared, sold women the possibility of refashioning themselves into these sophisticated beings. Of course, by exploiting this attractive image to sell products, the advertiser’s promise of greater freedom led to greater conformity through consumption. Moreover, it was clear that her independence lasted only as long as the period of single life before marriage, and as the model for white beauty and sophistication, she also perpetuated ideas of racial superiority. In the summer of 1907, after Suratt made a hit as a Gibson Girl in The Belle of Mayfair , several vaudeville bills featured imitations of her and the Gibson aesthetic. The Broadway Theatre featured “a new Gibson girl travesty,” and Eddie Foy’s show, “The Orchid,” at the Herald Square Theatre added “a new… imitation of Miss Valeska Suratt, the ‘Gibson Girl,’ by Miss Laura Guerin.” [14] Most notably, the well-known impersonator, Gertrude Hoffmann, added a Suratt imitation into her program. The common vaudeville practice of copying coupled with the viral commercial popularity of Gibson’s drawings—spreading from postcards, to calendars, to cigarette cases, and wallpaper—made the Girl’s appearance on stage rather inevitable. Responding to these trends, imitations in vaudeville and musical comedy both exploited and satirized the superficiality and conformity in the Girl’s appeal. For her Gibson imitation, Gertrude Hoffmann, who used elaborate costumes and make-up to create the effect of her impersonations, copied the gown made famous by Suratt. A review of her performance dwells on the look of her costume: Miss Hoffman [sic], whose eccentric dancing and imitations nightly win much applause, also costumes her part smartly….for the first, of The Gibson Girl, she wore a black velvet Princess of the design worn by Valeska Surratt [sic] in The Belle of Mayfair, with it’s [sic] tight fit and deep V cutout back and front, the fluffiest of fluffy Titian hair. As an exaggeration and burlesque of the type of girl with a kangaroo walk and outlandish poses it was great. [15] Although the review pays close attention to her dress and hair, it also describes her act in decidedly embodied terms. In addition to celebrity impersonations, Hoffmann was known for her elaborate imitations of dance, such as her famous version of Salome. [16] Whereas reviews of Suratt’s performance describe her, in passive, visual terms, as a “living Gibson picture” or “living replica,” [17] the Hoffmann reviewer notes the dancer’s exaggerated movements, which provide a burlesque of the Girl’s unnatural posture. Gibson drew his female figures with an “S”-shaped spine—the result of combining a narrow waist with a large bust and hips. The corsets of the period also emphasized these features, forcing a posture that humorists likened to the curved back of a kangaroo. [18] Hoffmann’s “kangaroo walk” and “outlandish poses” thus satirized the consequences of an actual woman’s body attempting to imitate an impossible ideal. Hoffmann brought further physicality to her imitations by making her costume changes a conspicuous part of the act. An October, 22 1907 review in The Sun describes her practice of changing in full view of the audience: She cavorts back of the scene and is revealed behind a web-like screen changing costumes for dear life with the help of several maids. In a moment she flashes out as George Cohan and gives a rattling good imitation. Behind the screen she goes anon, emerging in the glare of the spotlight as Valeska Suratt singing her ‘Gibson Girl’ melody. In a minute she is Anna Held singing her nonsensational ‘eye’ lyric, and then with another flip of skirt and change of wig she is funny Eddie Foy. [19] Making the frenzied mechanics of her quick changes visible to the audience, Hoffmann exposed the labor behind her visual transformations. This choice, Susan Glenn argues, allowed Hoffmann to “deliberately establish her own presence within each imitation.” [20] It also made a spectacle out of the process of becoming an Anna Held or Eddie Foy, belying any sense of ease behind the elaborate costumes, make-up, and personalities seen in vaudeville through a display of the physical effort behind the curtain. Much of this effort was expended in donning the various trappings of gender presentation. In the space of a few costume changes, Hoffmann represented the masculine figure of George Cohan, two feminine beauty idols, Suratt and Anna Held, and an imitation of the male comedian, Eddie Foy, in ballerina drag. Ending with Foy, as another reviewer comments, made for an effective finale: “to the surprise of the house in the last character, Eddie Foy, in pink tights, ballet skirts, the funny little hat and ostrich walk, with the Eddie Foy smile; she had it all down fine.” [21] After praising Hoffmann’s imitation of Foy’s comedic physicality, the reviewer cannot help but note that she also wore the costume better: “Foy…would find it difficult to imitate Miss Hoffman’s splendid figure.” By highlighting Hoffmann’s feminine physique, the reviewer rushes to reinforce the gender expectations which Hoffmann’s act disrupts. Despite the prevalence of drag in vaudeville, especially female drag, this indicates a discomfort with Hoffmann’s quick assumption of several, differing presentations of gender. Male impersonation by women on stage, such as in breeches roles, has primarily been acceptable as a way for actresses to show off their bodies. Hoffmann follows this rule by choosing Foy’s ballerina act to copy. Like the on-stage costume changes, however, her choice also problematizes artificial markers of gender, taking a typically feminine garment like pink tights and using them to signify a male performer. Moreover, Hoffmann’s athletic physical presence in these acts, which reviewers describe in zoological terms, makes her dangerously masculine. Like other fearfully athletic New Women, Hoffmann displayed an unnerving ability to take on male as well as female attributes. Femininity, of course, has often been equated with reproduction, and the prevalence of female mimics in vaudeville opened questions about the cultural assumptions surrounding women’s “natural” capacity for imitation. With the ingrained associations between mass culture and femininity, Susan Glenn argues, female mimics exacerbated the period’s anxiety surrounding authenticity: “The mimics on the vaudeville stage…could be seen as personifications of a feminized urban consumer culture where being and imitating were one and the same.” [22] Like with the Gibson Girl, advertising used the reproducibility of the female image as a promise to women that they could buy their way to “the one right look.” [23] By impersonating various stars, the mimics encouraged the imitative behavior fostered in celebrity product endorsements, for instance, which were growing in popularity at the time. Want to look like Lillian Russell? Buy Recamier cosmetics. Want to be like Sarah Bernhardt? Buy Pear’s Soaps. [24] Providing a model for successful imitation, the mimics reinforced these attitudes. They did not, however, imitate only the beauty idols of the day. Instead, they often went in the opposite direction, transforming from lovely young women into the absurd, excessive, or racially-coded personalities of the vaudeville stage. In their acts, mimics could play a range of roles, male and female, and surprise audiences with their transformation from a demure young girl into the brassiest of vaudeville personalities. A look at the careers of Hoffman, Loftus, and Janis indicates how the mimic, as solo performer, had artistic control over her performance, and though she based her act on the personalities of other performers, she was free to interpret them according to her own design. This, as Glenn contends, gave female mimics a powerful role: “that of the artist-intellectual who both participated in and critically evaluated the cultural practices of the day.” [25] Mimicry afforded these women the chance to work in a manner similar to the caricaturists of popular magazines, and like caricature they used exaggeration, distortion, and their own unique style to offer a critical and parodic perspective on popular culture. Unlike caricature, however, the mimics’ embodied form of parody went beyond surface-level depictions of women and in return, gave them an unlikely freedom from the restrictive image of the “Girl” in American culture. Hoffmann’s practices as a mimic demonstrate how, as opposed to the photographs of star performers in mass circulation, the portraits offered by mimics were living and breathing imitations—a manual form of reproduction in a mechanical age. Two of the most famous mimics of the time, Cissie Loftus and Elsie Janis similarly emphasized physicality in their acts. Unlike Hoffmann, they eschewed the use of make-up or costume, but highlighted their natural, bodily abilities as mimics. In an interview, Loftus explained that “the born mimic is very independent of such aids to art as costumes, wigs, and makeup,” and Janis, in a separate interview, agreed: “Make-ups do not trouble me. I rely entirely on the inflection of the voice and the copying of action and gesture. That to my mind is the true art of mimicry.” [26] The desire to defend mimicry as an “art” and to stress the inherent skills of the “born mimic” relate to the broader cultural unease associated with imitation. The readiness with which the personalities of other performers could be replicated, challenged the integrity of both live performances, star and mimic, and placed mimicry in an ambiguous relationship to authenticity. Indeed, the vogue for mimicry coincided with modernist cultural anxieties over the impacts of mechanical reproduction in the age of the machine. Inventions from the phonograph to the photograph to the ready-to-wear shirtwaist blurred the lines between imitation and authenticity in an urban, industrialized society. As Walter Benjamin would later theorize in his essay, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” the “criterion of authenticity,” central to the function of “art objects,” began to break down, as, with the advent of photography “to an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility.” [27] Unlike mechanical forms of reproduction like film or photography, however, mimicry was a form of imitation that preserved some of the “auratic” quality Benjamin ascribes to the traditional art object. In interviews, Janis would “compare herself to a newspaper cartoonist,” Glenn notes, who “exaggerates certain characteristics in order to give a more striking air of reality to the finished picture.” [28] The caricaturist and critic Max Beerbohm also makes this comparison in his review of the mimic J. Arthur Bleackley. Beerbohm scoffs at the mimics who give “exact faithful reproduction[s]” of their subjects, because “an exact reproduction of the real thing can never be a satisfactory substitute.” Rather, he writes, the mimic should have a critical perspective: “The proper function of the mimic is, of course, like that of the parodist in words, or of the caricaturist in line, to exaggerate the salient points of his subject so that we can, whilst we laugh at a grotesque superficial effect, gain sharper insight into the subject’s soul, or, more strictly, behold that soul as it appears to the performer himself.” [29] Beerbohm’s insistence that mimicry can reveal the “soul” of both the mimic and the subject articulates the desire of his age to find art and humanity within reproduction and to validate mimicry as an art with “aura.” Moreover, mimicry constituted an embodied form of parody, and unlike most newspaper cartoons, the creators were likely to be women. While both Loftus and Janis had long and varied careers in entertainment, their practices and stage personas as mimics had many similarities. Cecilia “Cissie” Loftus was the daughter of famous performers on the British music hall stage, and in 1891, at the age of 15, Loftus began performing her imitations at music halls to instant acclaim. She made her New York debut in 1895 at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall, and although she continued to perform on both sides of the Atlantic, she centered her career in the United States. When Elsie Janis began performing, also at a very young age, she was hailed as “the American Cissie Loftus.” [30] With the encouragement and guidance of her mother Jennie, the quintessential stage-mother, Janis was touring the vaudeville circuits by ten and starring in musical comedies by sixteen. Both rising to fame as girls, Loftus and Janis’s effectiveness as mimics stemmed in part from their youthful, feminine personas, which served to heighten the transformation into their various subjects. Known for her astonishingly wide vocal range and deft physical caricature, Loftus would string together impressions of such myriad acts as the following from a 1908 program: Marie Dressler singing ‘A Great Big Girl Like Me,’ Hattie Williams and her ‘Experience’ song, Caruso as he sings in a phonograph, George Walker singing ‘Bon Bon Buddie,’ Ethel Barrymore reading the letter from the boys in ‘Sunday,’ Bert Williams singing ‘Nobody,’ and dancing the ludicrous figure that is appended, and finally Nazimova in a scene from ‘A Doll’s House’ follow in order. [31] With a range of impersonations from vaudeville, opera, and the legitimate theater, Loftus exhibited the flexibility of her voice, which could capture, for example, the specific quality of the opera tenor, Enrico Caruso, as recorded on a phonograph. That her voice stretched to low vocal ranges added novelty and transgression to her act. Reviews of her performances, however, stressed the simplicity of her acts. A notice in the Chicago Daily Tribune describes Loftus’s charm as stemming from her ingenue-like demeanor: “A dainty winsomeness, supplemented by a sense of genuine humor, the deft touch of the artist, and a mimicry that never in any analysis could be construed into coarseness, was the secret of her popularity.” [32] Despite the sometimes provocative subject matter of her impersonations—like minstrel songs or Nazimova’s Nora—Loftus, as the Tribune is eager to confirm, maintained an image of maidenly propriety. Her decision to perform without make-up played into her girlish appeal. Max Beerbohm notes this effect in his comments on Loftus: “It seemed so strange, that neglect of convention. To be behind footlights and not rouged! Yes, hers was a success of contrast. She was like a daisy in the window of Solomon’s.” [33] Beerbohm’s language evokes a striking comparison between Loftus’s simple, natural artistry—like that of a daisy—and the commercial spectacle of vaudeville likened to a flashy department store window. The critical response to Loftus reveals a difference between the superficial representations of the typical vaudeville act and the embodied nature of Loftus’s mimetic skill. Her style of mimicry surpassed artificial or technical means of imitation to get beneath the skin of her subjects, and thus, beyond the innocent appeal of Loftus’s unrouged face, her decision to forego makeup contradicted advertisements that sold the idea of transformation through consumption (i.e. buying the right beauty products). Moreover, her cultivation of a simple, “dainty” persona, gave her, conversely, significant career versatility, allowing her to experiment with more rebellious personalities as a mimic, or as an actress, to play androgynous roles, such as Peter Pan. Elsie Janis, one of the first American women to get her start in vaudeville through mimicry, similarly maintained a girlish persona to accompany her mimetic talent. From childhood, Janis displayed a natural capacity for capturing the voices and gestures of others. She was rumored to give excellent impromptu impersonations, a skill which she reportedly demonstrated before President William McKinley in 1898, when she was invited to perform at the White House. After performing a few songs, recitations, and imitations of Anna Held and May Irwin, Janis surprised the guests with an impersonation of President McKinley, followed by imitations of “members of the United States Senate, the Justices of the Supreme Court (tripping over their robes), and the stereotypical national mannerisms of some of the assembled ambassadors.” [34] As with Loftus, audiences responded to the contrast, both charming and subversive, of a young girl imitating the mannerisms of mature men and women. One reviewer of her early performances commented, “It might seem incongruous for a child to evoke mental portraits of buxom, beautiful women for an audience. But Elsie’s inflections, gestures, and postures, her duplication of the star’s mannerisms, created a perfect illusion every time.” [35] Despite his reassurance about Janis’s talent, the author’s tone reveals a certain unease with the effect of her impressions, and if the incongruity between a girl portraying buxom women was unsettling, then the difference between the young Elsie and the powerful men she caricatured could only be more so. Janis’s supposed innocence, however, also made her transgressions of power and gender easier to digest. A review of Janis’s September 10, 1923 appearance at the Palace indicates this effect. The author, Mark Henry, is filled with admiration, explaining that he “has reviewed Miss Janis many times, but the pleasure is all his, and if anyone should get a laurel wreath, a gold medal or any other recognition hereafter, it certainly is ‘Little Elsie.’” [36] Even though Janis was 34 at the time of this review, Henry still uses the nickname, “Little Elsie.” Because of the close relationship, both personal and business, between Janis and her mother, Elsie did not marry until after her mother’s death in 1931. Thus “Little Elsie” maintained the image of maidenhood well into maturity, and her act continued to rely on the pleasing transformation from “winsome” girl into crude and brash performer. Henry describes her as “the only woman in the world who can swear, do it with refinement, and make you like her,” [37] excusing her mannish behavior through her feminine charm. With her capacity for creative interpretation, Janis famously added “idiosyncratic combinations” of impersonations to her act. [38] These combinations included “[George M.] Cohan singing one of his songs out of the corner of his mouth; Eddie Foy doing a clog dance; Ethel Barrymore doing Fanny Brice; and Sarah Bernhardt singing ‘Swanee.’” [39] As this description from Armond Fields indicates, Janis’s comedic talent lay in jumbling the famous performers of the day into ludicrous juxtapositions. To do so, it is worth noting, she flexed her virtuosity as an embodied performer, mixing the already intertwined fields of song, dance, comedy, and theater on the vaudeville stage into further entanglement. The effusive Mark Henry of the 1923 Palace review provides another example of this kind of celebrity jumble. He considered her “rendition of ‘Yes, We Have No Bananas,’ as different artistes would sing it” to be “a masterpiece.” [40] Although this review may be hyperbolic, Janis clearly had a propensity for parodying the vaudeville stage, which thrived on the big personalities of its stars. Such pronounced types were ripe for mockery, and by easily mixing and matching the mannerisms of stars, Janis’s act highlighted the way in which the celebrity culture surrounding her rewarded strong personalities. For herself, however, she cultivated an image of the all-American girl; [41] she was a New Woman freed from the pages of a magazine to sendup the star-crazed culture. Especially for attractive young women like Loftus and Janis, simply the act of presenting solo, comic material on the vaudeville stage was a risky move. [42] There was a stark divide in the cultural ethos between beauty and comedy, and most female comedians in vaudeville compromised their femininity in some way in order to succeed as comics. For instance, Florenz Ziegfeld stated that his audiences expected “girls and laughter,” [43] but the subtext of that statement was, of course, that an act consisted of either “girls” or “laughter.” An act was either one of his spectacles composed for the male gaze or a comedy act in which the performer, if female, sacrificed any pretensions to beauty. Often this was achieved with a racial mask, such as Fanny Brice’s Yiddishisms and May Irwin’s “coon songs,” or by making reference to their failure to conform to beauty standards, such as the comedian Trixie Friganza’s jokes about her large build and failed diets. With mimicry, Loftus and Janis found a way to be both feminine and funny. Not only did they maintain reputations of demur womanhood while living public lives, they were also able to inhabit a range of more transgressive personalities in their acts while keeping a stable identity as “legitimate” actresses. They were not immune from the racism and xenophobia of the vaudeville stage: like May Irwin, whom she was imitating, Janis sang “coon songs,” taking advantage of the same racially-based humor. But the chameleon nature of her act gave her the privilege to separate herself from the performance. Indeed, Loftus and Janis exploited the difference between their identities as pretty white women and the ethnic stereotypes or outsized personalities they imitated to prove their skill as mimics. That they chose to capture their subjects without the artificial means of make-up constituted an unusual move to eschew superficial means of representation on the vaudeville stage. That they did it so successfully only further demonstrated the inherently artificial nature of cultural representation in vaudeville. Occasionally, battles broke out between vaudeville performers and their imitators, which exacerbated questions of authenticity. Hoffmann and Eva Tanguay, for instance, engaged in a well-publicized feud in 1908 over who could give the best performance of Eva Tanguay, the original or the imitator. [44] The interpretive flare that the mimics brought to each imitation also made it possible for the imitator to be imitated. At the beginning of her career, for instance, Janis always included of few of Loftus’s impressions in her act. Indeed, Loftus’s imitations were so well-known that several performers imitated Loftus’s imitations of themselves. This practice turned competitive when Loftus and Letty Lind became embroiled in a “dancing war” in London, which ended with Loftus adding an “impression of Lind imitating Loftus imitating Lind to her own act at the Palace” in 1894. [45] A similar battle of Loftus imitations occurred in Louisville in 1902 without the presence of Loftus herself. Since managers often liked to arrange programs so that a star would be performing in the same program as a mimic who impersonated her, it was not unusual that Elsie Janis was performing on the same bill as one of her frequent subjects, Josephine Sabel. Sabel, however, was also performing an impression of Loftus’s imitation of herself at the time. Janis took advantage of this by announcing that she would be giving an “imitation of Josephine Sabel in her imitation of Cissie Loftus giving an imitation of her.” [46] After receiving loud applause for this act, Janis brought Sabel back out on stage, and together they performed an encore of the “Loftus imitation” for the audience. With dueling imitations like these, the acts were no longer about best representing another star’s performance but about valorizing mimicry as a feat in itself. Their battle, therefore, became a virtuosic display of imitative embodiment, the movements back and forth demonstrating each star’s ability to maintain control over representations of herself. By copying themselves to a ridiculous extent, however, they also lampooned the reproducibility of popular performance, and, as each iteration of “Sabel” or “Janis as Sabel” or “Janis as Sabel as Loftus as Sabel” became further abstracted from the original performance, they pointed to the inauthenticity within forms of representation that replicated women’s bodies or images. Unlike the passive, uniform representations of women in magazines or chorus lines, they maintained agency over the act of replication, presenting themselves as accomplished parodists and critical participants in popular culture. Throughout their careers, mimics like Hoffmann, Loftus, and Janis displayed a canny understanding of women’s place in the culture of popular entertainment, and they used their imitations to undermine the expectations surrounding beauty, comedy, and women’s bodies. Perhaps the reliance on spectacle in Hoffmann’s case or the preservation of conventional femininity by Loftus and Janis limited their ability to make radical or political statements—their acts were light satires rather than biting critiques—but their careers demonstrated the opportunities that mimicry presented for experimenting with and embodying different types, personalities, and gender roles. Beyond the range of their performances, their creative interpretations also fought back against the superficialities of feminized consumer culture. Unlike the images of celebrities and the “American Girl” in magazines and advertisements, their mimicry pierced beneath the skin, destabilizing the artificial representations of women in mass media and entertainment by drawing three-dimensional portraits and caricatures with the body as image-maker. Their acts thus exemplified the cultural and political potentials of embodied performance, taking advantage of the live, moving body as a tool for creating original, critical, and “auratic” parodies of popular culture. References [1] “Why Do They Call Me A Gibson Girl?” The Bystander , October 10, 1906, Vol. 12 no. 149, 83, https://books.google.com/books?id=yvERAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT32#v=onepage&q&f=false (accessed 29 January 2019). [2] “ ‘The Belle’ At Academy,” The Sun . (1837-1993) , Nov 13, 1906, https://search.proquest.com/docview/537283401?accountid=15172 (accessed 24 January 2019). [3] Martha Banta, Imaging American Women: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History (New York: Columbia UP, 1987), xxviii. Emphasis original. [4] In Strange Duets (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2009), Kim Marra discusses the Montana Silver Statue, another allegorical statue at the World’s Columbian Exhibition, which presented “Justice” modeled after the actress Ada Rehan. That these statues were sometimes modeled on famous actresses suggests a cycle of influence between theater and visual media, with the “American Girl” type moving from two-dimensional magazine prints, to living portrayals on stage, and back to three-dimensional images cast in metal and stone. [5] Katherine H. Adams, Michael L. Keene, and Jennifer C. Koella, Seeing the American Woman: 1880-1920 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2012), 84. [6] While in other contexts, the term “female mimic” might refer to a drag performer, such as Julian Eltinge, who mimicked females in his act, I use the term to refer to female performers. Throughout the essay then, “female mimics” refers to women who performed imitations of celebrities of all genders. [7] Joe Laurie Jr., “Vaudeville: Mimics,” Variety , Vol. 170, no. 11 (May 19, 1948): 52, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1285922332?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=15172 [8] Faye E. Dudden, Women in the American theatre: actresses and audiences, 1790-1870 (New Haven: Yale UP, 1994), 182. [9] Dudden, Women in the American Theatre , 182. [10] Adams, Keene, Koella, Seeing the American Woman , 77. [11] Susan A. Glenn, Female Spectacle: The Theatrical Roots of Modern Feminism (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2000), caption to image 21. [12] Matthew Schneirov, The Dream of a New Social Order: Popular Magazines in America 1893-1914 (New York: Columbia, UP, 1994), 4-5. [13] Martha H. Patterson, Beyond the Gibson Girl: Reimagining the American New Woman, 1895-1915 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 33. [14] “Beginning of Summer Season,” New York Times (1857-1922), May 26, 1907, https://search.proquest.com/docview/96730772?accountid=15172 (accessed 24 January 2019); “Roof Gardens Open,” New York Tribune (1900-1910), Jun 2, 1907, https://search.proquest.com/docview/571882732?accountid=15172 (accessed 24 January 2019). [15] Cady Whaley, “The Cohans,” The Billboard (Archive: 1894-1960), Jun 29, 1907, 10-11, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1031381111?accountid=15172. [16] For further discussion of Hoffmann’s dance impersonations see Glenn, Female Spectacle , and Sunny Stalter-Pace, “Gertrude Hoffmann’s Lawful Piracy: ‘A Vision of Salome’ and the Russian Season and Transatlantic Production Impersonations,” Theatre Symposium , Vol. 25 (2017): 37-48, 110. [17] “Modernized Romeo; Up-To-Date Juliet,” New York Times (1857-1922), Dec 04, 1906, https://search.proquest.com/docview/96609309?accountid=15172; “She Won’t Copy That Gown Again,” Detroit Free Press (1858-1922), Jun 06, 1907, https://search.proquest.com/docview/ 564061242?accountid=15172 (accessed 24 January 2019). [18] Ruth Turner Wilcox, Five Centuries of American Costume (Mineola, NY: Dover Publishers, 2004), 146. [19] “Vaudeville At Maryland,” The Sun (1837-1993), Oct 22, 1907, https://search.proquest.com/docview/537464261?accountid=15172 (accessed 24 January 2019). [20] Glenn, Female Spectacle , 76. [21] Whaley, “The Cohans.” [22] Glenn, Female Spectacle , 81. [23] Patterson, Beyond the Gibson Girl , 33. [24] Daniel Delis Hill, Advertising to the American Woman, 1900-1999 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002), 29. [25] Glenn, Female Spectacle , 95. [26] Loftus quoted in “The Art of Cecilia Loftus,” The Billboard , May 16, 1925; Elsie Janis, “Elsie Janis Tells the True Art of Mimicry,” The Sun (1837-1993), Aug 08, 1915, https://search.proquest.com/docview/534100838?accountid=15172 (accessed 29 January 2019). [27] Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” trans. Harry Zohn, (Shocken/Random House ed. Hannah Arendt), https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm (accessed 1 February 2019). [28] Janis quoted in Glenn, Female Spectacle , 77. [29] Max Beerbohm, “A Play and a Mimic,” The Saturday Review , June 11, 1904: 749, https://search.proquest.com/docview/9532068?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=15172. [30] Lee Alan Morrow, Elsie Janis: A Compensatory Biography , Dissertation, 1988, 57. [31] “News of the Theaters,” Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922), Apr 09, 1908, https://search.proquest.com/docview/173390463?accountid=15172. [32] “ ‘Cissie’ Loftus is More than ‘Cecilia’,” Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922), Jun 22, 1902, https://search.proquest.com/docview/173068991?accountid=15172. [33] Max Beerbohm quoted in John Anderson, “Miss Cecilia Loftus,” Harper’s Bazaar 71, no. 2710 (June 1938): 52-53, 114-115, 120, 126. https://search.proquest.com/docview/1832505976?accountid=15172. [34] Morrow, Elsie Janis , 24. [35] Irene Corbally Kuhn, “Elsie Janis, the one-woman U.S.O. of World War I, is gone,” in Slide, Selected Vaudeville Criticism (Metchuen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1988), 111. [36] Mark Henry, “This Week’s Reviews of Vaudeville Theaters From Coast to Coast by Special Wire: B.F. Keith’s Palace, N.Y.” The Billboard , 35, no. 37 (Sep 15, 1923): 16-17, https://search.proquest.com/docview/1031707084?accountid=15172. [37] Henry, “This Week’s Reivews.” [38] Armond Fields, Women Vaudeville Stars (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006), 159. [39] Fields, Women Vaudeville Stars , 159. [40] Henry, “This Week’s Reviews.” [41] See Deanna Toten Beard, “A Doughgirl with the Doughboys: Elsie Janis, “The Regular Girl,” and the Performance of Gender in World War I Entertainment,” Theatre History Studies 33 (2014): 56-70, for a discussion of Janis’s cultivation of her image as an all-American Girl who could be “one of the guys” with soldiers in WWI. [42] Glenn, Female Spectacle , 43. [43] Glenn, Female Spectacle , 48. [44] Glenn, Female Spectacle , 79. [45] Catherine Hindson, Female Performance Practice on the Fin-de-Siecle Popular Stages of London and Paris: Experiment and Advertisement (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 150. [46] Morrow, Elsie Janis , 61. Footnotes About The Author(s) JENNIFER SCHMIDT is a teacher, scholar, dramaturg, and performer. In 2018, she received a Doctor of Fine Arts degree in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from Yale School of Drama. Her research traces the history of the one-woman show in America, focusing on women who write and perform monologue-based solo shows. Schmidt received the American Theater and Drama Society’s Emerging Scholar Award in 2015 and has presented papers at ATHE, ASTR, Theatre Symposium, and the Mid-America Theatre Conference. Her writing has appeared in Etudes and HowlRound Theatre Commons. In the fall of 2019, she will be joining the faculty of Hanover College as Assistant Professor of Theatre. Editorial Board for Special Issue: David Bisaha Meredith Conti Leah Lowe Inga Meier Robert Vorlicky Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction: Embodied Arts Collective Choreography for Weathering Black Experience: Janelle Monáe and The Memphis "Tightrope" Dance Unruly Reproductions: The Embodied Art of Mimicry in Vaudeville "Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, and Broadway Bodies Choreographies of the Great Departure: Building Civic Bodies in the 1914 Masque of St. Louis Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance. Stephanie Nohelani Teves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018; Pp. 220. Ellen Stewart Presents: Fifty Years of La MaMa Experimental Theatre. Cindy Rosenthal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017; Pp. 198. In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement. La Donna L. Forsgren. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 200. Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical. Kevin Winkler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018; Pp. 368. Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past. Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018; Pp. 399. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Claudia Wilsch Case Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 32 2 Visit Journal Homepage The Architecture of Local Performance: Stages of the Taliesin Fellowship Claudia Wilsch Case By Published on May 21, 2020 Download Article as PDF During the Great Depression, architect Frank Lloyd Wright founded the Taliesin Fellowship, an apprenticeship program for students of architecture and related trades that valued physical labor as an educational tool. Based at Wright’s family home and the adjacent former Hillside Home School in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and later expanding to Taliesin West near Scottsdale, Arizona, the Fellowship offered tuition-paying students a hands-on alternative to a college education by conveying Wright’s theory of organic architecture through practical experience. Echoing certain aspects of the British and American Arts and Crafts movements, the German Bauhaus, and the Eastern mystic Georges Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, the Taliesin Fellowship was an experiment in communal work, living, and learning. Like the collectives that inspired it, the Taliesin Fellowship engaged its members in a variety of artistic pursuits, and its amateur performing arts activities became cherished entertainment for local audiences. Beginning with apprentice-staged concerts, skits, and film screenings in the 1930s and presenting Gurdjieff-inspired physical movements in the 1950s, the Fellowship’s performances by the 1960s culminated in original dance dramas, written and choreographed by Wright’s daughter, Iovanna Lloyd Wright. Taking inspiration from Gurdjieff’s philosophy and from her father’s architectural concepts, Iovanna’s work, though created in isolation, echoes aspects of the physical culture movement and connects with twentieth-century expressive dance. Taken together, the performing arts activities that occurred at Taliesin and Taliesin West from the 1930s to the 1970s asserted the Fellowship’s role in decentralizing the American cultural landscape. The Fellowship’s performances cultivated spectators who appreciated locally developed productions, the same audiences who by the 1960s in Arizona and the 1980s in Wisconsin were receptive to the regional theatre movement. By translating spiritual ideas onto the stage through her choreography, Iovanna Lloyd Wright in particular laid the foundation for local spectators to appreciate experimental work that was created nearby, rather than imported from New York. Frank Lloyd Wright started his apprenticeship program in the fall of 1932 with twenty-three students. [1] An early prospectus describes the Fellowship as a structured experience: “The way of life is simple: meals in common, fixed hours for all work, recreation and sleep. Rooms for individual study and rest. Imaginative entertainment is a feature of the home life. Music, drama, literature, the cinema of our own and other countries. Evening conferences with musicians, writers, artists and scientists who visit the Fellowship or are invited to sojourn.” [2] There were no formal classes, textbooks, or exams; as former apprentice Edgar Tafel notes, students “learned by doing — the Taliesin way — and by listening.” [3] Daily tasks included assisting Wright with architectural drawings and models, carrying out construction, maintenance, and farm work, preparing meals for the Fellowship community, and, under the guidance of Wright and his third wife Olgivanna, organizing cultural events and performances. As one of their first construction projects, apprentices remodeled the old gymnasium of the Hillside Home School into the Taliesin Playhouse, and later built additional theatres at Taliesin West. Fulfilling Wright’s plan to incorporate the performing arts into the Fellowship, the Taliesin community used its event spaces for film screenings, concerts, song recitals, lectures, and presentations of skits, plays, and dances, and also held seasonal celebrations and costume parties. Some of this arts programming was open to the public. Beginning in 1957, the Fellowship produced the annual Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance at the Pavilion Theatre at Taliesin West, which for several years remained a highlight of the Scottsdale-Phoenix area cultural scene. By constructing theatres and curating cultural events in Wisconsin and Arizona, far away from New York, the Taliesin Fellowship participated in a decentralization of the performing arts that had already found expression in the little theatre movement of the 1910s and 1920s. Having lived in Chicago at the turn of the twentieth century, Frank Lloyd Wright was personally acquainted with local trailblazers of the little theatre movement, including Jane Addams, the co-founder of Hull House; Maurice Browne, the director of the Chicago Little Theatre; and the actor Donald Robertson. He also knew playwright Zona Gale, who lived not far from Taliesin and was affiliated with the Wisconsin Dramatic Society, another pioneering little theatre. Stimulated by these connections, Wright expressed an appreciation for regionally-created culture and, through his Fellowship, began to participate in furthering its spread. [4] The Fellowship’s arts activities paralleled the decentralization efforts of the Federal Theatre Project of the 1930s and anticipated the post-World-War-II regional theatre movement that resulted in the emergence of not-for-profit professional theatres in cities across the country. The Taliesin Playhouse opened on November 1, 1933. Aside from illustrating Wright’s ideal of a native, organic architecture, built “from the inside out” and “in complete harmony with the landscape,” the Playhouse realized key aspects of the design for a “New Theatre” that the architect had been developing over several years. [5] The Madison Capital Times described the structure as “a huge artistic building made from stones of nearby hills and rough woods of nearby forests” and noted that the Playhouse “seems to be a part of the surrounding landscape.” [6] Nearly all of the construction work was completed by Wright’s students: “They have felled the trees, sawed them into lumber, quarried rock, and burned lime to lay the rock in the wall. The sawed lumber has been turned into structure, trusses and furniture. Walls have been plastered and frescoed, all by Taliesin apprentices.” [7] Echoing modernist experiments in early-twentieth-century theatre architecture, such as Adolphe Appia’s Festival Theatre at Hellerau, Germany (1911), or Walter Gropius’s vision for a Total Theatre (1927), the Playhouse’s interior was designed as a flexible space that could accommodate a variety of events. An upper stage was intended for theatrical performances and film screenings and “a lower stage for musicians.” [8] Removable seating permitted the house to be rearranged “for dancing or other amusements.” [9] Most importantly, in contrast to large commercial theatres of the day, the intimate 200-seat Taliesin Playhouse was built without a proscenium, inviting a connection between actors and spectators, a goal Wright strove for in all of the performance spaces he designed. Writing as a mouthpiece for Wright, apprentice Nicholas Ray, who briefly served as the director of the Taliesin Playhouse and later became a well-known Hollywood movie director, emphasized the innovative nature of the design. Ray condemned “the picture frame theater of today” as a “hideous anachronism” and “essentially undemocratic.” In its stead, he advocated for “a place where stage and audience architecturally melt rhythmically into one, and the performance — the play of the senses — and the audience blend together into an entity because of the construction of the whole.” [10] For local audiences, the opening of the Taliesin Playhouse was a special occasion, particularly considering that the Spring Green area did not have access to a professional performing arts venue until the 1980 founding of the American Players Theatre. The Capital Times reported that guests filled the theatre to capacity and were treated to four movies and a barbecue lunch. Reflecting Wright’s cosmopolitan taste as well as his sense of humor, the films screened that day included the 1931 Austrian comedy The Merry Wives of Vienna , shown in the original German; Ernst Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby (1932) featuring Lionel Barrymore; a “Silly Symphony” by Walt Disney; and an animated cartoon of Aesop’s Fables . The Fellowship soon began offering public programming on Sunday afternoons. For a 50-cent admission fee, which helped supplement the group’s income during the Great Depression, visitors could watch a film, hear a musical recital by apprentices or guest artists, and partake of coffee and baked goods near the Playhouse’s fireplace. The main feature was introduced through “an interpretive talk” by a Fellowship member that offered insights into “the background, the environment, and the purpose behind the play” and was usually followed by a Disney cartoon or other short animated film. [11] Advertisement for movie screenings at Taliesin, Capital Times (Madison, WI), 23 March 1934. Movies screened at Taliesin during the 1930s included a selection of recent, critically acclaimed European and American releases, such as Sergei Eisenstein’s October (1927); G.W. Pabst’s 1929 adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s play Pandora’s Box with Louise Brooks; Fritz Lang’s M (1931) with Peter Lorre; a selection of René Clair films; Leni Riefenstahl’s The Blue Light (1932); Dudley Murphy’s 1933 version of Eugene O’Neill’s play The Emperor Jones with Paul Robeson; Vladimir Petrov’s 1934 adaptation of Aleksandr Ostrovsky’s play The Thunderstorm ; Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night (1934) with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert; Jacques Feyder’s Carnival in Flanders (1935); various movies by Alfred Hitchcock; and Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936). On occasion, the bill included experimental work, such as Man Ray’s short film The Starfish (1928) or Jean Epstein’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1928), as adapted by Luís Buñuel from Edgar Allan Poe. [12] Several of the artistically significant movies shown at Taliesin were not otherwise accessible to local Wisconsin audiences and some, such as Riefenstahl’s Blue Light , had their regional premiere at the Playhouse. Frank Lloyd Wright screened films to entertain, but also to educate viewers. Former apprentice Curtis Besinger remembers: Mr. Wright was a movie fan; he enjoyed good films. But he saw the great movies of the world as something more than entertainment; he saw them as a form of education in the deepest meaning of the word. They were not only a means of acquiring information about the various cultures of the world, but of nourishing and developing one’s own creative resources. They were like the works of art which he acquired and with which he surrounded himself and the Fellowship. They were, as he often said, his library. Like great literature, they were sources of nourishment and inspiration. The Playhouse was a place, a setting, in which to view these works of art and to share them with the Fellowship and its guests. [13] The Fellowship’s cultural programming in Wisconsin and later Arizona resonated with Wright’s theory of decentralization, as manifest in his utopian plan for Broadacre City, which he posited as an antidote to the overcrowding of traditional American cities. Envisioned by Wright as an expansive, democratic, technologically advanced, and environmentally friendly community that would smoothly integrate housing and workplaces with access to services and recreation, Broadacre City was never realized, but the architect continued to fine-tune, exhibit, and discuss this project until the end of his life. In 1970, Iovanna Lloyd Wright summed up her father’s idea: Frank Lloyd Wright designed a city spread out over miles of free and verdant land. Factories, theaters, stadiums, museums, restaurants, apartment buildings, hotels, office buildings, hospitals, schools, and related shopping centers are set in the midst of parks, forests, gardens, and occasional man-made lakes; or, wherever possible, incorporating features of natural beauty, streams or waterfalls. Interlaced over the countryside, with ample space among them, are broad landscaped highways and monorails, with additional traffic handled by air-rotors: noiseless, atomic powered radio-controlled airborne vehicles. Gas and smog would belong to the past. [14] As Fellowship member Bruce Pfeiffer points out, “all of the principles of [Wright’s] work, all of his thought about planning, building, and environment, would be connected to this concept of a decentralized, liberated society, the centerline of which would be architecture.” [15] Created by Wright’s students during the Fellowship’s first sojourn in Arizona, a couple of years before construction began in 1937 on the collection of buildings that would become Taliesin West, a model of Broadacre City was first exhibited at the 1935 Industrial Arts Exposition in New York. The model incorporated Wright’s recent plans for the Taliesin Playhouse as a prototype of a theatre space, and both Taliesin and Taliesin West can be viewed as attempts to realize small parts of Wright’s larger vision for Broadacre City. [16] In the mid-1930s, apprentice Karl E. Jensen, who, like Ray, was conveying Wright’s thoughts, declared that decentralizing the American theatre by moving it “into the ‘green pastures’” would result in vibrant, non-commercial local arts scenes. Claiming that “in New York during the ‘season’ congestion in the theater district is unbearable,” and that the steep price of assembling a Broadway show, caused by “the terrible urban overhead rent, advertising, costly sets, and highly paid unionized labor,” was “crippling new productions before they get a good start,” Jensen argued for “breaking up the theatrical center.” Positing that “many of our finest plays are bound to be of limited appeal” and would therefore not thrive in New York’s commercial theatres anyway, he asserted that producing more plays far away from Broadway would improve the quality of the American theatre. The Fellowship’s first experiments with staging live drama, including the apprentice-written “musical farce” Piranesi Calico (1934), were part of a plan to “expand the activities of the Taliesin Playhouse from the showing of fine films to include a broad program of musical activities, the dance, and plays of our own making or by visiting groups.” [17] It was at Taliesin West where those experiments flourished. The architect’s complex near Scottsdale came to include three indoor performance spaces: the Kiva, a “stone-enclosed room,” which was often used for dinners and doubled as “a small cinema theatre”; the larger Cabaret, which, when it was completed in 1950, replaced the Kiva as a screening room and also hosted other performing arts events and dinners; and the Pavilion, which was designed specifically for the annual Taliesin Festivals of Music and Dance that began in 1957. [18] By presenting non-commercial performances for local audiences in Wisconsin and Arizona, the Fellowship was following in the footsteps of the little theatre movement, emulating activities of the Federal Theatre Project, and anticipating the regional theatre movement. The Taliesin community was not the first artisan collective to incorporate the performing arts, and some of its amateur theatrical activities echoed those of groups Wright was familiar with, such as Elbert Hubbard’s Roycrofters in upstate New York; Charles Ashbee’s Guild of Handicraft, which evolved into the School of Arts and Crafts in Chipping Campden, England; and the German Bauhaus, which from 1919 to 1933 and under the successive leadership of Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe provided training in art, design, and architecture. Ultimately, however, it was a school of practical philosophy, Georges Gurdjieff’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, which had the most profound influence on Taliesin. [19] Based by 1922 at the Prieuré des Basses Loges, an estate in Fontainebleau near Paris, the Institute prized physical work, exercise, and self-discipline as a path to self-realization. Gurdjieff was a rotund, balding man of mysterious Eastern-European origin who attracted an international group of followers to his philosophical system, among them several performing artists, such as composer Thomas de Hartmann, as well as Jeanne and Alexandre de Salzmann, who had both been associated with Émil Jacques-Dalcroze’s Institute for Rhythmic Education at Hellerau. Jeanne had been a student of Eurythmics, Dalcroze’s training program for performers that links musical rhythm with physical movement, and Alexandre had designed the lighting system for Appia’s Festival Theatre, where Dalcroze’s school was housed. Gurdjieff held a lifelong influence over Wright’s wife Olgivanna, who spent six years under his tutelage before she settled in the United States, where she ultimately built several of the mystic’s teachings into the daily routine of the Taliesin Fellowship. As part of his self-improvement curriculum, Gurdjieff also instructed his students in a physical training program. Maud Hoffman, a guest at the Prieuré, noted that Gurdjieff’s complex workouts were inspired by “the sacred gymnastics of the esoteric schools, the religious ceremonies of the antique Orient and the ritual movements of monks and dervishes—besides the folk dances of many a remote community,” which Gurdjieff had studied during extensive travels through Central and Southern Asia. [20] Accompanied by music often credited to Gurdjieff but perhaps at least partially composed by Thomas de Hartmann, the movements were, as Taliesin Fellowship member Cornelia Brierly later explained, “designed to coordinate mind, body, and spirit.” [21] Gurdjieff’s followers first had to master a series of “obligatories,” exercises that formed the basis for his other movements and dances, many of which were patterned on intricate numerical schemes derived from the enneagram, an esoteric diagram of personality traits. Iovanna Lloyd Wright illustrates the complexity of even just Gurdjieff’s first obligatory as follows: “The head holds one pattern, the right arm another, the left arm another, the right leg another, and the left leg yet another. You learn them separately and then you have to put them together again, yourself.” [22] As Lara Vetter points out, in their time, Gurdjieff’s and Dalcroze’s systems, between which there was some overlap, existed among “a plethora of other similar movements … that linked bodily performance with spiritual transcendence,” such as François Delsarte’s System of Expression, Rudolf Steiner’s eurythmy, Raymond Duncan’s approach to gymnastics, and Rudolf von Laban’s Mastery of Movement program. [23] These systems appealed to European and American practitioners and filtered into modernist expressive dance. A group of Gurdjieff’s disciples, Olgivanna among them, gave regular public demonstrations of the mystic’s movements at the Prieuré and also staged a program in Paris in 1923. [24] In 1924, Gurdjieff and some of his followers traveled to the United States, where their culminating performance featuring “Ritual Dancing,” “Music,” and “Supernormal Phenomena” took place at Carnegie Hall. [25] Shortly after the group had arrived back in France, Gurdjieff instructed Olgivanna to return to America and begin “a new life,” presumably one that would include spreading his teachings. [26] After she founded the Taliesin Fellowship with Frank Lloyd Wright, Olgivanna introduced Gurdjieff’s ideas to her husband’s apprentices, briefly offered lessons in the movements, and in 1949 sent her daughter to study with Gurdjieff in Paris. [27] Over the course of six months, Iovanna learned the movements, including thirty-nine new exercises that the mystic had developed only recently. When she wasn’t training with Gurdjieff and his other “calves,” as he liked to call his female students, Iovanna continued practicing the movements by herself in a rehearsal room she rented at the Salle Pleyel. [28] She also used any spare time she had to play harp and take lessons in harmony from Thomas de Hartmann. “My days in Paris were filled with practice and studying, starting at eight in the morning,” Iovanna recalls. [29] When, by the end of the summer, Iovanna was preparing to return stateside, Gurdjieff instructed her to propagate his ideas and teach his movements at Taliesin, a plan Olgivanna supported. [30] As Fellowship member Kamal Amin observed, her months of rigorous training with Gurdjieff had rendered Iovanna “a focused and competent instructor of the sacred dances.” [31] By fall 1949, Iovanna was holding regular movement classes “for the correlation of mind, feeling and body” at Taliesin West and soon began developing performances based on this work. [32] In October, Gurdjieff died suddenly in Paris, and while Frank Lloyd Wright had always been careful not to let the mystic’s ideas compete with his own, he now agreed to incorporate Gurdjieff’s exercises into the Fellowship’s routine. Wright later stated that he saw a “connection” between his architecture and Gurdjieff’s teachings, revealing that he considered Gurdjieff “a Builder” who “believed in the building of human character as we believe in the kind of building we call Organic Architecture.” According to Wright, “the training methods of [Gurdjieff] fit so well into our work here at Taliesin” because of a shared belief that “only by his own work upon himself can any man become an individual in his own right really capable of creating anything at all.” [33] Movement practice for apprentices took place several times a week after a regular day of architectural, housekeeping, and maintenance work. While participation in the Gurdjieff exercises was voluntary, the movements were becoming an increasingly important part of Fellowship life. As Besinger mentions, “there were subtle — and not so subtle — pressures from Iovanna and indirectly from Mrs. Wright for everyone to participate.” [34] When in the fall of 1949, alongside other prominent guests, the conductor Serge Koussevitzky witnessed Iovanna and her group of amateur dancers give their first demonstration of Gurdjieff’s movements in the living room at Taliesin West, he was impressed. Koussevitzky reportedly insisted to a hesitant Frank Lloyd Wright, “You have no right to keep this away from the world! These dances are a work which you must share with the world,” and, in the wake of this encounter, the Fellowship began planning more formal presentations. [35] On Easter Sunday 1950, Iovanna led another movement performance at Taliesin West. While the Wrights were not regular churchgoers, they were spiritual people, and Easter with its themes of resurrection and renewal had always been a special occasion for the Fellowship. In the days leading up to the Wrights’ large annual Easter celebration, the Taliesin community would decorate hundreds of eggs, and Olgivanna would supervise apprentices in preparing traditional recipes for baba (a leavened Russian bread) and sweet, almond-infused pascha cheese, foods Olgivanna regarded as “blessed by memory and promise of life eternal.” [36] The Gurdjieff movements resonated with the spirituality of Easter, and the apprentices’ carefully rehearsed performance put on display the cohesiveness of the Fellowship. As the printed program for the demonstration explains, Iovanna believed the exercises “contain and express a certain form of knowledge and at the same time serve as a means to acquire an harmonious state of being,” promoting in the performer/apprentice “certain qualities of sensation, various degrees of concentration, and the requisite directing of the thought and the senses.” [37] In October 1950, twenty-two Fellowship members performed a selection of “movements, dances, and exercises” for special guests at the Taliesin Playhouse to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Gurdjieff’s death, as Gurdjieff groups were also doing in Paris, London, and New York. Recreating the costumes the mystic had typically chosen for his performers, Wright’s apprentices were “dressed in white tunics and trousers, with colorful sashes.” [38] The architect, who Besinger sensed “accepted ‘movements’ as an activity that Iovanna and Mrs. Wright were interested in and supported them primarily for this reason,” showed his approval of his daughter’s work by inviting prominent clients with commissions in progress to see the Fellowship perform, including Harry Guggenheim and Florida Southern College’s president Ludd Spivey. [39] In 1951, Iovanna again staged Gurdjieff’s movements at Taliesin West at Easter and in Wisconsin in the fall. Making an overt connection to Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture, the Wisconsin performance was presented at the new Wright-designed Unitarian Meeting House in Madison, with the price of admission intended to help the congregation cover the construction costs. [40] Wright, who, as Joseph M. Siry writes, “conceived of the theater and the room for worship as related spatial types,” introduced the Taliesin Fellowship’s first truly public performance and used it to demonstrate “the secular side of the building whereby dances, music, plays, may be viewed by a turnabout of the auditorium seats toward an improvised stage—the social center of the society.” [41] Anticipating the intricate costumes that Fellowship members would design in future years, the female dancers now appeared in colorful Orientalist dresses and elaborate headpieces, while the male dancers were still clad in the type of “pure white” attire that had customarily been worn by Gurdjieff’s performers. [42] Advertisement for the Taliesin Fellowship’s November 1951 Gurdjieff movement demonstration, Wisconsin State Journal , 23 October 1951. Besinger, who in 1949 had already noticed “an effort and intention to establish Taliesin as a center, of a kind, for the teaching of Gurdjieff philosophy,” suggests that the Madison performance was not only an event to raise funds for the completion of Wright’s church building, but also “an opportunity to publicize and to proselytize for Gurdjieff’s teaching.” [43] By the early 1950s, Besinger observed that a “schism … was developing within the Fellowship,” with “those whose primary interest was in architecture and who looked to Mr. Wright for leadership” on one side, and “those whose major interest lay elsewhere and was focused on ‘movements’ and Mrs. Wright’s interest in Gurdjieff and his teaching” on the other. [44] By the summer of 1953, Iovanna and a group of twenty-five dancers, including core apprentices John Amarantides, Kamal Amin, Curtis Besinger, Richard Carney, Tom Casey, Kay Davison, John Howe, Kenn Lockhart, Steve Oyakawa, Bruce Pfeiffer, Ling Po, and Heloise Schweizer, were planning their biggest movement demonstration yet, though this time the performance competed with rather than complemented one of Wright’s own projects. While Iovanna was rehearsing a program entitled “Music, Ritual Exercises, and Temple Dances by Georges Gurdjieff” for Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, which the Taliesin Fellowship had rented for the occasion, her father was assembling “Sixty Years of Living Architecture: The Work of Frank Lloyd Wright,” a major retrospective on the site of Wright’s future Guggenheim Museum in New York. [45] For the New York exhibit, Fellowship members helped construct a temporary pavilion that included a full-size, furnished model of a Usonian house, Wright’s prototype of a middle-class home. Apprentices were struggling to prepare for both events simultaneously, and the Chicago Gurdjieff demonstration would show the limitations of Taliesin’s amateur performers. While they were rehearsing in the emptied-out drafting room at Taliesin, trying “to master more movements than ever before,” and designing and building “settings, costumes, and headdresses” for their ambitious Goodman program, Wright also needed them in New York to help set up the exhibition, and several Fellowship members shuttled between the two projects. [46] “Sixty Years of Architecture” opened on October 22, 1953, less than two weeks before the Chicago performance. [47] As Iovanna recalls, “When the time came for us to move into the theatre, our production had grown to a scale none of us could have anticipated.” [48] The group had hired a professional conductor and a small orchestra to play Gurdjieff’s music, orchestrated by Olgivanna and Bruce Pfeiffer for harp, percussion, piano, and strings, but the dancers were afforded just one rehearsal “with full orchestra.” [49] As Iovanna notes, “Our rental of the theatre included only one day to move in, solve our technical problems and have our dress rehearsal.” [50] On November 3, the Taliesin group presented a matinee and an evening show at the “sold-out” Goodman, a pioneering theatre which had first opened in 1925 but would not re-establish itself as a professional regional company until 1969. [51] Frank Lloyd Wright, who had just returned from the opening of his New York exhibition, introduced both presentations. While Iovanna insists that her dancers “gave a very good performance, as good as it really could be with amateur performers,” and that some spectators, “were moved to tears,” the critics were not impressed with the Fellowship’s Gurdjieff presentation. [52] Although she deemed the music “pleasant,” the reviewer for the Chicago American judged that the performance “doesn’t have a dance leg, nor a philosophic one to stand on.” [53] The critic for the Chicago Sun-Times found the show “both exotic and monotonous.” He observed, “The dancers danced with grim, awful solemnity. Some of their sharply accented numbers stirred painful memories of hours of close order drill …. No one on the stage seemed to be really enjoying what he or she was doing. Maybe that’s how Gurdjieff meant it to be.” [54] Iovanna maintains that as soon as the exhausted and dejected group returned to Taliesin, they “went right back to work” and “rebuilt in the wreckage,” but it was not until a few years later that the Fellowship planned another large-scale production, this time in familiar surroundings in Arizona. [55] In late April 1957, the Pavilion Theatre opened at Taliesin West for the first annual Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance. Like Wright’s other theatre buildings, the Pavilion is an intimate performance space that does not have a proscenium, allowing for a connection between performers and audience. The first Festival, which ran for three nights, attracted hundreds of local spectators. Directed by Iovanna, who also performed solo numbers, members of the Fellowship again staged a selection of Gurdjieff’s exercises and dances. However, while Gurdjieff provided the inspiration for the choreography, Iovanna had begun adapting the mystic’s movements, and the Wrights wanted the public to recognize Iovanna’s emancipation from Gurdjieff as well as Olgivanna’s influence on the performance. Explaining that Iovanna “[had] further developed her own highly individual and graceful style under the guidance of her mother,” a review of the Taliesin Festival in the Arizona Republic likely echoed a press release from the Fellowship. [56] Iovanna, who saw her work as “closely related to architecture,” and who did not have any formal dance training to supplement what she had learned during her stay with Gurdjieff in Paris, later wrote, “I developed into a choreographer when, with this knowledge inside me, I could build new combinations of dances out of what before was simply an exercise.” [57] It is also likely that, by modifying Gurdjieff’s regimented movements, Iovanna rendered them less severe than they had appeared in Chicago. The local Phoenix press responded much more favorably to the Taliesin community’s homegrown performance than the Chicago critics had done three and a half years earlier. The reviewer for the Arizona Republic praised “the remarkable precision and grace of the complicated movements in unison” and “the breathtakingly lavish and beautiful costumes for each number.” He appreciatively described the Festival experience as “a series of exotic and moving spectacles that will linger long in the memory of all who were fortunate enough to witness them.” [58] Presented for spectators who, in contrast to Chicago audiences, had few cultural events to choose from, the Taliesin Festival was a distinctive experience. As Fellowship member Frances Nemtin argues, “Undeniably, we were amateurs, not skilled dancers; but undoubtedly our Phoenix public knew this and came to see something else not present in professional performances.” [59] Moreover, as articulated by a local journalist, performances at Taliesin West’s Pavilion were an extension of Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture: “[their] total effect must include nature’s spectacle on a spring night on the Arizona desert and Taliesin’s no less spectacular mountainside community, designed and built by Mr. Wright.” [60] The spring 1958 Festival opened with “Initiation of a Priestess,” a new narrative dance by Iovanna, and again presented her adaptations of Gurdjieff’s work. [61] An article in the Arizona Republic stressed the Fellowship’s increasing creativity by reporting that the accompanying music, played by “woodwind, harp, and percussion instruments,” was “primarily composed and orchestrated at Taliesin.” [62] Olgivanna illustrates the Festival’s evolution through a description of its costumes, which put the design skills of the Fellowship’s artisans on display: We started modestly with thirty simple white costumes and now we have two hundred. They are embroidered with decorative jewels, pearls, gold trim, lamé and velvet ribbons. The beautiful head-dresses are made of metallic wires with brilliant colored stones as though suspended in the air. The men’s costumes are just as picturesque, painted with gold in bold patterns and trimmed with gold felt. [63] Signaling a transition from Gurdjieff’s material, the 1958 program booklet announced, “By way of the various ancient documentary dances and exercises and those which have been created at Taliesin by Iovanna Lloyd Wright, we share with you our covenant with the past and our legacy to the future.” [64] For the 1959 Festival, a selection of Gurdjieff dances deemed “perennial favorites” complemented “several new dances of [Iovanna Lloyd Wright’s] own composition” and a selection of medieval music “recently discovered” and orchestrated by Bruce Pfeiffer. Likely echoing another Taliesin-issued press release, the Arizona Republic again emphasized Iovanna’s growing independence from Gurdjieff and credited Olgivanna’s influence: “[Gurdjieff] defined the basic interpretive dance movement to [Miss Wright], and she has developed her own highly individual and evocative choreography under the guidance of her mother.” [65] Iovanna’s new dances generally had biblical themes and were theatrical in nature. Based on Sandro Botticelli’s eponymous Renaissance painting, “Annunciation” depicts the Virgin Mary receiving her message from the archangel Gabriel that she will bear the son of God. “Masque of Duality” shows “the eternal struggle between good and evil for the possession of man. Various passions assert themselves, interweaving with the good. Finally the Archangel, emerging from the host of angels, confronts Lucifer, proud ruler of the Powers of Darkness.” [66] The reviewer for the Arizona Republic found “Annunciation” the “most delicately artistic and touching of the new numbers” and called the dance “a little masterpiece.” On the whole, he considered the Festival “an intensely moving emotional and aesthetic experience unique in the world, and on a level of professional excellence worthy of the great international festivals, or Broadway at its best.” [67] The comparison with Broadway demonstrates that the Taliesin Festival was a cultural highlight in Arizona, conditioning local audiences to expect original productions with expertly designed sets, costumes, and lighting. While the commercial Sombrero Playhouse, when it wasn’t showing movies, had been presenting stars in touring Broadway shows since 1949, there was not a professional resident theatre in the area that staged locally created productions until 1965, when two amateur companies, the Arizona Repertory Theater and the Phoenix Little Theatre, entered into a short-lived alliance in an attempt to professionalize their operations. [68] Meanwhile, the Fellowship’s ambition to function as a regional performing arts center was not easy to reconcile with its architectural work, which led to internal tensions. On the one hand, several members of the Taliesin Fellowship experienced the labor-intensive Festivals as community-building events, noting that “the Festivals had all of us pulling together in a way that went beyond anything possible in most other areas of Fellowship life. We all shared exhaustion and exhilaration and the wonder of having been part of creating a beauty we could not have imagined or created alone.” [69] On the other hand, as former apprentice David Dodge claims, while Taliesin’s involvement in theatrical production “certainly built” community, “it also broke it up, in a way, because it put the concentration not on the architecture. It was definitely a major effort in a totally separate direction,” with “the drafting room [shutting] down almost for three months while rehearsals went on.” [70] On April 9, the 1959 Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance was interrupted when Frank Lloyd Wright died just a couple of months shy of his ninety-second birthday. Later that year, the Fellowship staged a revised version of the program at the University of Wisconsin to memorialize the architect. When she announced the event, Olgivanna remarked, “I have contributed most of the music.” [71] By the following year, the Festival no longer included any of Gurdjieff’s work, and instead began to feature substantial dance theatre pieces by Iovanna, choreographed to music composed by her mother. Emphasizing the local origin of the new work, Olgivanna now called Gurdjieff’s dances “rudimentary” and “fragmentary” and “simply an alphabet,” maintaining that “gradually in the course of 12 years my daughter worked with the young people [of Taliesin] utilizing this alphabet, this grammar, which she has replaced by her own grammar. Now it is entirely a new story. It has become a new form of dance—her very own creation, Taliesin-born.” [72] While the Festival’s programming moved away from Gurdjieff, the spiritual themes that had always characterized the Fellowship’s performances persisted. Between 1957 and 1960, a choral presentation of the 150th Psalm was staged as a prelude to each performance, introducing the evening’s program as offering praise to God. The 1960 Festival featured Iovanna’s adaptation of Anatole France’s short story “The Procurator of Judea,” translated into dance drama as “Mary Magdalene.” The piece juxtaposes “poet-philosopher” Antonius’s memories of his life in Judea with those of his old acquaintance Pontius Pilate. While Antonius nostalgically relives his infatuation with Mary Magdalene, Pilate takes a detached view of the past, revealing that he does not remember Jesus or his crucifixion. In Iovanna’s version, both Mary Magdalene and Jesus appear, with Jesus reciting the Sermon on the Mount and other lines “verbatim from the New Testament.” To supplement her adaptation of France’s story, Iovanna incorporated some of the dances she had created the previous year and several new ones. [73] In May 1961, on their way from Arizona to Wisconsin following the annual Festival, which had again featured “Mary Magdalene” and had introduced “Primavera,” a ballet about “the awakening of spring” inspired by another Botticelli painting, the Taliesin group performed a version of the Festival program at a Frank-Lloyd-Wright-designed theatre in Dallas. [74] The Kalita Humphreys Theater, which in typical Wright style does not have a proscenium, opened in 1959 as part of the Dallas Theater Center, one of the many regional theatres that emerged in the decades following World War II, contributing to a decentralization of the performing arts across America. Once again, however, and although they were presented in a space that bore some resemblance to the Pavilion, Iovanna’s dances were not well received outside of their local surroundings. Observing that, to accommodate her amateur performers, Iovanna’s choreography “makes no great technical demands,” the critic for the Dallas Times Herald described the presentation thus: “She dispensed with the traditional gestures of Western ballet and replaced them with an original, pseudo-Oriental set whose language remains largely obscure.” Ultimately, the reviewer determined, “Though there is an initial charm about the naiveté of the dancing, music and costuming, it begins to be monotonous over a long evening.” [75] John Rosenfield, the critic for the Dallas Morning News , who had been an early advocate for Frank Lloyd Wright building a theatre in Dallas, was kinder to the Taliesin group, probably because of his connection to Wright. [76] While he mentioned the limitations of the non-professional dancers, Rosenfield linked Iovanna’s work to the Ballets Russes and to a pioneer of modern dance, albeit a bit tongue-in-cheek. “The program was part spectacle and part devotional, sometimes in the manner of a Passion Play, sometimes as Iovanna’s own ‘Sacre du Printemps’ as seen through high Renaissance eyes,” he remarked, and critiqued “Primavera” in particular as “a sort of union of fluttering Orientalism and some hop-skipping and posturing from Isadora Duncan.” [77] By evoking a passion play, Rosenfield, perhaps unintentionally, drew an apt comparison between the Fellowship’s performing arts activities and those of medieval crafts guilds, which, like Taliesin’s apprentices, periodically paused their day-to-day work in order to stage religious dramas at annual or longer intervals. The yearly Taliesin Festivals remained popular in Arizona, where Iovanna and her performers usually played to “sold out” houses. [78] In the years following the 1962 Festival, which included a selection of her shorter works, Iovanna wrote several full-length dance dramas, set to Olgivanna’s music. Fellowship members continued to perform the dances, now accompanied by a semi-professional orchestra that included members of the Phoenix Symphony. Iovanna’s new pieces offered narratives of creation, decline, and redemption and mirrored some of her private struggles with relationships. Summing up several of Iovanna’s topics, Nemtin notes, Usually, but not always, the ideas presented in the dance-dramas were abstract. Their inspiration, however, usually drew upon realities and concepts with which we are all familiar, such as the elements of nature, the seasons of the year, man and woman, work, magic, gambling, duels, penitents, remorse and despair, loneliness, the harvest, the planets, weddings, good and evil, creation, rituals of antiquity, the art of building, politics, illusions, and even artworks. [79] Iovanna’s choreography was always connected to the two Taliesins: Nemtin reports that “Iovanna conceived the idea for the next year’s festival, to be performed in Arizona, in the previous summer at Taliesin in Wisconsin. In the fall at Taliesin West, she started to work on the idea in earnest.” [80] At the 1963 Festival, Iovanna’s Urizen premiered, based on William Blake’s poetic creation myth, which pits Urizen , who represents oppressive reason, against Los, who symbolizes artistic imagination. Television and film actor William Phipps narrated Blake’s text in Iovanna’s stage version, which ends with Los’s creative spirit triumphing, as illustrated by his craftsman-like work on a fiery anvil in the last scene. [81] Praising Iovanna’s dexterity at reshaping Blake’s material, but also hinting at her constraints as a choreographer, as critics would continue to do, the reviewer for the Arizona Republic wrote that the adaptation “has preserved its visionary quality and the choreography is indicative of Iovanna Wright’s skill in interpreting the spoken word through the sometimes limited vocabulary of her dance patterns. She has made Blake’s words come alive and the topic, written 250 years ago, has a strangely contemporary ring.” [82] Scene from Urizen (“Beasts”), 1963. Photo by Don Kalec, courtesy of OAD Archives. Urizen was restaged for the 1966 Festival, after 1964 had seen an expanded, two-act version of Mary Magdalene . In 1965, The Beautiful Country opened, with Iovanna playing the female lead. Her first full-length dance drama that was not adapted from existing work, The Beautiful Country dramatizes a tragic love story between two tormented individuals who bear some resemblance to Mary Magdalene and Antonius. Lila, a promiscuous performer who pretends to be religious and abstinent in order to make Matthew, “a rich, spoiled profligate,” fall for her, finds herself unable to compete with his longing for a “beautiful country.” After they fail to build a life together, her only hope is to join him in that idyllic state, which ultimately symbolizes death. [83] In 1967, An American Montage was shown for the first time. The piece sweepingly engages with American history from colonial to modern times, and, in tune with Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision for Broadacre City, offers a critique of urban living conditions. Juxtaposing a series of vignettes that dramatize human alienation with a celebration of architects and a wedding, An American Montage culminates in Wright’s “Work Song,” which had served as a theme for the Taliesin Fellowship since its inception. Iovanna argues that the piece “had a lot of lightness and fun in it,” even as characters get trapped in “a frantic pattern of mass degeneration.” [84] A revision of An American Montage with added scenes was staged in 1968. Work taking place in the Pavilion court on costumes for the “Realist” section of An American Montage , 1967. Photo by Don Kalec, courtesy of OAD Archives. Scene from An American Montage (“The Realist”), 1967. Left to right: Susan Jacobs Lockhart, Iovanna Lloyd Wright, Heloise Crista. Photo by Don Kalec, courtesy of OAD Archives. Time Upon Time broadens the scope of An American Montage and revisits themes from Urizen by presenting a world where humanity is increasingly threatened by dark forces but is saved through a return to creativity and spirituality. The dance drama was first presented at the 1969 Taliesin Festival and again, with slight revisions, in 1970. [85] As the Arizona Republic described it, “Miss Wright takes us from the beginning, with Woman’s betrayal of Man, through a brief representation of many periods of brutal history, through penitence, a brilliant collage of man-made illusions, a vicious party, the horror of bereavement, the curative powers of work and, ultimately, Man’s religious victory over temptation and reunification with Woman.” [86] In 1971, the Fellowship performed sections of Time Upon Time and An American Montage at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Iovanna’s health declined during the 1970s, and 1977 was the last year the Taliesin Festival took place, featuring An American Montage again. From the 1930s to the 1970s, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fellowship provided cultural programming for appreciative local audiences at Taliesin in Wisconsin and Taliesin West in Arizona. In addition to staging performances where they lived and worked, members of the Taliesin community also performed Iovanna Lloyd Wright’s unique choreography at theatres in Chicago and Dallas that had been established as part of an effort to decentralize theatrical production. Echoing the goals of twentieth-century American theatre movements that sought to bring non-commercial plays to local audiences outside of New York, the Taliesin Fellowship’s performing arts offerings illustrated aspects of Wright’s utopian plan for Broadacre City. While Iovanna was disconnected from New York’s dance and theatre scenes and unwittingly emulated anachronistic Orientalist aesthetics of early modern dance in some of her work, her isolation offered her the opportunity to experiment. Her dance drama deserves to be rediscovered as a cultural artifact that embodied spiritual ideas and prepared audiences for the locally created work of regional theatres. References [1] Cornelia Brierly, Tales of Taliesin: A Memoir of Fellowship , 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2000), 8. [2] Frank Lloyd Wright, “The Taliesin Fellowship,” in Collected Writings , vol. 3, 1931-1939 , ed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (New York: Rizzoli in association with The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1993), 164. [3] Edgar Tafel, Years with Frank Lloyd Wright: Apprentice to Genius (New York: Dover Publications, 1979), 39. [4] Frank Lloyd Wright, “Chicago Culture,” in Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings , vol. 1, 1894-1930 , ed. Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (New York: Rizzoli in association with The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1992), 158; Robert Edward Gard, Grassroots Theater: A Search for Regional Arts in America (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 87. [5] Frank Lloyd Wright, quoted in Mary York, “Frank Lloyd Wright Realizes Another Dream at Unique Theater Opening at Taliesin Tonight,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 1 November 1933; Wendell Cole, “Theatre Projects of Frank Lloyd Wright,” Educational Theatre Journal 12, no. 2 (1960), 90. [6] Mary York, “Frank Lloyd Wright Realizes.” [7] Mary York, “Frank Lloyd Wright Realizes.” [8] Mary York, “Frank Lloyd Wright Realizes.” [9] F. L. Wright, quoted in York, “Frank Lloyd Wright Realizes.” [10] Nicholas Ray, “‘At Taliesin,’ 2 April 1934,” in “At Taliesin”: Newspaper Columns by Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship, 1934-1937 , ed. Randolph C. Henning (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1992), 32-33. [11] Eugene Masselink, “Taliesin,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 2 February 1934; William T. Evjue, “Good Afternoon Everybody,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 13 December 1933. [12] Henning, “At Taliesin”: Newspaper Columns (note 10). [13] Curtis Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright: What It Was Like (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 85. [14] Iovanna Lloyd Wright, “Wright Predicted Urban Blight,” Arizona Republic , 31 May 1970. [15] Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, ed. Frank Lloyd Wright: Collected Writings , vol. 4, 1939-1949 (New York: Rizzoli in association with The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, 1994), 45-46. [16] “Museum Exhibits Model and 4 Original Color Renderings by Frank Lloyd Wright of His Designs for a New Theatre for Hartford, 1949,” The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Records, 1929-1959, The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. [17] Henning, “At Taliesin”: Newspaper Columns , 34; Karl E. Jensen, “At Taliesin,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 6 May 1934. [18] Brierly, Tales of Taliesin , 49; Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright , 208. [19] Meryle Secrest, Frank Lloyd Wright: A Biography (New York: HarperPerennial, 1993), 348. [20] Iovanna Lloyd Wright, “My Life,” (The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives, Taliesin West, Arizona, unpublished), 184; Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer, interview by James Auer and Claudia Looze, transcript, The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives, Taliesin West, Arizona, ca. 1992; Maud Hoffman, “Taking the Life Cure in Gurdjieff’s School,” New York Times , 10 February 1924. [21] Brierly, Tales of Taliesin , 97. [22] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 183. [23] Paul Beekman Taylor, Gurdjieff’s America: Mediating the Miraculous (London: Lighthouse Editions, 2004), 16; Lara Vetter, Modernist Writings and Religio-Scientific Discourse: H.D., Loy, and Toomer , Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 69. Regarding an overlap between Gurdjieff and Dalcroze’s teachings, it is noteworthy that three of Dalcroze’s students, Jeanne de Salzmann, Jessmin Howarth, and Rose Mary Lillard, later taught movements in Gurdjieff’s circle. A review of Gurdjieff’s 1923 Parisian demonstration registered distinct similarities between Gurdjieff’s movements and Asian-themed dances staged by Dalcroze. See Mel Gordon, “Gurdjieff’s Movement Demonstrations: The Theatre of the Miraculous,” The Drama Review 22, no. 2 (1978), 41. For an analysis of François Delsarte’s system, see Julia A. Walker, Expressionism and Modernism in the American Theatre: Bodies, Voices, Words, Cambridge Studies in American Theatre and Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). [24] Jessmin and Dushka Howarth, “It’s Up to Ourselves”: A Mother, a Daughter, and Gurdjieff: A Shared Memoir and Family Photo Album (New York: Gurdjieff Heritage Society, 1998), 97-98; Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, The Life of Olgivanna Lloyd Wright: From Crna Gora to Taliesin, Black Mountain to Shining Brow , eds. Maxine Fawcett-Yeske and Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer (Novato, CA: ORO Editions, 2017), 65. [25] Advertisement for a demonstration by the Gurdjieff Institute, New York Times , 29 February 1924. [26] O. L. Wright, The Life of Olgivanna Lloyd Wright , 66-67. [27] Tafel, Years with Frank Lloyd Wright , 139. [28] Howarth, “ It’s Up to Ourselves ,” 214; Iovanna Lloyd Wright to Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, 25 June 1949, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright Papers, The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York; I. L. Wright to O. L. Wright, “Monday” [1949], Olgivanna Lloyd Wright Papers. [29] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 147. [30] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 161. [31] Kamal Amin, Reflections from the Shining Brow: My Years with Frank Lloyd Wright and Olgivanna Lazovich (Santa Barbara, CA: Fithian Press, 2004), 84. [32] This phrase appears in programs for Fellowship performances from 1953 to 1959. A slightly different version (“correlation of mind and body”) was first printed in the October 1950 program. Fellowship members have also referred to Gurdjieff’s movements as “correlations.” All programs are held in The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. [33] Frank Lloyd Wright, guest column, “Bill Doudna’s Spotlight,” Wisconsin State Journal , 3 November 1951. [34] Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright , 201. [35] O. L. Wright, The Life of Olgivanna Lloyd Wright , 150. [36] O. L. Wright, The Life of Olgivanna Lloyd Wright , 196. [37] “‘Demonstration of the Gurdjieff Movements’ at Taliesin West, (The Taliesin Fellowship, April 1950),” Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. [38] Sterling Sorensen, “Taliesin Dance-Demonstration Marks 1st Anniversary of Gurdjieff’s Death,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 30 October 1950; Louise C. Marston, “From the Notebook,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 31 October 1950. [39] Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright , 219; I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 174. Florida Southern College was constructed between 1938 and 1958, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York opened in 1959. [40] “Taliesin Group at Unitarian Church Oct. 30,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 12 October 1951. [41] Joseph M. Siry, “Modern Architecture for Dramatic Art: Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘New Theatre,’ 1931-2009,” The Art Bulletin 96, no. 2 (2014), 213; “Taliesin Group at Unitarian Church.” [42] “First Showing of Foreign Dances Here,” Wisconsin State Journal , 3 November 1951. [43] Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright , 212, 232. [44] Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright , 245. [45] “‘Music, Ritual Exercises and Temple Dances by George Gurdjieff’ at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago, (The Taliesin Fellowship, November 1953),” The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. [46] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 179. Besinger, Working with Mr. Wright , 253-254; 258. [47] “Throngs Inspect Wright’s Exhibit,” New York Times , 23 October 1953. [48] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 180. [49] Pfeiffer, interview; John Amarantides, “Taliesin Music and Dance Festivals: Recollections by John Amarantides” (The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives, Taliesin West, Arizona, unpublished). [50] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 180. [51] Ann Barzel, “Taliesin Fails on Gurdjieff,” Chicago American , 4 November 1953; I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 179. [52] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 181. [53] Barzel, “Taliesin Fails.” [54] Herman Kogan, “Taliesin Dancing Grim, Stiff,” Chicago Daily Sun-Times , 4 November 1953. [55] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 181. [56] Anson B. Cutts, “Taliesin Festival Is Given in New Theatre Wright Built,” Arizona Republic , 5 May 1957. [57] Iovanna Lloyd Wright, “Genesis of the Taliesin Festival,” Points West , March 1961, 75; I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 184. [58] Cutts, “Taliesin Festival Is Given.” [59] Frances Nemtin, The Festivals of Music and Dance Created by the Taliesin Fellowship (Madison, WI: American Printing Company, 2009), 18-19. [60] Helen H. Backer, “Beautiful Taliesin Festival Opens,” Arizona Republic , 12 April 1962. [61] Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, Our House (New York: Horizon Press, 1959), 100. [62] “Taliesin Festival Merges Oriental in Music, Dance,” Arizona Republic , 6 April 1958. [63] O. L. Wright, Our House , 97. The Fellowship’s primary costume designer was Heloise Crista, who was known by different last names throughout the years. For example, she is listed as Heloise Schweizer in the program for the Goodman Theatre performance. [64] “‘The Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance’ at the Pavilion Theatre, Taliesin West, (The Taliesin Fellowship, April 1959),” The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. [65] Anson B. Cutts, “Taliesin Festival of Music, Dance Moving Event,” Arizona Republic , 10 April 1959. [66] “‘The Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance’ …, April 1959.” [67] Cutts, “Taliesin Festival of Music, Dance.” [68] By the late 1960s, the Phoenix Little Theatre returned to amateur status, and the Arizona Repertory Theater dissolved. See Bina Breitner, “Those Who Care Will Keep Lights Burning at PLT,” Arizona Republic , 1 June 1969. As a result, it was not until 1978, when the Arizona Civic Theatre (later the Arizona Theatre Company), which was founded in Tucson in the 1960s and achieved professional status in 1972, began giving performances in Phoenix, that local audiences had consistent access to a not-for-profit professional theatre. [69] Vern Swaback, paraphrased in Nemtin, The Taliesin Festivals , 78. [70] David Dodge, quoted in Myron A. Marty and Shirley L. Marty, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship (Kirksville MO: Truman State University Press, 1999), 149. [71] Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, “Rehearsals Under Way at Taliesin for Music Festival to Be Held at U,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 22 June 1959. [72] Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, “Our House,” Capital Times (Madison, WI), 18 April 1960. [73] “‘The Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance’ at the Pavilion Theatre, Taliesin West, (The Taliesin Fellowship, April 1960),” The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. [74] “‘The Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance’ at the Pavilion Theatre, Taliesin West, (The Taliesin Fellowship, April 1961),” The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. [75] Eugene Lewis, “Taliesin Fellows Dance at the Center,” Dallas Times Herald , 8 May 1961. [76] Siry, “Modern Architecture,” 222. [77] John Rosenfield, “Taliesin Group Dances Concept,” Dallas Morning News , 8 May 1961. Another reviewer later compared Iovanna’s work to that of Duncan’s contemporary Ruth St. Denis, who also embraced an Orientalist aesthetic. See Barbara Bladen, “The Marquee,” The Times (San Mateo, CA), 28 May 1971. [78] Dodge, quoted in Marty, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin , 149. [79] Nemtin, The Festivals of Music and Dance , 14-15. [80] Nemtin, The Festivals of Music and Dance , 52. [81] “‘The Taliesin Festival of Music and Dance’ at the Pavilion Theatre, Taliesin West, (The Taliesin Fellowship, 1963),” The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation Archives (The Museum of Modern Art), Avery Architectural & Fine Arts Library, Columbia University, New York. [82] Helen H. Backer, “Taliesin West Dance Festival Centers on Urizen Narrative,” Arizona Republic , 5 April 1963. [83] William J. Nazarro, “ Beautiful Country Given at Taliesin,” Arizona Republic , 1 May 1965. [84] I. L. Wright, “My Life,” 185; Bina Breitner, “Wright Accent on Taliesin West Music, Dance Festival,” Arizona Republic , 22 April 1967. [85] Bina Breitner, “Taliesin Festival Vibrant Spectacle,” Arizona Republic , 23 April 1969. [86] Bina Breitner, “Taliesin Production ‘Repeat’ Still Fresh Experience,” Arizona Republic , 22 April 1970. Footnotes About The Author(s) Claudia Wilsch Case is an Associate Professor at the City University of New York, where she has taught theatre history and dramatic literature at Lehman College and in the Theatre Ph.D. Program at the CUNY Graduate Center. She holds a doctorate in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from the Yale School of Drama and has published articles and book chapters in the areas of modern American theatre and American musical theatre. She is also a published translator of contemporary German plays. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography Introduction: Local Acts: Performing Communities, Performing Americas The Architecture of Local Performance: Stages of the Taliesin Fellowship “La conjura de Xinum” and Language Revitalization: Understanding Maya Agency through Theatre Exploring the History and Implications of Toxicity through St. Louis: Performance Artist Allana Ross and the “Toxic Mound Tours” Finding Home in the World Stage: Critical Creative Citizenship and the 13th South Asian Theatre Festival 2018 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Benjamin Gillespie and Bess Rowen Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 1 Visit Journal Homepage Introduction Benjamin Gillespie and Bess Rowen By Published on January 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF This Fall 2025 issue of the Journal of American Drama & Theatre is once again brimming with compelling topics in the form of articles, book and performance reviews, interviews, and roundtable discussions. Teya Juarez leads the issue with a pressing query into the use of fat suits on stage, particularly in Samuel D. Hunter’s The Whale . Her analysis of the harms of costuming actors in fat suits is particularly resonant in the current moment shaped by the proliferation o f Ozempic and other weight loss drugs. Jewel Pereyra's article offers a fascinating deep dive on the importance of the Afro-Filipina American jazz singer and dancer Maggie Calloway’s "performances of aggregation." As Pereyra states, Calloway both preserved a form of Filipino culture and addressed the pressures of American cultural influence by “staging these political conflicts in front of popular audiences.” In keeping with our interest in expanding the range and scope of materials featured in JADT , the issue features a roundtable with members of the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. Heather Nathans and Javier Hurtado curate this discussion titled “What’s at Stake? Sustaining DEIJ in U.S. Theatre.” The participants include artists and scholars in the field who have dedicated their careers to telling the stories of marginalized communities : Benny Sato Ambush, Henry Bial, Kristoffer Diaz, Kim Marra, and Harvey Young. These major voices speak to the complexity of issues surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice in U.S. theatre. Our ongoing “Queer Voices” series explores the state of contemporary LGBTQIA+ theatre and performance through interviews. In this issue, Alex Ferrone talks to storied performance artist Carmelita Tropicana on her recent show Give Me Carmelita Tropicana !, the final performance at Soho Rep’s longtime theatre space; Benjamin Gillespie speaks to Canadian playwright Jordan Tannahill to discuss the major success of the controversial Prince Faggot in New York; and Jen-Scott Mobley and Maya Roth ask playwright Jen Silverman about intimacy, paradox, and provide an update on Silverman’s wide range of writing projects. This issue also features four book reviews from our Book Review Editor Stephanie Lim. Lauren Friesen reviews Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage , edited by Carolyn M. Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter (Routledge, 2024); Henry Bial reviews Ben Spatz’s Race and Forms of Knowledge: Technique, Identity, and Place in Artistic Research (Northwestern University Press, 2024); Eileen Curley reviews Marlis Schweitzer’s Bloody Tyrants & Little Pickles: Stage Roles of Anglo-American Girls in the Nineteenth Century (University of Iowa Press, 2020); and Sierra Rosetta reviews Bethany Hughes’s Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity (New York University Press, 2024). If you are interested in reviewing a book, send a query to jadtbookreviews@gmail.com . We are thrilled to welcome JADT ’s new Performance Review Editor, Jennifer Joan Thompson. After adding this section to the journal two years ago to provide more space for scholarly reviews in the field, we are grateful to now have a dedicated editor to run this section. This issue’s performance reviews feature The Shed’s production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s The Brothers Size by Isaiah Wooden; Audible Theater’s production of Dead Outlaw by Elliot Lee; a roundup up the 2025 Oregon Shakespeare Festival by Lindsey Mantoan; and a multi-author review of the dance piece ZAZ from the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, directed by Ryan K. Johnson. We encourage our readers to submit their review pitches to jadtperformancereviews@gmail.com . Finally, JADT continues its ongoing commitment in providing a home for the New England Theatre In Review, formerly housed within the New England Theatre Journal . Editor Martha S. LoMonaco has curated a collection of New England-based theatres and seasons including Greater Boston’s Independent Theatres by Paul E. Fallon, theaters in the Berkshires by Steven Otfinoski, and the Long Wharf Theatre by Karl G. Ruling. In these uncertain times, it is remarkable to see the range of scholarship in our field capturing the vitality of theatre and performance practices and studies across the Americas. We hope you enjoy reading the issue as much as we did. References Footnotes About The Author(s) BENJAMIN GILLESPIE   is Assistant Professor of Theatre History & Performance Studies at Santa Clara University and co-editor of the  Journal of American Drama and Theatre (JADT) . He is editor of  Split Britches: Fifty Years On   (University of Michigan Press, 2027) and co-editor of  Late Stage: Theatrical Perspectives on Age and Aging  (University of Michigan Press, 2026) and  The Routledge Companion to LGBTQ+ Theatre and Performance in North America  (Routledge, 2027). BESS ROWEN is Assistant Professor of Theatre at Villanova University. She is also affiliate faculty for both Gender & Women's Studies and Irish Studies. She is a member of Actors' Equity and an intimacy choreographer. Her first book, The Lines Between the Lines: How Stage Directions Affect Embodiment (2021) focuses on affective stage directions. Her next book project looks at the theatrical archetype of the “mean teenage girl.” She also serves as the President-Elect of the American Theatre & Drama Society and co-editor of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre (JADT) . Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction Fat Suits and Fat Futures: Ob*sity Drag in The Whale “The Star of the Aggregation”: Maggie Calloway’s Performances of Aggregation and Pleasure in Colonial Manila and British Malaya What’s at Stake? Sustaining DEIJ in U.S. Theatre "The Gift That Keeps on Giving": An Interview with Carmelita Tropicana Saying The F Word: A Conversation with Jordan Tannahill Staging Intimacy and Paradox through a Queer Lens: A Conversation with Jen Silverman Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage. Edited by Carolyn M. Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 212. Race and the Forms of Knowledge: Technique, Identity, and Place in Artistic Research. Ben Spatz. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2024; Pp. 314. Bloody Tyrants & Little Pickles: Stage Roles of Anglo-American Girls in the Nineteenth Century. Marlis Schweitzer. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2020; Pp. 276. Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity. Bethany Hughes. New York: New York University Press, 2024; Pp. 272. The Brothers Size Dead Outlaw 2025 Oregon Shakespeare Festival ZAZ Introduction: New England Theatre in Review 2.0 Greater Boston’s Independent Theatres, 2024-25 Politics Take Center Stage in the Berkshires, 2024-25 Long Wharf Theatre, 2024-25 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

John Bray Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 32 2 Visit Journal Homepage The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl John Bray By Published on June 12, 2020 Download Article as PDF The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl. Amy Muse. London: Methuen Drama Critical Companion Series, 2018; Pp. 215 + xv. Amy Muse’s The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl offers an insightful reading of the works of one of the U.S.’s most prolific contemporary playwrights. Since the premiere of Passion Play at Trinity Rep in 1997, Ruhl has won a number of accolades demonstrating her significance, including the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award (2003), the Fourth Freedom Forum Award from the Kennedy Center (2004), and a MacArthur Genius Award (2005). She has also twice been named a Pulitzer Finalist ( Dead Man’s Cell Phone (2005) and In the Next Room or the vibrator play (2009)). Ruhl began writing plays in Paula Vogel’s dramatic writing course at Brown in which she wrote Dog Play, where she was able to unpack her grief at having lost her father while making the focalizer of her play the family dog (“played by a person wearing a dog mask and an apron”) (xi). Thus, Muse situates Ruhl with the “artist-thinkers” that William Demastes labels the “new alchemists,” in Muse’s words, the “artists and scientists who are re-enchanting the world through a grounding in the world” (xiii). For Muse, Ruhl’s gift of re-enchantment lies in her ability to weave works that blend the empirical and the spiritual. While not the first critical book on Ruhl (that honor belongs to James Al-Shamma’s Sarah Ruhl: A Critical Study of the Plays , published by McFarland & Co. in 2011), The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl presents an important addition to critical examinations of Ruhl’s plays, even if her analysis could sometimes go further. In the Preface, Muse discusses why she structures the book not chronologically, but according to Ruhl’s “artistic and ethical concerns” (xv). Ruhl’s works, Muse argues, “call for a more phenomenological than ideological mode of analysis,” thus situating Muse as a guide through the ways in which Ruhl creates modes of feeling and transcendence by inviting audiences into conversations with the stage, rather than looking at the stage as a place for detached analysis (xiv). The next four chapters are each super-titled with a quote from Ruhl, reinforcing this sense of conversation. Muse’s first chapter deals with Ruhl’s influences, as well as her adaptations of Chekhov and Woolf, in order to demonstrate how Ruhl is more interested in writing about “Moments of Being” rather than presenting realistic representations for the stage (23). In chapter two, Muse considers four of Ruhl’s plays – Eurydice , Demeter in the City , Melancholy Play, and Scenes from Court Life or the whipping boy and his prince . She reads each work to activate an interplay with “the actual and magical” resulting in plays that on the surface feel “whimsical,” but are rather “philosophical comedies that plumb the depths with a light touch” (61). Chapter three deals more directly with Sarah Ruhl’s approach to dramatic structure; here Muse demonstrates that Ruhl, much like Maria Irene Fornes, is less interested in creating characters driven by psychological objectives and more in bringing characters into a room together where their reckonings are rich with pre-Freudian defined desire. In Chapter Four, Muse situates Passion Play, The Oldest Boy, To Peter Pan on Her 70 TH Birthday, and How to Transcend a Happy Marriage with medieval Mystery Plays and plays born out of rituals. As with the Mystery Plays, Muse argues, these works of Ruhl’s have less to do with preaching morality and serve better as invitations to experiences that are holy and invisible. Each of these four chapters ends with a “Coda,” rather than a conclusion, evoking the musicality of Ruhl’s plays. For Chapter Five, Muse departs from the layout of previous chapters and interviews two artists who are well acquainted with Ruhl’s works: Sarah Rasmussen and Hayley Finn. Rasmussen is the Artistic Director of the Jungle Theatre in Minneapolis and served as assistant director for the Broadway production of In the Next Room or the vibrator play . Finn is the Associate Artistic Director of the Playwrights Center of Minneapolis and a former classmate of Ruhl’s. She directed the first workshop production of Eurydice (129, 131). One resonant moment arises when Rasmussen describes how her childhood play impacted her views of directing: “I was entranced by how a small, made up story can sound out larger truths in our lives” (qtd. 135). Rasmussen’s notions of childhood make-believe feeds well into the sense of wonder, myth, and staging of the invisible truths that guide Ruhl’s plays. Chapter Six features three critical essays: “Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play and Contemporary Medieval Performance” by Jill Stevenson; “From Pontius Pilate to Peter Pan: Lightness in the Plays of Sarah Ruhl” by Thomas Butler; and “Arrested Dev-elopement: Myth-Understanding Father-Daughter Love in Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice” by Christina Dokou. Each essay demonstrates different paradigms for nuanced, in-depth discussion of Ruhl’s plays. Muse closes with an Afterword, “I Had Hoped to Give Them Pleasure,” in which she considers how writing this book may be a little premature; after all, Ruhl is a midcareer writer who will likely continue having a rich and lustrous career. In the final paragraph, Muse avers that Ruhl’s plays “are not so much about love, intimacy, communion, and transcendence as they are vehicles which the audience and the theater makers experience these pleasurable states” (177). Following the Afterword, the book includes a Chronology of major milestones in Ruhl’s personal and professional life. Muse’s writing is infectious. It is much like listening to a die-hard fan unpack their thoughts and feelings and getting swept up in their unabashed love. The only drawback is that, at times, Muse ignores possibilities for further inquiry by foregrounding summaries of Ruhl’s plays rather than her own analysis. For example, Muse makes passing mention of criticisms of Ruhl being not political enough in her writing, and yet, Ruhl has written political plays. Indeed, as authors such as Lauren Gunderson have argued, simply writing a play can be seen as a political act given our historical moment. Nonetheless, Muse’s The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl will prove to be necessary and exciting reading for our next generation of dramatic critics and dramaturgs alike. References Footnotes About The Author(s) John Bray University of Georgia Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies The Drama and Theatre of Sarah Ruhl A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor The History and Theory of Environmental Scenography Introduction: Local Acts: Performing Communities, Performing Americas The Architecture of Local Performance: Stages of the Taliesin Fellowship “La conjura de Xinum” and Language Revitalization: Understanding Maya Agency through Theatre Exploring the History and Implications of Toxicity through St. Louis: Performance Artist Allana Ross and the “Toxic Mound Tours” Finding Home in the World Stage: Critical Creative Citizenship and the 13th South Asian Theatre Festival 2018 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

NILE HARRIS, ALEX TATARSKY, ANH VO + ETHAN PHILBRICK presents Precarious Luxuries: improvisations, performance, and planning for the unplanned at the PRELUDE 2024 Festival at the Martin E. Segal Theater Center CUNY. PRELUDE Festival 2024 Precarious Luxuries: improvisations, performance, and planning for the unplanned NILE HARRIS, ALEX TATARSKY, ANH VO + ETHAN PHILBRICK 4:30-6:00 pm Thursday, October 17, 2024 Proshansky Auditorium RSVP Three artists, one microphone, and a large room; the idea and practice of improvisation; making somethings out of nothings; finding ways out of no way; “yes and…”; “no but…”; everything for everyone. For this event, the artist and writer Ethan Philbrick gathers three artists who work in an expanded field of performance—Nile Harris, Alex Tatarsky, and Anh Vo—to improvise and discuss the stakes and strategies of their improvisational practices. Harris, Tatarsky, and Vo, while each working in different modes and in relation to different social exigencies, all turn to improvisational techniques as part of a broader commitment to the unknown and the unpredictable. While improvisation can sometimes be understood as the activity of a heroically volitional individual, Harris, Tatarsky, and Vo improvise so as to expose politically fraught dependencies and entanglements. Each artist will improvise for ten minutes before coming together for a conversation about improvisation with Philbrick. Precarious Luxuries is a keynote event of ASAP/15 and is presented in partnership with Prelude. LOBSTER Nora loves Patti Smith. Nora is Patti Smith. Nora is stoned out of her mind in the Chelsea Hotel. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is her mind. Actually, the Chelsea Hotel is an out-of-use portable classroom in the Pacific Northwest, and that classroom is a breeding ground for lobsters. LOBSTER by Kallan Dana directed by Hanna Yurfest produced by Emma Richmond with: Anna Aubry, Chris Erdman, Annie Fang, Coco McNeil, Haley Wong Needy Lover presents an excerpt of LOBSTER , a play about teenagers putting on a production of Patti Smith and Sam Shepard's Cowboy Mouth . THE ARTISTS Needy Lover makes performances that are funny, propulsive, weird, and gut-wrenching (ideally all at the same time). We create theatre out of seemingly diametrically opposed forces: our work is both entertaining and unusual, funny and tragic. Needylover.com Kallan Dana is a writer and performer originally from Portland, Oregon. She has developed and presented work with Clubbed Thumb, The Hearth, The Tank, Bramble Theater Company, Dixon Place, Northwestern University, and Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute. She is a New Georges affiliated artist and co-founder of the artist collaboration group TAG at The Tank. She received her MFA from Northwestern University. Upcoming: RACECAR RACECAR RACECAR with The Hearth/Connelly Theater Upstairs (dir. Sarah Blush), Dec 2024. LOBSTER with The Tank (dir. Hanna Yurfest), April/May 2025. Needylover.com and troveirl.com Hanna Yurfest is a director and producer from Richmond, MA. She co-founded and leads The Tank’s artist group TAG and creates work with her company, Needy Lover. Emma Richmond is a producer and director of performances and events. She has worked with/at HERE, The Tank, The Brick, and Audible, amongst others. She was The Tank’s 2022-23 Producing Fellow, and is a member of the artist group TAG. Her day job is Programs Manager at Clubbed Thumb, and she also makes work with her collective Trove, which she co-founded. www.emma-richmond.com Rooting for You The Barbarians It's the Season Six premiere of 'Sava Swerve's: The Model Detector' and Cameron is on it!!! June, Willa, and (by proximity) Sunny are hosting weekly viewing parties every week until Cameron gets cut, which, fingers crossed, is going to be the freakin' finale! A theatrical playground of a play that serves an entire season of 'so-bad-it's-good' reality TV embedded in the social lives of a friend group working through queerness, adolescence, judgment, and self-actualization. Presenting an excerpt from Rooting for You! with loose staging, experimenting with performance style, timing, and physicality. THE ARTISTS Ashil Lee (he/they) NYC-based actor, playwright, director, and sex educator. Korean-American, trans nonbinary, child of immigrants, bestie to iconic pup Huxley. Described as "a human rollercoaster" and "Pick a lane, buddy!" by that one AI Roast Bot. 2023 Lucille Lortel nominee (Outstanding Ensemble: The Nosebleed ) and Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group Alum. NYU: Tisch. BFA in Acting, Minor in Youth Mental Health. Masters Candidate in Mental Health and Wellness (NYU Steinhardt: 20eventually), with intentions of incorporating mental health consciousness into the theatre industry. www.ashillee.com Phoebe Brooks is a gender non-conforming theater artist interested in establishing a Theatre of Joy for artists and audiences alike. A lifelong New Yorker, Phoebe makes art that spills out beyond theater-going conventions and forges unlikely communities. They love messing around with comedy, heightened text, and gender performance to uncover hidden histories. She's also kind of obsessed with interactivity; particularly about figuring out how to make audience participation less scary for audiences. Phoebe has a BA in Theatre from Northwestern University and an MFA in Theatre Directing from Columbia University's School of the Arts. The Barbarians is a word-drunk satirical play exploring political rhetoric and the power of words on the world. With cartoonish wit and rambunctious edge, it asks: what if the President tried to declare war, but the words didn't work? Written by Jerry Lieblich and directed by Paul Lazar, it will premiere in February 2025 at LaMama. The Barbarians is produced in association with Immediate Medium, and with support from the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation. THE ARTISTS Jerry Lieblich (they/them) plays in the borderlands of theater, poetry, and music. Their work experiments with language as a way to explore unexpected textures of consciousness and attention. Plays include Mahinerator (The Tank), The Barbarians (La Mama - upcoming), D Deb Debbie Deborah (Critic’s Pick: NY Times), Ghost Stories (Critic’s Pick: TimeOut NY), and Everything for Dawn (Experiments in Opera). Their poetry has appeared in Foglifter, Second Factory, TAB, Grist, SOLAR, Pomona Valley Review, Cold Mountain Review, and Works and Days. Their poetry collection otherwise, without was a finalist for The National Poetry Series. Jerry has held residencies at MacDowell, MassMoCA, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Arts, and UCROSS, and Yiddishkayt. MFA: Brooklyn College. www.thirdear.nyc Paul Lazar is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Old Vic (London), The Walker Art Center, Classic Stage Co., New York Live Arts, The Kitchen, and Japan Society. Paul directed Young Jean Lee’s We’re Gonna Die which was reprised in London featuring David Byrne. Other directing credits include Bodycast with Francis McDormand (BAM), Christina Masciotti’s Social Security (Bushwick Starr), and Major Bang (for The Foundry Theatre) at Saint Ann’s Warehouse. Awards include two Bessies (2010, 2002), the Jacob’s Pillow Creativity Award (2007), and the Prelude Festival’s Frankie Award (2014), as well an Obie Award for Big Dance in 2000. Steve Mellor has appeared on Broadway (Big River ), Off-Broadway (Nixon's Nixon ) and regionally at Arena Stage, Long Wharf Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Portland Stage and Yale Rep. A longtime collaborator with Mac Wellman, Steve has appeared in Wellman's Harm’s Way, Energumen, Dracula, Cellophane, Terminal Hip (OBIE Award), Sincerity Forever, A Murder of Crows, The Hyacinth Macaw, 7 Blowjobs (Bessie Award), Strange Feet, Bad Penny, Fnu Lnu, Bitter Bierce (OBIE Award), and Muazzez . He also directed Mr. Wellman's 1965 UU. In New York City, he has appeared at the Public Theater, La Mama, Soho Rep, Primary Stages, PS 122, MCC Theater, The Chocolate Factory, and The Flea. His film and television credits include Sleepless in Seattle, Mickey Blue Eyes, Celebrity, NYPD Blue, Law and Order, NY Undercover, and Mozart in the Jungle. Chloe Claudel is an actor and director based in NYC and London. She co-founded the experimental company The Goat Exchange, with which she has developed over a dozen new works of theater and film, including Salome, or the Cult of the Clitoris: a Historical Phallusy in last year's Prelude Festival. She's thrilled to be working with Paul and Jerry on The Barbarians . Anne Gridley is a two time Obie award-winning actor, dramaturg, and artist. As a founding member of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, she has co-created and performed in critically acclaimed works including Life & Times, Poetics: A Ballet Brut, No Dice, Romeo & Juliet, and Burt Turrido . In addition to her work with Nature Theater, Gridley has performed with Jerôme Bel, Caborca, 7 Daughters of Eve, and Big Dance, served as a Dramaturg for the Wooster Group’s production Who’s Your Dada ?, and taught devised theater at Bard College. Her drawings have been shown at H.A.U. Berlin, and Mass Live Arts. B.A. Bard College; M.F.A. Columbia University. Naren Weiss is an actor/writer who has worked onstage (The Public Theater, Second Stage, Kennedy Center, Geffen Playhouse, international), in TV (ABC, NBC, CBS, Comedy Central), and has written plays that have been performed across the globe (India, Singapore, South Africa, U.S.). Upcoming: The Sketchy Eastern European Show at The Players Theatre (Mar. '24). Nile Harris (he/him) is a performer and director of live works of art. He has done a few things and hopes to do a few more, God willing. Alex Tatarsky (they/them) makes live performances in the unfortunate in-between zone of dance, theater, performance art, and comedy—drawing on traditions from vaudeville to futurist poetry. Their practice embraces the figure of the bouffon, a European clown type said to live in the swamps at the edge of the kingdom, who was not only allowed to mock the king’s power but rewarded for it. Tatarsky’s original solo pieces have been presented at a wide array of venues including La MaMa, MoMA PS1, The Kitchen, Judson Memorial Church, Playwrights Horizons, and Abrons Arts Center, as well as comedy clubs, bars, basements, and trash heaps. As curatorial fellow at the Poetry Project, they organized a series on the poetics and politics of rot. Along with collaborator Ming Lin, they form one half of Shanzhai Lyric and its fictional office Canal Street Research Association. Tatarsky experienced fleeting fame as Andy Kaufman’s daughter and used to perform as a mound of dirt. Anh Vo (they/them) is a Vietnamese choreographer and writer working primarily in New York City, with a second base in Hanoi. Their practice fleshes out the body as a vessel for apparitional forces. Their work is situated in the unlikely lineage convergences between Downtown New York experimental dance, queer and feminist performance art, and Vietnamese folk ritual practices. Vo is indebted to Miguel Gutierrez’s unapologetic queerness and amorphous excess, Moriah Evan’s speculative commitment to the depth of interiority, Tehching Hsieh’s existential sense of time, and Ngoc Dai’s guttural sonic landscape of postwar Vietnam. Their formal training is in Performance Studies, studying with esteemed theorists and practitioners at Brown University (BA) and New York University (MA). Described by the New York Times as “risky, erotic, enigmatic and boldly humorous,” their choreographic work has received critical recognition for its research-driven and boundaries-pushing formal investigation. Significant fellowships and grants include Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary Artist Fellowship, Dance/NYC Disability Dance Artistry Fellowship, USArtist International grant, Franklin Furnace Fund for Performance Art, Brooklyn Arts Council grants, and FCA Emergency Grants. Ethan Philbrick (he/him) is a cellist, performance artist, and writer. He holds a PhD in performance studies from New York University and has taught performance theory and practice at Pratt Institute, Muhlenberg College, New York University, Wesleyan College, Yale University, and The New School. He is currently performance curator-in-residence at The Poetry Project. In 2023, Philbrick published Group Works: Art, Politics, and Collective Ambivalence with Fordham University Press. He is part of the musical-theatrical project DAYS and has presented solo and collaborative performances at The Kitchen, NYU Skirball, Wesleyan Center for the Arts, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and Grey Art Museum. His musical performances have been called “overwhelmingly beautiful” and “extremely strange” in The Nation and his writing has been characterized as “rich and fascinating” in e-flux. Explore more performances, talks and discussions at PRELUDE 2024 See What's on

Fiona Gregory Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 26 2 Visit Journal Homepage Crossing Genre, Age and Gender: Judith Anderson as Hamlet Fiona Gregory By Published on May 29, 2014 Download Article as PDF In 1970 Judith Anderson, doyenne of the classical American stage, fulfilled a long-held desire to play the title role in Hamlet. Employing a heavily cut text and minimalist setting, the production relied on the power of voice to illuminate Shakespeare’s poetry. Yet most viewers were unable to see past Anderson’s seventy-three-year-old female body to the spirit of her Hamlet, and her performance was widely criticised. Anderson later described the experience as a “heartache and a tragedy.”1 Despite its disappointing reception at the time, Anderson’s performance merits recognition, and re-examination, as a notable event in theatrical history with significant aesthetic and social implications. Anderson’s Hamlet was an extraordinary exercise in boundary crossing—rejecting conventions of Shakespearean performance alongside those of age and gender. Furthermore it refused to be aligned with either classical theatre or avant-garde performance, existing in a state of otherness and demanding to be assessed on its own terms. Australian-born Anderson began her Broadway career in the 1920s, later balancing her stage work alongside steady employment as a character actress in film. Her career was transformed when she appeared as Medea in Robinson Jeffers’s adaptation of Euripides’s play. Anderson’s intense and archly theatrical performance met with popular and critical acclaim and enhanced her status, positioning her as “first lady” of the American stage. In the 1950s and 1960s she cemented this identity, touring both the full production of Medea and her program of excerpts from Medea and Macbeth in America and abroad. Although she continued to appear regularly on film and television, Anderson repeatedly figured the stage as her true metier. As well as lauding the performative freedom of the theatre, she expressed an understanding of the stage as a site that enabled communion with “genius:” “That’s why I like to do great plays—to be a part of greatness.”2 In the 1960s and 70s, Anderson became increasingly disillusioned not only with film and television but with the contemporary theatre. Her solution was to retreat into the classics: “There’s so little that is good. I would rather fail as Hamlet than succeed in something less worthy.”3 Anderson’s Hamlet, directed by William Ball and produced by Paul Gregory, performed predominantly at university theatres but also appeared at venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall. Anderson’s performance, Ball’s direction, the supporting cast, and the design were all repeatedly deemed weak and ill-conceived by critics, but the production proved a commercial success: the two nights at Carnegie Hall sold out before rehearsals even commenced. [caption id="attachment_1124" align="alignnone" width="420"] Figure 1., Hamlet program, signed by Judith Anderson, in Author’s collection.[/caption] Anderson’s popularity suggests a nostalgic longing for the grand theatre of the past amongst some sections of the community during a period of immense change in America. The consequences of involvement in the war in Vietnam, the rise of second wave feminism and the civil rights movement, and the emergence of the gay liberation movement transformed American society during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These issues were explored in the work of avant garde troupes such as Richard Schechner’s Performance Group, Julian Beck and Judith Malina’s Living Theatre, and Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatre Company, as well as in more mainstream forms such as the rock musical Hair. Judith Anderson was removed from these trends; from the early 1960s, she repeatedly conveyed her distaste for modern theatre. In 1969, she told a journalist: “[there] isn’t anything that I want to see today. You hear about Hair and Oh Calcuatta! (sic) and it’s all disgusting to me. There is no quality or imagination in the theatre today [and] I object to the nudity.”4 She also raised her objections to “thrust” stages that brought the actors into the audience: “For her it’s too much reality . . . and not enough left to the imagination.”5 Anderson articulated a preference for performance that occurred inside the pictorial frame of the proscenium and maintained its distance from the audience. Yet despite her conservative outlook, her Hamlet was read as potentially radical, and she was obliged to deny that it held feminist intent or was an experiment in “camp.” Female Hamlets The desire to play Hamlet had been experienced and fulfilled by many women before Anderson, including Mrs. Furnivall, Sarah Siddons and Elizabeth Inchbald during the eighteenth century.6 These women were led, Tony Howard suggests, by the desire to claim ownership over a role that was becoming identified as the greatest work of England’s greatest poet.7 Female Hamlets proved particularly popular in the Romantic age, a move attributable in part to changing conceptions of Hamlet’s character. Robin Headlam Wells notes the “age of sensibility invented a new Hamlet—sensitive, delicate, distressed,”8 and Elaine Showalter suggests this feminisation of the character opened the role to women.9 According to Tony Howard the first woman to essay the role in an American theatre was likely the touring English actress Mrs. Bartley at New York’s Park Theatre in 1819, closely followed by Fanny Wallack, Charlotte Barnes and, most notably, Charlotte Cushman.10 Departing from earlier models, Cushman privileged Shakespeare’s text in her production—she reinstated much of the play that was typically cut, as well as restoring her understanding of emotional “truth” to the Hamlet role, in a “conscious critique of what many men had done with it” before her.11 Anderson drew attention to the long tradition of actresses in the role and particularly cited Sarah Bernhardt’s Hamlet, which the actress premiered in 1899 at the age of fifty-four, as a precedent for her own performance. Bernhardt performed her Hamlet within the tradition of “travesti” performance popular on the French stage. Actresses in travesti sought to create a stylised masculinity that male actors were thought to be unable to achieve in their representations of young men and boys. Gerda Taranow notes the object of travesti was not “androgyny.” Despite its insistence on the feminine within the masculine and vice versa, the aim of travesti was not to unite the sexes but to highlight difference through the contrast of female body and male attire. Female travesti “did not seek to intermingle opposite sexualities, but to emphasize, with delicate insistence, the feminine presence [of the actress in the male role].”12 Anderson, in contrast, would seek to direct attention away from her gendered identity and body when playing Hamlet. While many French critics applauded Bernhardt’s depiction of masculinity, some questioned the suitability of Hamlet for travesti performance, as they believed Hamlet’s feminine soul needed to be contrasted with a masculine body.13 English critics also objected to Bernhardt’s performance in terms of the body, finding it impossible to read this Hamlet as anything but a woman—specifically a very famous French woman named Sarah Bernhardt. In Max Beerbohm’s analysis, Bernhardt’s Hamlet “betrayed nothing but herself, and revealed nothing but [her] unreasoning vanity . . . her Hamlet was, from first to last, très grande dame.”14 The actress’s body and, more particularly, her celebrity, prevented critics from seeing the “real” Hamlet. The same phenomenon would attend Anderson’s appearance in the role. From Anderson’s personal scrapbooks, she appears also to have been interested in two lesser-known female Hamlets: Asta Nielsen and Esmé Beringer.15 These actresses demonstrate radically different readings of Hamlet by women in the twentieth century, and provide a counterpoint to Anderson’s own approach to the character. Nielsen played Hamlet in the German film, Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance (1920), directed by Svend Gade. The plot followed Edward P. Vining’s 1881 monograph The Mystery of Hamlet in suggesting Hamlet had been born female but was raised as a boy for political reasons. As the title suggests, this adaptation rejected the passive protagonist of Romanticism for an active avenger. Nielsen’s Hamlet is a young “man” of intellect and honour, troubled by “his” (inexpressible) love for Horatio and grief at the death of “his” father. The film disrupts traditional readings of Hamlet’s delay, or resistance to revenge, as a “feminine” trait. Nielsen had become renowned for playing freedom-seeking new women and enigmatic prostitutes, and Lawrence Danson contends that she brought the memory of these roles to her Hamlet, thereby aligning the character with sexual transgression. In Danson’s analysis, this Hamlet thus became a spectacle of simultaneous liberation and containment: “In Nielsen’s polymorphous sexuality a viewer could read the strong image of a conceivable freedom from gender restrictions, crossed with the pathos of that freedom’s bafflement by actual social conditions” as represented in the material circumstances of the play.16 Nielsen’s Hamlet demonstrates the radical potential of cross-gender casting in Shakespeare, a potential that would also circulate around Anderson’s Hamlet. Esmé Beringer played Hamlet in London in 1935 at the age of sixty-three, and later published an article in which she justified actresses playing Hamlet. She repeatedly figures the character in emotional terms: prior to the catastrophe he is “happy,” “highspirited” and “in love;” following it he is “grief-stricken,” and “runs the gamut of love, scorn and despair.” Beringer does not explicitly comment on the implications of cross-gender casting, but the aspects of the character to which she draws attention are those that seem particularly suited to female performers. She stresses Hamlet’s sensitivity, and finds his interpersonal relationships with Ophelia, Horatio, and Gertrude amongst “the most vital themes of the play.”17 Even within a normative reading of the play, and a conservative approach to theatre, Beringer implicitly validated actresses playing Hamlet. As an older woman performing Hamlet, Beringer also functioned as a precedent for Anderson. Had Anderson read the Times’s review of Beringer’s performance she would have seen that the actress’s age was ignored by the critics, but her ineffectual representation of masculinity and male behaviour, and her “monotonous, sing-song intonation,” were openly criticised.18 Anderson decided not to attempt a representation of masculinity in her reading, and to focus her performance on her greatest asset—her powerful and flexible voice. Anderson on the road to Elsinore In 1954, Anderson told an American journalist she wished to play the role of Hamlet.19 She reiterated this desire in the press that attended her appearance in Medea in Epidaurus in 1955.20 The opportunity to do so did not arise until 1969, a delay she attributed to the difficulty of finding a suitable director.21 Bernhardt had also stated that her desire to play Hamlet was long-standing but she had been delayed by production difficulties—in her case the search for an appropriate translation.22 This discourse of desire thwarted by circumstances beyond the actresses’ control has a number of effects: it foregrounds the actresses’ professionalism; inhibits reading their decision to play Hamlet as a “whim” or rash act of folly; and frames their eventual appearance in the role as in some way “destined.” Anderson’s trouble finding a director also suggests the limited commercial potential of a female Hamlet on the American stage in the late twentieth century. Anderson did eventually find someone to guide her Hamlet: William Ball, founder and director of the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT), based in San Francisco from 1965. Under Ball’s vigorous leadership, ACT presented modern classics by authors such as Chekhov, Pirandello and Tom Stoppard, rising to become “one of the most active and prosperous resident repertory companies in the country.”23 During the 1960s, Ball also directed John Gielgud, Edith Evans and Margaret Leighton in A Homage to Shakespeare, and worked at a number of America’s major Shakespeare festivals. The venture was produced by Paul Gregory, who had worked in Hollywood and the music industry in addition to the theatre. In 1953, he had produced John Brown’s Body, a dramatic reading starring Anderson, Tyrone Power, and Raymond Massey. In this production, Anderson had demonstrated two things above all else: her range, and her ability to build characters through voice—she created, through recitation, “anything from a great Southern hostess to a child of the woods.”24 In the Hamlet program, Gregory and Ball are described as initiators of the production and, if this was the case, it may have been Anderson’s creation of diverse characters through voice in John Brown’s Body that inspired the project.25 The program notes state Gregory and Ball have (like the actress herself) lived with the idea of Anderson as Hamlet for a long time: “It has been a long cherished dream of [Gregory and Ball] to bring Dame Judith back to the stage as the doomed heir of Elsinore, and when she became available, they lost no time in bringing it to fruition.”26 This comment “authorises” Anderson’s performance by framing it as the “brainchild” of two respected and experienced theatre practitioners, and forestalling its being read as the whim of an aging actress. The idea of Anderson as Hamlet held a popular appeal few might have anticipated. The actress herself stated she originally intended the play for university audiences (a decision she framed in part as a pedagogical exercise27), but Lewis Funke noted that when “the big city managers heard that she would be going out in the production they “demanded” that she play for them too, hence Carnegie Hall.”28 Anderson’s desire to remove the production from Broadway and other avenues of “high status” theatre suggests she was conscious of the risky nature of her venture. The managers’ insistence that she play Carnegie Hall shows the actress remained tethered to a position of status within the American theatre. This status meant Anderson was obliged to present herself as an item of consumption to the critics and patrons that would descend on Carnegie Hall—some of whom then read the “failure” of her Hamlet as a transgression of her status. While some reviewers (especially those from regional and university papers) supported Anderson’s performance, most were critical of her interpretation and of Ball’s production in general. Dan Sullivan, of the Los Angeles Times, found Anderson’s performance “so far off the mark in conception and execution that it is hard to know where to start to describe it.”29 Chris Curcio, of the California State University at Hayward, described the performance as “misconceived,” “monotonously boring,” and “awkward and contrived.”30 Nathan Cohen, of the Toronto Daily Star, suggested Ball had “done nothing to benefit Dame Judith or the play,” and the New York Times’s Mel Gussow described Ball’s Hamlet as “a bloodless production, with no power, poetry, or humour.”31 The reviews indicate the voice was the focus in this Hamlet. As Nick Milich noted in the Watsonville Register, the “point” of this production was “Shakespeare’s poetry, not action, not swordfights.”32 Indeed Milich and Cohen referred to the production as a “recitation,” and Gussow felt “it was almost like a concert reading.”33 In A Sense of Direction, his manifesto on directing, Ball lists “language” as one of the five basic elements of a play, alongside “theme,” “plot,” “character,” and “spectacle.” In any production, writes Ball, a director should identify one of these as the “predominant element;” this element then becomes the focus of the work.34 In keeping with a focus on language, Ball devised a minimalist production: “There are no props, and red velvet backdrops take the place of sets. All the characters except Hamlet wear variations of the same costume, deep red velvet and silk. In vivid contrast, Hamlet is garbed—boots, tights and vest—all in black.”35 Such costuming of Hamlet in black can be read as a further effort to erase the body, but with the set and remainder of the cast in red it is likely that it highlighted not only Hamlet’s body, but also the character’s singularity and Anderson’s star status. [caption id="attachment_1123" align="alignnone" width="606"] Figure 2., Judith Anderson as Hamlet, production still. Department of Special Collections, Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara.[/caption] A number of critics went so far as to describe the production as “stylised.”36 The actors used gestures rather than realistic movement, and there was little “action.”37 These factors enhanced the sense of a recital, although Ball also incorporated some more striking production choices, such as when “the ghost makes its entrance to the sound of amplified heartbeats.”38 The performance text was cut to run under two hours; it was in fact so abbreviated that one critic suggested “a more honest title would be ‘Gems from Hamlet.’”39 Anderson’s degree of input into the performance text is difficult to determine. In Ball’s 1985 manifesto on theatre, A Sense of Direction, he states that his preferred method was to cut the text himself and distribute the arranged script to the cast at the first rehearsal.40 Such a method was unlikely to appeal to Anderson, and Lewis Funke in the New York Times notes “[some] of the original pruning wasn’t to Dame Judith’s liking.” However, the text developed in performance, and Funke added that “things are better now [in November] than when the tour started out [in October].” Anderson later admitted: “[Hamlet] wasn’t done the way I wanted it done.”41 Yet, despite the friction between them, Ball and Anderson actually held the same vision for the production: the desire to focus on language, and a belief in the power of the voice.42 Anderson had played Gertrude opposite John Gielgud’s Hamlet on Broadway in 1936, and this actor’s reading is likely to have influenced her. Gielgud evoked the character’s grief, sensitivity, intellect, and emotional connectivity to those around him. The actor himself described his Hamlet as “introverted,” and located his voice as his focus during the performance: “[I was] more worried about the inflection, the phrasing, and the diction [when I played Hamlet].”43 Anderson also used “grief” as a keynote of her reading, and one critic pejoratively described her as the “Melancholy Dame.”44 The actress conveyed grief through vocal effect: reference was made to her “frequent sobbing voice.”45 While some reviewers criticised her “blubbering” and “sobs,” another admitted, “nobody hovers on the edge of tears so thrillingly” as Anderson.46 In one of the few interviews discussing her interpretation of Hamlet, Anderson suggested she would “be a more emotional Hamlet than, say, Gielgud or Olivier. I might cry.”47 This seemingly innocent comment provides a clue to the critical reception of Anderson’s performance. As Tom Lutz notes, “the meanings assigned to tears are always compounded by the age and sex of the crier.”48 The performance of Hamlet by an elderly woman held the potential to radically destabilise the play’s accepted meanings. James W. Stone has explored Hamlet in terms of its ordering and expulsion of the feminine through language and action. In Stone’s analysis, the feminine is represented in the play in images of dissolution, of movement into water, and therefore in tears: “Whether tears . . . represent Niobe’s sincere expression of grief or Gertrude’s masquerade of seeming, they serve variously to define the bifurcated feminine.”49 Stone describes Hamlet’s journey in the play as a movement away from the feminine. Anderson’s decision to make Hamlet more emotional, to cry noticeably and often, had the potential to instead show him collapsing into the feminine. Such a reading of the text would unsettle critics by its unconventionality, and by its disturbance of the play’s symbolic function: the ordering and expulsion of the feminine. And while the focus on the voice in this production was to draw attention away from the body, the act of crying—a manifestation of the feminine—may have actually underscored the presence of the actress in the role. “She is Judith Anderson” Critic Dan Sullivan described Anderson in Hamlet as the “victim of three obdurate facts. She is a woman. She is a rather short woman. She is Judith Anderson.” For Sullivan, the actress’s association with performative evil through her appearances in Rebecca, Macbeth, and Medea prevented her from becoming Hamlet.50 Frank Hains found Anderson’s Hamlet in conflict with her celebrity, rather than her performance identity. He found he “was never able to associate in any way that Great Lady of the Stage before me with the character which my program told me she was playing.”51 In his review, Hains divides “Judith Anderson” into two personae: “Miss Anderson” and “Dame Judith.”52 “Dame Judith” is linked with Sarah Bernhardt, connoting celebrity, wilfulness, and performative excess. In contrast, “Miss Anderson” is linked with roles such as Lady Macbeth and Medea, which signify tradition, professionalism, and the craft of acting. Lady Macbeth and Medea are described as Anderson’s “property,” suggesting these roles form the basis of her “authentic” performance self. The appearance as Hamlet is a transgression of this self, or as the critic himself puts it, “madness.”53 We can also read Anderson’s Hamlet as a transgression of her status and established identity in Chris Curcio’s response to her performance as “grotesque,” and Bernard Grebanier’s description of it as a “strange [undertaking].”54 For Grebanier, Anderson’s Hamlet became “strange” when considered alongside her “brilliant” performances in Medea and Macbeth.55 Like Medea, Hamlet explores the protagonist’s desire for revenge that leads to murder, but does so via contemplation rather than hasty action, and through lyric, philosophic musings instead of raw and bloody dialogue. It is, paradoxically, a more “feminine” role than was usually associated with Anderson. In addition, unlike the wicked and wilful Medea and Lady Macbeth—Anderson’s most famous roles—Hamlet aims to do good and is obsessed with “right.” Hamlet thus exists at a considerable distance from Anderson’s trademark roles. Anne Davis Basting’s analysis of another actress’s return to Broadway helps us appreciate the transgressive effect of Anderson’s Hamlet. In 1995, at the age of seventy-four, Carol Channing played Dolly Levi in Hello, Dolly!, a role she originated in 1964, and with which she was strongly identified. Basting suggests the popularity of Channing’s 1995 performance resulted in part from its performance of “authenticity”—its nostalgic affirmation of a much-loved actress’s identity, and of a golden, “lost” period in Broadway’s history.56 Anderson’s Hamlet, in contrast, denied her authentic self, and was compromised not by the lingering presence of Medea or Lady Macbeth, but by their very absence. While critics figured Anderson’s Hamlet as a transgression of her status and performance identity, I would like to suggest Anderson herself perceived it as an escape from her performance identity—an identity epitomised by the emotion and arch theatricality of Medea. Emerging as it did in the early 1950s, Anderson’s desire to play Hamlet arose in the midst of her journey with Medea. In 1969, Anderson reflected that playing Medea had been a physically and emotionally draining experience: “Medea consumed every bit of me . . . I saw nobody and did nothing, other than concentrate entirely on my work. It took everything out of me, including all my blood. I had to have a blood transfusion.”57 Anderson read Hamlet in distinctly cerebral terms and perhaps Shakespeare’s sensitive, reasoning Danish prince appeared to her here as a tantalising retreat from the physical onslaught of Medea. The body and its sufferings were at the centre of Medea, but Anderson’s vision for Hamlet virtually elided the body: the actress told Robert Feldman that the production “will be in chiaroscuro with lots of shadows,” and the “shadows will include everything from the waist down.”58 Anderson made this comment ten months before the production opened and it is not clear from the reviews and still photographs if her vision was realised in performance. What is apparent is that in Anderson’s approach to the text (she focussed on the poetry); in her performance style (she privileged the voice); and in her proposed design (she hoped to mask the body), she turned away from the mode that the physical had been configured in her landmark role, only to have it reinscribed by the critics. During the tour, Anderson expressed frustration at the media’s interest in her age. As she told the New York Times: “Sure I’m old . . . but I am sick and tired of you writers who keep dwelling on that. I want people to see me and not be thinking of how old I am.”59 In this conceptualisation of her identity, Anderson distinguishes between her essential self and her physical self. She spoke of Hamlet in similar terms: figuring the character as a “soul” rather than a “body.” In her vision for the production, Anderson denied Hamlet a physical identity, but she also denied him a gender identity. Lewis Funke noted that “she doesn’t think of [Hamlet] as being a man . . . She sees the role as asexual.”60 Anderson refused to align Hamlet with either male or female subjectivity. She asked a student reporter: “‘Well, what did you think of me as while watching the play? Did you think of me as a woman or as Hamlet?’” The student replied: “‘At first I thought of you as a woman . . . [but later] I thought of you as Hamlet.’”61 Hamlet is here not female but is also, perhaps, not male. For Anderson, Hamlet appears to have been simply “human” and “his” experience “universal,” and there is a suggestion here that at least one viewer shared her vision. Despite the negative criticism, there were other viewers who approached the play on Anderson’s terms. Nick Milich suggested the majority of critics were searching for the wrong production: “[this Hamlet] is very hard for a modern audience to take . . . [For the players] offered nothing else but the poetry; their production was stripped down to essence, to a dreamlike state.”62 Prior to its opening, Variety predicted Anderson’s Hamlet would dismay theatre purists.63 Most reviews suggest this prediction was realised, as does Bernard Grebanier in Then Came Each Actor, his 1975 history of Shakespearean performance, in which he lists Anderson’s Hamlet as a “total failure.”64 Yet for Milich, Anderson’s Hamlet did not fail. Rather it affirmed the significance of Shakespeare’s poetry and the power of performance to transform the written word. In addition, for several viewers it provided a glimpse of some universal human “essence” that transcended age, gender, celebrity and the body. It was for such transcendence that Anderson had essayed the role: to escape her seventy-three year old body and the yoke of established celebrity and performance identities, and become “part of Shakespeare’s riches and poetry.” Anderson seems to have received the most positive responses from students, her intended audience. The audience at La Crosse University, for example, was described as “rapt” in the production; they gave Anderson a standing ovation.65 Anderson told the New York Times she regularly received letters from appreciative students: “I had a three-page letter only the other day from a girl thanking me, saying ‘Thank God you exist, thank God I saw you’.”66 Grebanier refers to this letter in Then Came Each Actor. It had prompted him “to wonder whether or not the college girl had not already been enlisted in that branch of the woman’s lib movement which would like to see men unsexed.”67 He was not the only writer to suggest Anderson’s performance held some affinity with contemporary feminism. The New York Times told its readers not “to go running over the landscape in praise of Women’s Liberation . . . [as Anderson is] not the first and surely not the last of her sex to essay the Dane.”68 Chris Curcio admitted, “Women’s Liberation proponents may be astatic [sic] that Dame Judith Anderson is playing Hamlet, [but] theatre aficionados were dropping in the aisles.”69 In common with much contemporary media commentary on the women’s movement, these critics’ alignment of the production with feminism was done jokingly and/or disparagingly. Anderson herself denied any feminist agenda in her work, and described “Women’s Lib” as “a lot of tommy-rot.”70 And yet, although she seems unaware of it, Anderson’s Hamlet performed a destabilisation of gender distinctions that, like the discourse of women’s liberation, questioned gender boundaries. “I’m Not Going to Camp it Up”71 When Anderson announced her desire to play Hamlet, the media recognised the camp potential of such a project: a syndicated newspaper article published throughout America “predicted that [Anderson] would camp up the role.”72 “Camp” had entered the American mainstream with the publication of Susan Sontag’s influential essay, “Notes on Camp,” in 1964.73 Fabio Cleto notes that “within weeks” of this essay’s appearance, camp “exploded as a mass media keyword.”74 In 1970, as a consequence of Sontag’s essay and its application by the mass media, the word “camp” signalled excess, incongruity, and theatricality, and while recognised as an important part of gay culture was not thought of as exclusively “homosexual.”75 In “Notes on Camp,” Sontag describes an enormous variety of cultural moments, objects and persons as “camp,” and her essay has been criticised as “unsystematic” and “inconsistent.”76 Yet, due to its influence, Sontag’s essay provides a useful insight into how camp was perceived at the time of Anderson’s Hamlet. For Sontag, the “essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.”77 Camp is thus found in excessive and/or incongruous displays of gender, age, class, or style. A number of Anderson’s performances prior to Hamlet can be identified as camp in their excess. In films such as Salome (1953) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and in Hallmark Hall of Fame television productions, “Elizabeth the Queen” (1968) and “The File on Devlin” (1969), Anderson’s overt theatricality could not be contained by the camera. Her performances in the above productions were characterised by emotionalism and exaggerated gestures and movement. In his review of “The File on Devlin,” George Eres described Anderson’s “dramatics” as “out of all proportion” to the script and the medium.78 The implication here is that Anderson’s performance is not only “excessive” but also “passé,” belonging to an earlier, and superseded, style of performance. As Andrew Ross notes in an important definition, the “camp effect” is created “when the products . . . of a much earlier mode of production, which has lost its power to produce and dominate cultural meanings, become available, in the present, for redefinition according to contemporary codes of taste.”79 Ross notes that the distance between contemporary and historical performance was highlighted by the “recirculation of classic Hollywood films on television.”80 Repeated screenings of Anderson’s intense emotionalism in Rebecca and Salome, and the theatricality of her television appearances, rendered her anachronistic in a culture influenced by the understatement of the Method. These performances, and Anderson’s performance and celebrity identities, were liable to be received as camp in Ross’s terms. The idea of such an actress playing Hamlet, especially at the age of seventy-three, was so incongruous that some sections of the media automatically presumed her performance would become camp. However, as Anderson had shown in films such as Laura and The Red House, she could produce restrained and realistic performances when necessary, and her relatively measured Hamlet did not become camp solely on the grounds of “excess.” Nor was its old-fashioned style purely to blame, despite Bill Marvel’s description of Anderson as “out of her depth” in “attempting to make the Bard come alive for members of the Woodstock generation.”81 Indeed, as discussed earlier, some of the most appreciative viewers of the production were university students. Anderson’s Hamlet is more completely read as an example of what Sontag terms “naïve” or “pure” camp, the “essential element” of which is “seriousness, a seriousness that fails.” Sontag goes on to note that “not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve.”82 This Hamlet was expressive of each of these elements: “exaggeration” in its style; the “fantastic” in its casting of a seventy-three year old woman as a young man; “passion” in that woman’s intense desire to play the part; and “naivety” in her belief it could work. Ultimately Anderson’s experiment with Hamlet stands as an audacious, boundary-defying act, yet one that also demonstrates the very fixity of the boundaries it was attempting to cross. ------------------------- Fiona Gregory lectures in the Centre for Theatre and Performance at Monash University in Melbourne. Her research on issues of celebrity representation and performance identity has appeared in New Theatre Quarterly, Australasian Drama Studies and Affirmations: Of the Modern. She served on the editorial board for Twenty-First Century Drama: The First Decade (Gale, 2012). She is currently undertaking a major research project on representations of the actress and mental illness from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. ------------------------- Endnotes: [1]“A Heartache and a Tragedy,” Sydney Morning Herald, 19 April 1973. [2] Michael Clowes, “Dame Judith Anderson,” Adelaide Advertiser, 19 February 1966, 8. [3] Barbara Cloud, “Judith Playing Hamlet,” Pittsburgh Press, 3 January 1971, 19. [4] Louis Calta, “Judith Anderson Plans to Play Hamlet,” New York Times, 19 November 1969, 44. [5] “A Theatre Great is Still ‘A Country Girl,’” Sydney Morning Herald, 24 April 1973, 2. [6] For a fascinating analysis of the history of actresses in the role into the twenty-first century see Tony Howard, Women as Hamlet: Performance and Interpretation in Theatre, Film and Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). [7] Ibid, 36. [8] Robin Headlam Wells, Shakespeare on Masculinity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 81. [9] Ibid.; see also Elaine Showalter, “Representing Ophelia: Women, Madness, and the Responsibilities of Feminist Criticism,” in Patricia Parker and Geoffrey Hartman, eds., Shakespeare and the Question of Theory (London: Methuen, 1985), 79. [10] Howard, Women as Hamlet, 43. [11] Ibid, 49. [12] Gerda Taranow, The Bernhardt Hamlet: Culture and Context (New York: Peter Lang, 1996), 83. [13]Ibid., 85. [14] Max Beerbohm, Around Theatres (New York: Greenwood Press, 1930), 36-7. [15] Anderson’s personal scrapbooks, boxes 10-11, Dame Judith Anderson Collection, PA Mss 6, Department of Special Collections, University Libraries, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). [16] Lawrence Danson, “Gazing at Hamlet, or the Danish Cabaret,” Shakespeare Survey 45 (1993): 45. [17] Esmé Beringer, “Woman’s View of Hamlet,” 15 October 1953, unidentified fragment, UCSB. [18] “Miss Esmé Beringer in Hamlet,” Times, 22 January 1938, 8. [19] New York Herald Tribune, 18 October 1954, Judith Anderson Clippings file, Billy Rose Theatre Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (NYPL). [20] Fragment from unidentified article dated 4 July 1955, NYPL. [21] Morning Telegraph, 11 August 1970, NYPL. [22] Sarah Bernhardt, The Art of the Theatre (London: G. Bles, 1924), 139. [23] Gerald M. Berkowitz, New Broadways: Theatre across America: Approaching a New Millennium, rev ed. (New York: Applause, 1997), 78. [24] Power’s opening speech, page from Anderson’s script of John Brown’s Body, UCSB. [25] Nick Milich states Anderson “selected Ball to direct her,” in “Critics Missed the Point,” Watsonville Register, 13 October 1970, DJA. This does not preclude the possibility that Gregory initiated the project. [26] Hamlet program, in author’s collection. [27] Ibid. [28] Funke, “Dame Hamlet.” [29] Dan Sullivan, “Dame Judith in Hamlet Role,” Los Angeles Times, 1 October 1970, UCSB. [30] Chris Curcio, “Anderson’s Hamlet: A Fiasco,” Daily Pioneer, 6 October 1970, UCSB. [31] Nathan Cohen, “Female Hamlet Never Satisfying,” Toronto Daily Star, 27 October 1970, UCSB; Mel Gussow, “Stage: A Lady ‘Hamlet,’” New York Times, 15 January 1971, 18. [32] Milich, “Critics Missed the Point.” [33] Ibid; Cohen, “Female Hamlet;” Gussow, “A Lady ‘Hamlet.’” [34] William Ball, A Sense of Direction: Some Observations on the Art of Directing (New York: Drama Book Publishers, 1984), 27-8. [35] Bill Marvel, “Hamlet’s Mother Plays Him,” National Observer, 5 October 1970, 17. [36] Frank Hains, “Dame’s Dane: Madness in Great Ones Must Now Unwatched Go,” Jackson Daily News, 17 November 1970, DJA; Milich, “Critics Missed the Point.” [37] Sullivan, “Dame Judith in Hamlet Role,” Los Angeles Times. [38] Marvel, “Hamlet’s Mother.” [39] Sullivan, “Dame Judith in Hamlet Role.” [40] Ball, A Sense of Direction, 99. [41] Robert Berkvist, “When a Great Role is Passed Along,” New York Times, 2 May 1982, NYPL. [42] Anderson referred to the “friction” between herself and Ball in an interview with Clyde Packer, in No Return Ticket (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1984), 67. [43] Richard L. Sterne, John Gielgud Directs Richard Burton in Hamlet: A Journal of Rehearsals (New York: Random House, 1967), 294. [44] Hains, “Dame’s Dane.” [45] Milich, “Critics Missed the Point.” [46] Curcio, “Anderson’s ‘Hamlet;’” Gussow, “A Lady ‘Hamlet;’ Sullivan, “Dame Judith in Hamlet.” [47] Robert Feldman, “The Dame from Rose Park, Adelaide,” Bulletin, 27 December 1969, 54 [48] Tom Lutz, Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 151. [49] James W. Stone, “Androgynous ‘Union’ and the Woman in Hamlet,” Shakespeare Studies 23 (1995): 76. [50] Sullivan, “Dame Judith in Hamlet Role.” [51] Hains, “Dame’s Dane.” [52] Ibid. [53] Ibid. [54] Curcio, “Anderson’s ‘Hamlet;’” Bernard D. N. Grebanier, Then Came Each Actor: Shakespearean Actors, Great and Otherwise (New York: McKay, 1975), 262. [55] Grebanier, Then Came Each Actor, 262. [56] Anne Davis Basting, “Dolly Descending a Staircase: Stardom, Age, and Gender in Times Square,” in Kathleen Woodward, ed., Figuring Age: Women, Bodies, Generations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), 251. [57] San Fernando Sun, 19 November 1969, UCSB. [58] Feldman, “The Dame from Rose Park.” [59] Funke, “Dame Hamlet.” [60] Ibid. [61] Fragment of article by Melinda Wojtasiak, circa 1971, UCSB. [62] Milich, “Critics Missed the Point.” [63] Variety, 30 September 1970, NYPL. [64] Grebanier, Then Came Each Actor, 262. [65] Grant Blum, “Dame Judith Triumphs,” La Crosse Tribune, UCSB. [66] Funke, “Dame Hamlet.” [67] Grebanier, Then Came Each Actor, 263. [68] Funke, “Dame Hamlet.” [69] Curcio, “Anderson’s ‘Hamlet.’” [70] Wojtasiak, “Dame Judith Anderson.” [71] Show, 20 August 1970, NYPL. [72] Kernan, “Dame Judith.” [73] Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” was first published in Partisan Review in 1964 and reissued in Sontag’s Against Interpretation and Other Essays (1966). It is reprinted in Fabio Cleto (ed.), Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 53-65. [74] Fabio Cleto, “Introduction to Section One,” in Cleto, Camp, 46. [75] See points 50-53 in Sontag’s “Notes on Camp,” in Cleto, Camp, 64. [76] Mark Booth, “Campe-Toi!: On the Origins and Definitions of Camp” (1983), in Cleto, Camp, 67. [77] Sontag, “Notes on Camp,” 53. [78] George Eres, Long Beach Independent, 25 November 1969, UCSB. [79] Andrew Ross, “Uses of Camp” (1988), in Cleto, Camp, 312. [80] Ibid., 310. [81] Bill Marvel, “One View of Will Shakespeare: Let’s Respect the Stories,” National Observer, 23 November 1970, 20. [82] Sontag, “Notes on Camp,” 59. ----------- The Journal of American Drama and Theatre Volume 26, Number 2 (Spring 2014) Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Guest Editor: Cheryl Black (University of Missouri) With the ATDS Editorial Board: Noreen C. Barnes (Virginia Commonwealth University), Nicole Berkin (CUNY Graduate Center), Johan Callens (Vrije Universiteit Brussel), Jonathan Chambers (Bowling Green State University), Dorothy Chansky (Texas Tech University), James Fisher (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), Anne Fletcher (Southern Illinois University), Felicia Londré (University of Missouri-Kansas City), Kim Marra (University of Iowa ), Judith A. Sebesta (The College for All Texans Foundation), Jonathan Shandell (Arcadia University), LaRonika Thomas (University of Maryland), Harvey Young (Northwestern University) Managing Editor: Ugoran Prasad Editorial Assistant: Andrew Goldberg Circulation Manager: Janet Werther Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Frank Hentschker, Executive Director Marvin Carlson, Director of Publications Rebecca Sheahan, Managing Director References Footnotes About The Author(s) Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue The Border that Beckons and Mocks: Conrad, Failure, and Irony in O’Neill’s Beyond the Horizon Alternative Transnationals: Naomi Wallace and Cross-Cultural Performances Transgenero Performance: Gender and Transformation in Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders Crossing Genre, Age and Gender: Judith Anderson as Hamlet YoungGiftedandFat: Performing Transweight Identities Hot Pursuit: Researching Across the Theatre/Film Border Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Back to Top Article References Authors Keep Reading < Back Arab Stages 17 Spring 2025 Volume Visit Journal Homepage LEILI & MAJNUN. Written and directed by Torange Yeghiazarian By Namrata Verghese Published: May 12, 2025 Download Article as PDF REVIEW: LEILI & MAJNUN. Written and directed by Torange Yeghiazarian. Central Stage, Richmond. December 7, 2024. By Namrata Verghese “For this being is yours, my love, it is no longer me / In giving myself to you, my love, I am at last free.” — Majnun, Leili & Majnun Torange Yeghiazarian’s lush reimagining of Leili & Majnun injects the ancient Persian epic with new life. From the soundscape that marries the rhythms of Iranian, Arabic, Kurdish, and western music to the visual language of graffiti art and Persian miniature painting, the production celebrates the hybridity of Iranian diasporic storytelling. Produced by Central Stage, the Bay Area’s only production company founded and operated by Iranian artists, Yeghiazarian’s Leili & Majnun updates the twelfth-century epic for a globalized audience. It also spotlights its enduring resonance: although separated from Nizami by many millennia and miles, those temporal and spatial coordinates collapse when Leili & Majnun opens, and we are simply another audience, like the thousands that came before us, listening to Nizami’s poetry with bated breath. Like many people of Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage, I grew up with the story of Leila [1] and Majnun. It is, as Yeghiazarian notes in her program note, “the most popular love story in the Middle East and the many cultures influenced by the region’s literary treasures.” It is even rumored to have inspired Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet , a similarly tragic tale of star-crossed lovers. Yeghiazarian’s adaptation is based on Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi’s epic, which itself is based on the fabled love story between seventh century Arabic poet Qays ibn al-Mulawwah and his lover, Layla bint Mahdi. Still, even within the parameters of the well-known story, Yeghiazarian’s voice shines through in the play’s balancing of old and new, tradition and innovation. As an audience member, part of the thrill of the genre of the adaptation is tracking the director’s negotiation between familiar and novel elements. Yeghiazarian keeps us guessing as to which elements of the story remain the same and which she tweaks, delivering both nostalgia and freshness in equal measure. Leili & Majnun opens with the naqqal , or narrator, reciting Persian poetry, while a taut drumroll thrums in the background. In keeping with the play’s overarching theme of blending the old with the new, Yeghiazarian casts a woman in the role of naqqal , which is traditionally performed by a man, putting a fresh, feminist twist on an ancient tradition. The directorial decision to begin with Persian, without English translation, is striking. The play does not cater to a western audience; rather, we sit with the Persian, transported to another world. Soon, the ensemble chimes in, moving us into English with the lines: “We open our story in your name, the greatest name of all, never would I begin, without your name in my call / Your name is the key to all that’s locked, the solution to whatever is blocked / O maker of our thoughts and origin of our soul, being and nothingness are equally in your control.” The choice to blend Persian poetry with an English invocation is emblematic of Yeghiazarian’s embrace of diasporic hybridity. It did not seem to alienate the audience; rather, I watched many audience members, some of whom may be familiar with Nizami’s poetry and some who certainly were not, sit up, lean forward and catch their breath. The poem’s affective power transcended language. Image 1: The Naghal (Dina Zarif); photograph by Diaspora Arts Connection In a cheeky tribute to the original epic, once again demonstrating her deftness in drawing together the ancient and the contemporary, Yeghiazarian casts Nizami as a character in his own epic. The poet walks onstage, brandishing a comically large feather pen, sparking hoots and hollers from the crowd. At the behest of his son and the king, Nizami begins to recite the “cherished Arab love poem,” that “tasty Arab tale … made even more delicious when you tell it,” as his son tells him. The following tale melds the naqqal tradition of Persian storytelling with the contemporary form of musical theater. The first song, “It Is a Celebration,” which spotlights the community’s exuberance at Qays’s birth, beautifully captures the hybridity of this reimagining. “It is a celebration / a joyful congregation / The nobleman of the Aumerian clan / has a son,” the ensemble sings, palpable delight in their voices. “At last, at last, at last!” Each “at last” is accompanied by a clap, lending the song a folksy sound. The piece brings together Arabic rhythms and English lyrics in a way that does not require translation. Even the costuming feels like a nod to this hybridity—the actor who plays Leili, for instance, wore shalvar trousers with white tennis shoes. Image 2: The ensemble (right to left: Ameen Safi, Roeen Nooran, Dina Zarif, Behzad Golemohammadi, Yasaman Asgari, Adrienne Shamszad, and Brandon DiPaula) celebrating the birth of Qays; photograph by Diaspora Arts Connection Yeghiazarian’s adaptation hits many of the canonical notes: the staging is set in the “ancient Najd Desert of Arabia,” where Leili, the “moon-faced beauty,” and Qays, pride of his father’s Bedouin clan and poet whose “ruby lips … spread pearls,” meet in school. They’re immediately smitten with each other: “Do you ever feel like your heart is about to burst?” Qays asks Leila, to which she responds, “Like a pomegranate?” The actors do a wonderful job of portraying the shy glances and nervous smiles of a burgeoning crush. The two soon fall in love— “With one sweet smile from Qays,” the ensemble narrates, “Leili was lost”—but are forcibly separated. The separation is staged poignantly: Leili tells Qays, “They’re going to take me out of school.” The light, romantic music turns darker, more dissonant. The two protest; Qays cries out, “She has a thousand curls in her hair; how could I not get tangled up?” Leili responds, “His eyes are full of poetry; I need a thousand more days to read them.” [2] As the two recite poetry professing their love, the other cast members circle the pair, stomping their feet, hissing, “Shame. Shame. Shame.” Sharp staccato notes accompany the words, filling the atmosphere with dread. Unable to bear their separation, Qays unravels. The staging of this moment adds to its affective intensity: Qays, clad in a plain white tunic, pulls the cloth from his chest. The entire garment falls apart into tattered rags that represent the character’s unraveling mental state. Qays runs into the audience, wandering up and down the stairs, searching for his lover—a particularly effective directorial choice, as audience members get to witness, up close, his visceral devastation. Eventually, Qays flees to the desert. “He wandered the dusty pathways among the tribal tents,” the ensemble laments, “Longing for Leili. Searching for Leili. Every day. Everywhere.” Because Central Stage is a volunteer-run theater, the set design is sparse, but extremely thoughtful: we transition from the community into the desert through the simple addition of a large tree in the corner of the stage, under which Qays rests during his self-imposed exile. The tree’s long, wispy tendrils simultaneously shade him and obscure him from our gaze. Here, in the desert, Qays becomes “Majnun,” the eponymous “mad” lover of the original epic. The ensemble narrates, “The clan folk were unkind … To them, he was but a cad / And so, they declared him mad: Majnun! Majnun!” He spends his days writing love poetry on scraps of paper that he throws into the wind. When travelers encounter them, they are so moved by the beautiful verse that they spread the tale of Leili and Qays far and wide. From here, the play progresses to its canonical end: the lovers, separated for decades, reunite just once more before they die, heartbroken and alone. The play ends on a bittersweet note of hope: “This earthy world is ephemeral, the other eternal and pure,” the ensemble recites, “Leili and Majnun were unified in heaven, we are assured / Their love story immortalized and spread across the world.” Image 3: Majnoon (Roeen Nooran) praying to the starry night; photograph by Diaspora Arts Connection Despite its adherence to the narrative contours of the epic, Yeghiazarian’s reimagining nevertheless bears her authorial stamp. The play is distinctive in its diasporic hybridity, both in form, as the discussion of language and music above indicates, and its content. With wry humor, Yeghiazarian often references contemporary events and locations. For instance, when describing Leili’s beauty, a cast member translates: “In the Bay Area, one might say ‘her Middle Eastern good looks swooned American hearts.’” During an intense battle scene, the stage glowing with ominous red light, a cast member pauses, stands up, and says, in the highfalutin style of a BBC reporter, “The death toll was unexpectedly high,” parodying media approaches to conflicts in the Middle East. When the battle ends, the ensemble describes it as a “triumph,” and then quips, “Although, given the description of the massive death and destruction, one wonders if Master Nizami is being facetious in describing this as a triumph.” These surprising bursts of humor are striking in their playfulness. Because the poem is, famously, a tragic love story, most of its adaptations come off somber and heavy. But the lighter moments of levity in Yeghiazarian’s adaptation distinguishes the play’s tone from other tellings and break up the gravity of the narrative. Such choices allow the audience to catch their breath and eventually make the more difficult moments hit even harder. They also underscore the play’s relevance to a contemporary audience, as these direct ties to ongoing events make the romantic epic feel current and urgent. Connecting the past and present was part of Yeghiazarian’s goal for the play; she writes in a press release that celebrating “one of the most beloved Middle Eastern love stories” felt particularly prescient “as we face heightened political volatility in the Middle East.” Ultimately, Leili & Majnun is a luminous tribute to the Nizami epic. The care invested into the production from every angle, from the cast to the creative team, feels tangible. It is a true celebration of centuries of Iranian storytelling, from the ancient to the modern. At the same time, Yeghiazarian reimagines the epic for a globalized audience, attending, in particular, to the generative creative possibilities of hybridity. In its deft braiding of traditional and unconventional elements, Leili & Majnun accomplishes what the form of the adaptation can do, at its best: make the old feel new again. [1] I use “Leili” to refer to the protagonist of Yeghiazarian’s play, entitled Leili & Majnun , and “Leila” to refer to the character in the epic. [2] As anchored in the tradition of orality as this play is, the repetition of the word “thousand” in these lines reads as an intertextual gesture to another folktale from the region that began as an oral story cycle: One Thousand and One Nights . Article Bibliography, References & Endnotes References About The Author(s) Namrata Verghese is a PhD candidate in Modern Thought and Literature at Stanford University, and a JD candidate at Stanford Law School. Her research spans postcolonial studies, queer and trans theory, and the legal humanities; her dissertation project, Litigating Desire: Queer Literature on Trial in Twentieth Century India , locates encounters between British colonial law and queer literary production in the decades bookending Indian Independence. She was the winner of the Postcolonial Studies Association’s Postgraduate Essay Competition , and the Jeffrey S. Haber Award Prize for Student Scholarship . Her writing appears or is forthcoming in Law & Literature ; the Journal of Postcolonial Writing ; Law, Culture, and the Humanities ; the Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities ; the Dukeminier Awards Journal of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law ; and the Routledge Companion to Cultural Text and the Nation . Her public scholarship has appeared in Teen Vogue , The Los Angeles Review of Books , The Millions , and elsewhere. Her work is supported by the Ric Weiland Graduate Fellowship in the Humanities and Sciences, the Stanford Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis Digital Humanities Fellowship, the McCoy Center for Ethics Fellowship, the Stanford Center for South Asia Graduate Student Research Fellowship, and the Mellon Centering Race Consortium Graduate Fellowship. Arab Stages Arab Stages is devoted to broadening international awareness and understanding of the theatre and performance cultures of the Arab-Islamic world and of its diaspora. The journal appears twice yearly in digital form by the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center of New York and is a joint project of that Center and of the Arabic Theatre Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents O Lord! By Ali Abdel-Nabi Al-Zaidi Mothers Challenging the Divine: Ali Al-Zaidi’s Ya Rab! The 31st Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre. September 1-11, 2024. ARTIFICIAL HEART. By Mohammad Basha and Firas Farrah. LEILI & MAJNUN. Written and directed by Torange Yeghiazarian SHAHADAT (THE TESTIMONIES) Adapted by Fouad Teymour Review: TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF GAZA: THEATRE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE Staging Revolutions and the Many Faces of Modernism: Performing Politics in Irish and Egyptian Theatre Previous Next Attribution: Entries under this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Benjamin Gillespie Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 38 1 Visit Journal Homepage Saying The F Word: A Conversation with Jordan Tannahill Benjamin Gillespie By Published on January 26, 2026 Download Article as PDF Playwright Jordan Tannahill. Photo: Hunter Abrams Since the early 2010s, Jordan Tannahill has emerged as one of the most provocative and adventurous queer voices in North America. A Canadian playwright, novelist, and director, Tannahill’s work consistently probes the intersections of sexuality, intimacy, and spectatorship, often asking audiences to confront how desire and authority circulate among bodies and institutions of power. Across his many novels, plays, and performance installations, he has built a body of work that occupies a distinctive position in today’s theatrical and literary landscape. Tannahill is a two-time winner of Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama for Age of Minority: Three Solo Plays (2014) and Botticelli in the Fire & Sunday in Sodom (2018). His debut novel, Liminal , won France’s 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires, and his second novel, The Listeners , was shortlisted for the 2021 Giller Prize. His work has been translated into twelve languages and presented at venues in Toronto, New York City, London, Avignon, Berlin, Vienna, and Montreal. From 2008 to 2016, Tannahill wrote and directed plays through his Toronto-based theatre company Suburban Beast, staging work in theatres, art galleries, and found spaces, often collaborating with non-traditional performers such as night shift workers, frat boys, preteens, and employees of Toronto’s famed Honest Ed’s discount emporium. From 2012 to 2016, in collaboration with William Ellis, he ran the alternative art space Videofag in Kensington Market, an influential incubator for queer and avant-garde work in Toronto Most recently, Tannahill’s play Prince Faggot —his first to have a major production in New York—premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons before transferring to Studio Seaview, running for seven months. Prince Faggot imagines a future in which a queer heir to the British monarchy becomes the object of public fantasy—and suspicion. Since its premiere, the play has sparked significant attention for its unflinching examination of queer sex, class dynamics, and the voyeuristic impulses of theatrical spectatorship and nudity. And, of course, there’s the title. Interrogating the perceived limits of queer visibility, Prince Faggot explores the cost of being made legible within systems of power that claim to celebrate difference while simultaneously erasing or consuming it. At a moment when LGBTQ+ bodies are increasingly politicized, commodified, and legislated against, Tannahill’s work insists on the messiness of queer desire and the ethical stakes of looking. His writing resists narrative closure, foregrounding ambiguity and discomfort as central aesthetic strategies. In doing so, he challenges audiences to consider not only what we are watching but also why and how we watch. This interview was conducted on Nov 3, 2025 via Zoom. It has been edited for clarity and brevity. Benjamin Gillespie : Are you in New York now? Jordan Tannahill : Yes, I’m in the East Village. I’ve been here for a little over a year. Before that I lived in London, and before that, Toronto. BG : I’m also Canadian and have followed your work since I left Toronto more than a decade ago. JT : It’s always exciting to meet people who know Canadian theatre. BG : Do you miss Toronto? JT : It really is a great city. I was very much shaped by the theatre community there, especially the spirit of collaboration and making work for friends. There was never really a sense of a mass or commercial audience. Instead, artists were pushed by their peers and pushed each other to keep going. BG : I know what you mean. I was just in NYC last week to see Prince Faggot again at Studio Seaview. It’s such a beautiful play. Congratulations on another extension. JT : Thank you so much—and thank you for coming back. I really appreciate it. BG : I also just watched your MSNBC interview with Jeremy O. Harris. JT : [ Laughs ] I can barely remember what I said on MSNBC. I was so nervous. My inner monologue was just relieved that Jeremy was talking. I still can’t bring myself to watch it. John McCrea as Prince George; Mihir Kumar as Dev Chatterjee in Prince Faggot . Photo: Marc J. Franklin. BG : Prince Faggot opens with performers sharing childhood photographs and reflecting on queer childhood. Could you talk about how that image of Prince George became the seed for the play? JT : A lot of my thinking around queer childhood comes from Jon Davies, a Canadian curator and writer. In 2012, he hosted an event called “Sissy Boy YouTube Night” at Videofag, a space I ran in Toronto with William Ellis. Jon was interested in the then-emerging genre of YouTube videos made by preteens and young adolescents filming themselves in their bedrooms, often lip-syncing to pop songs or engaging in private rituals of expression that were deeply queer-coded. Watching those videos alongside an adult queer audience was joyful because we recognized ourselves in these kids. Many of us had done similar things in private before YouTube existed. At the same time, I felt protective of these kids. Posting these videos was brave, and the responses ranged from hateful comments to extraordinary outpourings of love and community. It raised the question of how we talk about pre-sexual queer expression and give it language. Looking at childhood photos of ourselves, many of us had that moment of recognition: we were gay kids. I mean, so many of us have stories of dressing up in our mom’s clothes, or dancing to pop music like Aqua or Ace of Base, copying music video choreography, being fabulous in these very private rituals. Suddenly, those kinds of moments became public, and that shift felt both exhilarating and, for me as an adult gay man, slightly alarming. It triggered a kind of protective response as a gay man. When I saw those photographs of Prince George online back around 2017, a lot of the above came to mind. Once again, it was a very public moment in which people experienced recognition and perhaps even self-identification through these images. For me, it raised questions such as: How do we give language to queer childhood? How do we talk about it in a way that is rooted in our own personal experiences of seeing ourselves reflected but that also has some kind of public utility? Seeing those photographs of George produced a powerful moment of self-recognition for me, but it also prompted a kind of thought experiment. If the future heir to the British throne were to be gay, what does that mean for the monarchy as an institution, for the queer community at large, and, more importantly, for this individual child? That question became a vehicle for me, and for this ensemble of performers, to interrogate our own relationships to power, colonization, and queerness, and to examine how these systems of oppression and histories of power play out on our bodies and our sexualities. BG : We see that journey in the play as we move very quickly from that initial image to Prince George as an adult. Were you worried about pushback or controversy by representing the Royals in this way? JT : Absolutely. The play is constantly walking a fine line. We are careful not to assign a sexuality to a real child. The Prince George we depict is entirely fictional and hypothetical, and in many ways a deeply autobiographical foil for me. Much of what happens to him in the play reflects my own experiences. One of the central provocations of the piece is this question: Can I dare to imagine that the future heir to the British throne might have a life that resembles my own, that he might encounter the same challenges I faced growing up as a gay man? BG: And I think you posted about this on social media, right? You shared an image of yourself that was inspired by finding that photograph of Prince George. JT: Yeah, exactly. Mihir [Kumar]’s opening monologue at the top of the show is really me working through my reactions to that photograph through him. It’s a text I wrote for him specifically that encapsulates my own journey with that image and what ultimately grew out of it. I wrote Prince Faggot in the early days of lockdown while I was living in London, and at the time my hope was that it would be produced there. That turned out to be very difficult. There was one theatre company that was genuinely excited about the play—they programmed it as their next production, and the artistic director was fully behind it—but once it moved up to the board and through legal review, it essentially stalled. They wanted me to change all the names, to fictionalize the Royal Family entirely. I had to hold firm. The stakes of what the play is trying to do are fundamentally removed if the Royal Family becomes fictional. Once you’re in a made-up world, the political and historical weight disappears. It becomes meaningless, for example, for a trans woman to be Queen of England if that England no longer carries the histories of race, class, empire, and sexuality that define the real institution. What matters is that someone like Rachel Crowl, a trans woman, is stepping into the role of Kate Middleton and embodying that figure within our actual world. That gesture allows the play to critique and dissect the lived differences between those experiences. Rachel Crowl as Catherine (Kate), Princess of Wales; K. Todd Freeman as William, Prince of Wales in Prince Faggot . Photo: Marc J. Franklin. BG: It takes the teeth out of it if you remove that context. The stakes disappear. JT: Exactly. The play has to exist in our world with all of its histories and political baggage intact. I became very resistant to what I felt was fear-based dramaturgy. I was talking with Jeremy O. Harris about it, and he said, “Send me the play.” He read it, loved it, and said, “Let’s do it in New York.” He saw those risks as attributes rather than liabilities, and that’s proven to be true. The play has really found its audience here, which has been incredibly affirming. BG: I’ve also wondered how the reaction might differ in Canada or the UK as opposed to the US, whether the reception would shift in significant ways as it relates to the monarchy. This production hasn’t been entirely without controversy, of course, but it’s also been clearly embraced, given the extensions and the remount at Studio Seaview. JT: Yeah, I think there are different cultures of sensitivity at play. The thresholds in Canada are different from those in the UK as well, and both are different from the US in that sense. New York really was the ideal city to introduce this piece to the world. Having it received here first helped set the tone for the broader discourse around the play. BG : Did you revise the play much between Playwrights Horizons and the Studio Seaview run? JT : Not significantly. There may have been small trims or wording changes but nothing substantial. We adjusted the staging for the new larger space at Seaview. That was it. BG : How long did it take you to write the play initially? I know you were writing it back in 2020, but then it was a while before its premiere, so did you revisit it a number of times between then and now? JT: The initial draft came fast, and then I spent years revisiting and revising it. Not full-time, of course, but returning to it again and again at different stages and between other projects. BG: It’s like the Tennessee Williams impulse, to keep going back and rewriting plays, that desire to never quite let them settle. JT: For me, though, most of the revisions happen before a play opens. Once it’s out in the world, I’m less inclined to return to it. At some point, the play becomes the play. If you revisit it years later, you’re really just writing a new work. During the development of Prince Faggot , we had workshops supported by Jeremy and his company, BB². From the very first draft, the play had a metatheatrical framework: the ensemble stepped out, broke the fourth wall, and spoke as themselves. What shifted over time was how much space that material occupied within the overall runtime. The play-within-a-play ultimately functions as a vehicle for the ensemble to articulate our relationships to power, colonization, and queerness. The monologues are fictional. I wrote them for these actors, but they are not their personal stories. I’m always reluctant to ask actors to perform that kind of emotional labor, to divulge intimate personal details for my work. That’s the power of fiction and storytelling; they can sometimes get us closer to a truth. That said, the final monologue, performed by N’yomi Allure Stewart, is almost verbatim a story she shared in the rehearsal hall, drawn from a conversation the two of us had there. I removed my own voice from it and shaped her words into a monologue, but it remains her story. She is credited in the text as the author of those words. It’s a singular moment in the piece where nonfiction punctures the fiction. That rupture feels important to me. It’s a very potent moment, one that allows the play to land on something grounded, lived, and undeniable. N’yomi Allure Stewart as Charlotte, Princess of Wales; John McCrea as Prince George in Prince Faggot . Photo: Marc J. Franklin. BG: I love that. It’s such a beautiful connection, tying ballroom culture in New York to ideas of dynasty and the Royal Family. JT: I think the question becomes: What would queer royalty actually look like? And the answer is that it already exists among us. We are our own royalty. It’s about reframing where power resides within our community. That power isn’t inherited; it’s earned. To paraphrase N’yomi, it’s measured by how you show up for your community, how you mother and father, how you care for others, and how you move through the world as a queer person. When that idea emerged in the rehearsal hall, I remember thinking, “Okay, this is it, the dramaturgy is complete. This is how the show culminates.” BG: It really is a beautiful ending, and it wraps up the piece in such a provocative way. I also want to ask about casting. You’ve mentioned the ensemble and the work that developed through those workshops, but the casting itself feels crucial. You have trans actors, queer actors of color, and a wide age range onstage. The representation spans a broad spectrum. Was that an intentional choice from the beginning? JT : The profiles of the ensemble were really baked into the text from the very beginning. There was always a desire to work with an intergenerational, diverse group of queer and trans performers. The idea was that they would both imagine themselves into positions of power they don’t occupy and, at the same time, explore how that power reflects back onto their own lives. Some of the monologues actually emerged quite late in the process. David Greenspan, for example, didn’t have a monologue until about a week before tech. Jeremy and Adam Greenfield, the artistic director at Playwrights Horizons, kept pushing me, saying, “He really does need a monologue.” John McCrea, as Prince George, maybe doesn’t need one in the same way, but the rest of the ensemble really did. David Greenspan as Edward II in Prince Faggot . Photo: Marc J. Franklin. BG : I agree. It was a memorable monologue, and it makes sense dramaturgically too. JT: At first, I understood the dramaturgical logic of adding the monologue, but I couldn’t quite see where it would land or how it wouldn’t interrupt the flow of the piece. Then it finally clicked. It felt essential to bring an intergenerational perspective on AIDS into the play. The absence of AIDS, particularly in relation to the older cast members, had started to feel conspicuous, especially given how central sex and sexual liberation were to our conversations in the room. David had brought this up a few times in relation to his own long-term relationship with his partner, and there was also a story that had been lodged in the back of my mind for years about how lesbians taught gay men how to fist, holding fisting workshops in bars and bathhouses in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. That story always struck me as such a beautiful example of queer kinship, resource sharing, and pleasure as a survival strategy. I had always wanted to write about it. Once I recalled that, it became very clear that this was what David’s monologue needed to be about. It also helps resolve the journey the play takes through fetish. For audience members who don’t have a relationship to fetish, or whose only frame of reference might be shock or titillation, the monologue grounds those moments in a personal, political, and historical context. That grounding helps give the fetish scenes greater emotional stakes. BG : That makes sense. I didn’t experience it as having shock value. It felt fully integrated into the narrative and dramaturgy, especially in what the play is saying about queer culture and queer shame. I also love the scene with the ghosts, when they all appear for Prince George like in Shakespeare’s Richard III . It’s such a powerful image. There are so many striking images in the show, but that one really stuck with me. JT: The show is very much about overcoming queer shame. That’s been a central journey in my own life, really over decades, but especially during the period when I was working on the play. That half-decade leading up to it was a time of reckoning for me in that regard. I was definitely feeling my Caryl Churchill oats in that scene, but it’s also one of the moments that comes closest to autobiography or, maybe more accurately, self-portraiture. There’s that image of Prince George being hooded with my actual latex pup hood. It’s a hood that I’ve worn to raves over many years. That moment felt like a very direct way of placing my own body, history, and desire inside the work. BG: Your hood is the actual prop used in the show? JT: Yes, I was very specific about that. It couldn’t be just any hood—it had to be that exact one from this particular store in Berlin called Blackstyle, which doesn’t even make it anymore. For the few people who know me personally, it’s a hood I’ve worn a lot and been photographed in, so it carries personal significance for me. For me, it embodies this transformative state of abandon that Prince George is reaching for but can never fully attain because of the strictures he lives under. It’s a state I’ve pursued in my own life as well as a sense of freedom and liberation, both sexual and spiritual. But it can also be self-obliterating. In the effort to remake oneself, that pursuit can involve a great deal of destruction. I was writing the play during lockdown, at a time when I had no income from my art because everything was shut down. I was working primarily as a fetish sex worker, focusing on BDSM and extended role play scenarios. Writing the play felt like a personal charge to myself that my lived experiences couldn’t be more radical or interesting than the art I was making. I needed to bring something to the stage that approached what I was actually living at that moment. That’s what I hope audiences, and especially queer audiences, can connect to in the work. BG: You’re really giving something of yourself to the work, and that comes through. JT: Yeah, totally. The struggle with identity that interested me here was one that moves beyond the familiar question of “Am I gay or am I not?” or “Will my parents accept me?” I wanted to push past those more traditional coming out narratives. The coming out struggle still matters. There’s real value in articulating that experience for people for whom it remains urgent. But for me, that hasn’t been the central question for a long time. As a gay man, I’ve had the privilege of spending many years where that wasn’t the primary site of struggle. A more active struggle for me now is trying to navigate the pull between a normative life and one oriented toward radical freedom. That includes grappling with pleasure, desire, and sometimes more difficult terrain like chemsex or dependencies. Those tensions feel much closer to my lived reality than the binary of disclosure or acceptance. BG: So many narratives frame coming out as this moment of transformation or liberation. But often that transformation isn’t really for the person coming out. It’s for others. It functions as a kind of confessional moment, in the Foucauldian sense, where society pressures you to declare yourself. Rather than freeing you, it can actually pull you more deeply into systems of regulation and expectation. Althusser’s idea of hailing comes to mind—it’s less a moment of emancipation than one of being interpellated into a structure that already exists. Coming out is often celebrated as empowerment, but it’s also— JT : —not real. BG : Exactly. It’s not that for a lot of people; it’s sort of forced. John McCrea as Prince George; Mihir Kumar as Dev Chatterjee in Prince Faggot . Photo: Marc J. Franklin. JT: Speaking purely from my own experience, I came out as a teenager, and I was embraced fairly quickly by my family and community. That initial coming out wasn’t the primary rupture for me. But there’s a different journey that follows learning what it means to be sexual for the first time, to have a sexuality at all. For me, there was a second awakening later, a kind of reckoning that arrived in my late twenties, when I realized just how expansive my sexuality actually was. It opened onto dimensions I hadn’t previously imagined—spiritual, narrative, even economic. It involved fetish, the transformative power of sex, and an engagement with the abject. It radically altered how I understood my body and what it could do. That period was marked by expansion, by raving, experimenting with drugs, having sex in different ways and with different kinds of people. It felt like an extraordinary widening of possibility. That second awakening, rather than the initial coming out, is what I was really trying to capture in this play. I wasn’t especially interested in making a work about that initial moment of coming out. I wanted to write something for the adults in the room, for people who have gone through, or are still reckoning with, that second awakening within their sexuality. For me, that reckoning has less to do with shame itself and more to do with shedding expectations imposed by family, by culture, by ideas of what a “healthy” sexuality or a “healthy” life is supposed to look like. BG: And the repressive force of heteronormativity shows up in the play too, especially in the double standards around queer and straight childhoods. There’s this refusal to sexualize the photograph of Prince George, but, at the same time, children are constantly subjected to forced heterosexual narratives. Buying a baby a “Lady Killer” onesie isn’t seen as troubling, but queerness is immediately framed as inappropriate or suspect. JT: Exactly. That double standard is very much one of the discourses the play engages with. Rather than shying away from it, the choice was to lean into it and name it directly. At this particular moment in American politics, queer and trans people talking about childhood feels charged and loaded. Instead of retreating into respectability politics, the play insists on confronting that discomfort head on and saying, “Let’s actually talk about it.” BG: Absolutely. That opening really sets the terms for the audience in a beautiful way. I wanted to ask you about the title of the play, because it’s obviously drawn a lot of attention. When I saw the production at Studio Seaview, I was standing outside waiting for a friend and watching people walk by the marquee billboard. Some of them almost refused to read it. One person started to read it out loud, saying “Prince Fay-go,” like pseudo-French or something—like he didn’t want to believe that was actually the word he was reading. I also noticed a lot of people referring to it as Prince F in the media as well . I’m curious about the tension around the title and the reactions you’ve seen to what’s often treated as a controversial term. JT: Totally. The play was always called Prince Faggot , from the very first moment I opened the Word document to write it. It just felt inevitable. The title captures the two seemingly incompatible identities at the center of the play, and the friction between them is really the engine of the piece. I knew the title had a certain brazen quality, and I hoped that would ultimately work in the play’s favor. What’s been interesting is that many people are surprised by the degree of nuance and humanity in the work, especially if they come in expecting something designed purely for provocation or shock. It’s definitely not a broad satire, which I think some people assume based on the title or what they’ve heard about it. BG: And the people with the strongest negative reactions are probably the ones who haven’t actually seen it. I love that “Prince Faggot” is emblazoned in ten-foot letters at 43rd and 8th. For all the Port Authority commuters. Brilliant. JT : That billboard still amazes me. Jeremy and I genuinely didn’t know whether we’d even be able to print the title on a marquee, or whether publications like The New Yorker or The New York Times would print it. Jeremy actually went back and researched every instance where the Times had used the word, most famously in relation to Larry Kramer, but also in other contexts. There was even a play in 1973 by Al Carmines called The Faggot , unrelated to Kramer’s book, that ran off-off Broadway and was reviewed in the Times . He pulled a review of it as proof that there was precedent. What interests me is that the audience’s relationship to the work begins before they ever see the play. It starts with how they talk about it with friends and colleagues. Many of my straight colleagues, including agents, default to calling it “ Prince F” out of respect, which I don’t mind. I’m honestly not sure I have a firm preference. Context matters, obviously. I don’t personally flinch when straight people use the word in reference to the title, but that’s not universally true. In a way, the title is the first provocation you encounter. I’m really interested in artists like Julius Eastman, whose compositions had deliberately provocative titles using slurs. Who chooses to say those titles, and who doesn’t, becomes part of the work itself. That relationship changes over time. People may have felt more comfortable saying those titles in the 1970s than they do now. That evolution is interesting to me. And honestly, it feels like a testament to New York City that, in this moment, we can have a giant marquee that says Prince Faggot . It’s right across from Chick-fil-A, which feels like a perfect showdown. It’s drama. Also, a lot of queer people have complicated relationships with saying the F word. Even within the cast, there are generational differences. Some of the older gay actors identify strongly as gay men rather than queer, and they fought hard for that word. For them, faggot hasn’t been reclaimed and still carries a lot of pain. So, the title participates in a politics of reclamation, but not one that’s universally shared. That tension, across generations, is very real. BG: Like any good play, it provokes. My last question is about influence. When I was watching the play, I kept thinking about Jean Genet, especially his play The Balcony . I’m curious whether there were specific playwrights or works shaping this piece. You mentioned Caryl Churchill earlier. JT: Definitely Caryl Churchill and Tony Kushner. And yes, Genet has been a huge influence on me. Structurally, one of the most important touchstones while I was writing was Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s An Octoroon . The way that play relates to the audience, how it explodes its own frame, how scenography becomes part of the dramaturgy—all of that had a major impact on me. That was also true for our director, Shayok Misha Chowdhury. We talked a lot about An Octoroon in the early stages of development. It’s funny: years after I wrote the first draft, the play ended up being produced by Soho Rep where An Octoroon premiered. That connection feels less like coincidence and more like destiny. BG: That lineage really makes sense to me. I hadn’t thought about the connection to An Octoroon . JT: It’s in the DNA of the piece. In that sense, it all feels very fortuitous. BG : Thank you, Jordan. References Footnotes About The Author(s) BENJAMIN GILLESPIE is Assistant Professor of Theatre History & Performance Studies at Santa Clara University. He is co-editor of the Journal of American Drama and Theatre and Performance Review Editor of Theatre Journal . His essays have appeared in Theatre Journal, Modern Drama, Theatre Survey, Theatre Topics, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Performance Research , Theatre Research in Canada, and HowlRound . He has also has contributed numerous chapters to scholarly volumes on queer and feminist theatre. He is editor of Split Britches: Fifty Years On (University of Michigan Press, 2027) and co-editor of Late Stage: Theatrical Perspectives on Age and Aging (University of Michigan Press, 2026) and The Routledge Companion to LGBTQ+ Theatre and Performance in North America (Routledge, 2027). Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction Fat Suits and Fat Futures: Ob*sity Drag in The Whale “The Star of the Aggregation”: Maggie Calloway’s Performances of Aggregation and Pleasure in Colonial Manila and British Malaya What’s at Stake? Sustaining DEIJ in U.S. Theatre "The Gift That Keeps on Giving": An Interview with Carmelita Tropicana Saying The F Word: A Conversation with Jordan Tannahill Staging Intimacy and Paradox through a Queer Lens: A Conversation with Jen Silverman Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage. Edited by Carolyn M. Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 212. Race and the Forms of Knowledge: Technique, Identity, and Place in Artistic Research. Ben Spatz. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2024; Pp. 314. Bloody Tyrants & Little Pickles: Stage Roles of Anglo-American Girls in the Nineteenth Century. Marlis Schweitzer. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2020; Pp. 276. Redface: Race, Performance, and Indigeneity. Bethany Hughes. New York: New York University Press, 2024; Pp. 272. The Brothers Size Dead Outlaw 2025 Oregon Shakespeare Festival ZAZ Introduction: New England Theatre in Review 2.0 Greater Boston’s Independent Theatres, 2024-25 Politics Take Center Stage in the Berkshires, 2024-25 Long Wharf Theatre, 2024-25 Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Shilarna Stokes Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 31 3 Visit Journal Homepage Choreographies of the Great Departure: Building Civic Bodies in the 1914 Masque of St. Louis Shilarna Stokes By Published on May 13, 2019 Download Article as PDF Over the course of five evenings in May 1914, more than eight thousand St. Louisans dressed up as Indians, Pioneers, and a host of allegorical figures—Gold, Poverty, and Imagination among them—to perform two versions of their city’s history before over a half million spectators. Hailed by George Pierce Baker as the crowning achievement of the early twentieth-century pageantry movement in the United States, The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis proved “what this drama of the masses may do for the masses.” [1] As the most prominent Symbolist dramatist in the U.S., the Masque’s creator, Percy MacKaye, enjoyed a well-established reputation for plays in which “time is a dream” and in which “the real and the ideal, the substance and the show, the actor and the audience, the poet and the figment of the poet’s imagination” are all interchangeable. [2] A friend and advocate of modernist theatre pioneer Edward Gordon Craig, he echoed Craig’s attack on realism in his own writings and advocated instead for the use of emblematic design elements, allegorical plots, and figurative choreographies. [3] In his view, these were essential to what he called “rituals of democracy,” mass masques cultivating “the half-desire of the people not merely to remain receptive to a popular art created by specialists but to take part themselves in creating it.” [4] By enjoining his fellow theatre artists “to illumine and body forth the life of the people in perennial symbols of power and beauty,” MacKaye pointed to a convergence of Symbolist aesthetics and nationalist sentiment that distinguished his unique contributions to the pageant movement in the United States. [5] The Masque was an elaborate work of verse drama, written in an erudite style and meant to be heard as well as seen. Nonetheless, like other pageants of its time, its narrative and its visual impact depended on the collective movement of large numbers of performers. Mass dances, pantomimes, and gestures allowed Masque performers to communicate its complex story to vast audiences that included spectators hundreds of yards from the stage. In U.S. pageantry, all scenes were, in some sense, crowd scenes. Due to their scale—with hundreds or thousands of citizens performing local histories for hundreds or thousands of their fellow citizens—mass pageants claimed an unambiguous correspondence between the actors and characters onstage, and the spectators in the audience. In doing so they were able to generate performative arguments about civic engagement, citizenship, and democracy on a grand scale, to promote certain kinds of collectivities over others, to incorporate communities seen as vital to the development of the social body, and to exclude communities that were regarded as dangerous to its integrity. To date, David Glassberg’s American Pageantry (1990) is the only published work to offer a substantive discussion of The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis . [6] Though he notes the Masque’s significance as a work of theatre, he is mainly interested in how it reflects Progressive Era conceptions of public history. As such, he steers clear of performance-based analytical approaches. By contrast, I offer here a close analysis of the Masque as a multi-layered performance that sought to shape St. Louisans’ conceptions of collectivity through embodied practices of dance, gesture, and pantomime, as well as the embodying practices of casting and puppetry. In what follows, I discuss how MacKaye’s Masque performed processes of civilization and Americanization that were designed to influence the newly expanded white population of the city. I draw on archival materials, MacKaye’s published works, contemporary secondary sources, and the text of the Masque to demonstrate how its three distinct choreographic modes sustained these processes. Its first and second modes of “playing Indian”—the ritualized and the savage—demonstrated for audiences the difference between rational forms of collective self-organization and wild expressions of collective fervor. The third mode, “Playing Pioneer,” gave shape to an ideal civic body that was consistent with the political and economic vision of city officials. The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis and its audience, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. Reaching its peak of influence in 1914, the American Pageantry movement, as it was called by its supporters, sought to achieve the complete transformation of society through the nationwide production of large-scale pageants: vast open-air historical dramas in which hundreds or thousands of local amateur performers participated. [7] Pageants could be fitted to almost any purpose, though they were nearly always associated with Progressive Era causes and themes. Whereas some reformers saw pageants as civic rituals that would, in time, give shape to a genuine democratic social order, others saw them as an efficient means of achieving immediate political reforms and modernization schemes. Given the wide range of aesthetic and social ideals to which pageants aspired, and the variety of communities that created them, it is not surprising that current scholarship concerned with the American Pageantry movement is similarly varied, tending to ground itself in matters specific to locality and history, and to organize itself around discrete social problems. [8] For MacKaye, pageantry was an antidote to the problem of commercialized leisure and its effect on the white urban working classes. In The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure (1911), MacKaye’s sweeping proposal to reform theatre in the United States, he writes that “The use of a nation’s leisure is the test of its civilization. How then does [this gigantic producer America] organize his night leisure? Into what hands of public trust does he commit this most precious engine of national influence? Ignored by the indifference of public spirit, [it] has been left to be organized by private speculation—the amusement business.” [9] For MacKaye, only the symbolist theatre’s refusal to reproduce reality, its utopian insistence on transformation, and its emphasis on universality were powerful enough to redirect the gaze of spectators past motion-pictures, vaudeville, and burlesque shows, and towards a “nobler theatre” existing “not primarily for the boards” but “in the mind of man.” [10] It is on that imaginary stage, MacKaye believed, that human beings may play their proper roles and begin to envision better forms of social organization. The St. Louis Pageant Drama Association (SLPDA), organizers of The Pageant and Masque , had two interrelated aims: to inspire a sense of civic unity in a city with a rapidly growing and increasingly heterogeneous population, and to use this sense of civic engagement to convince voters to pass a new city charter calling for the construction of a downtown plaza and bridge. Three years earlier, Civic League members who had led the charter campaign represented it as a boon to business owners and real estate developers. When the campaign failed they blamed ethnic divisions that, from their perspective, kept residents focused on the growth of their own neighborhoods rather than on projects benefitting St. Louis as a whole. Reinvented as the SLPDA in 1914, former Civic League members argued that The Pageant and Masque would “influence and control the emotions of the masses that their civic activity will be along proper lines,” thereby convincing voters to pass the charter. [11] Whereas MacKaye drew on the language of art, spirituality, and the social good to explain the purpose of his masques and pageants, the SLPDA expressed its aims in terms of progress, efficiency, and the social order. Both, however, operated on the same collective subject: white St. Louisans whose collective mind needed redirection and cultivation, and whose collective body needed redefinition and reorganization. By 1914 St. Louis had already been the site of several monumental celebrations including the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition and Olympic Games, the 1904 Democratic National Convention, and the 1909 Centennial of the city’s incorporation. Whether to surpass its own recent history of mass performances or to outdo other U.S. cities that had recently hosted mass pageants, the SLPDA made a bold decision when it agreed to MacKaye’s plan for a colossal double-feature. Thomas Wood Stevens’s naturalistic pageant would present historical episodes performed during daylight hours. Beginning at nightfall, MacKaye’s masque would reinterpret Stevens’s play in the mode of symbolism, employing allegorical mass characters, abstract design, and sequences of symbolic mass movement. MacKaye’s frequent collaborator, Joseph Lindon Smith, would direct and choreograph the Masque , which in the end took more than five hours to perform. [12] The American Pageant Association defined the masque as a subgenre of pageantry in which the balance between realism and symbolism favored the latter. [13] The differences were more significant, however, for MacKaye. Whereas the function of a pageant is to reenact the past, the aim of a masque, according to MacKaye, is to point to the future progress of civilization. Unlike other pageants of the period, which MacKaye regarded as “tending [too much] toward the static,” his Masque sought to represent the dynamic energies of modern life with its crowded cities and its seemingly endless flows of people by means of “large rhythmic mass-movements of onward urge, opposition, recoil and again the sweep onward”—crowd movements that were part of the script and integral to the plot. [14] The plan to produce both a pageant and a masque solved what MacKaye described as “a special problem in crowd psychology.” [15] Because “a huge, half-socialized, modern multitude [is] unused by experience to imagining,” the unique function of the Masque was to “lead the attention of [the] large masses” from the realistic images presented in the earlier Pageant towards symbolic forms representing the theme of the Masque : “the fall and rise of social civilization.” [16] The idea that civilizations, like organic species, must evolve or suffer extinction, was one to which MacKaye subscribed. Like many among the intellectual elite, he believed that European civilization was in a state of irreversible moral and physical decline because of increasing political unrest and urban overcrowding, plagues that threatened to reach U.S. shores via the mass migration of Europe’s working classes. The Masque took place at the height of the “Great Departure,” historian Tara Zahra’s term for the period between 1846 and 1940 when more than fifty million Europeans moved to the Americas, the majority from Italy, Russia, and Austria-Hungary. [17] Between 1900 and 1910, St. Louis’s foreign-born white population increased nearly 35%, leading to an overall population increase of nearly 20%. Because St. Louis’s rapid growth was directly attributable to recent immigration, city officials recognized the need to communicate with a greater variety of immigrant communities than the city had seen in its history. The SLPDA claimed The Pageant and Masque would break down divisions between the city’s ethnically diverse communities. However, the eventual result of the six-month long casting process was to expand the definition of who counted as a St. Louisan by implicitly establishing whiteness, rather than duration of residency, as the only essential criterion. Although black St. Louisans outnumbered all but the city’s German and Irish populations, and although the overall percentage of black residents was increasing at a much higher rate than that of white residents, only one Black St. Louisan appeared in MacKaye’s Masque —in the allegorical role of Africa. St. Louis’s Indigenous community was small by comparison with other ethnic groups. Nonetheless, when a Chippewa group proposed to perform in an exhibition baseball game for a fee the SLPDA declined their offer. [18] Not one Indigenous person appeared in MacKaye’s Masque. As one example of the “rituals of race” described by Alessandra Lorini, the Masque of St. Louis proposed to gather as many as possible under the sheltering canopy of whiteness in order to answer the question of how to create cohesive civic bodies in an age of racial and ethnic conflict. [19] Although the SLPDA’s refusal to allow the Chippewa to participate was only one of many acts of exclusion from the pageant’s history, the number and variety of Indigenous communities represented in the Pageant by white performers (Mississippians, Osage, Missouri, and more), in contrast to the total invisibility of black communities, invites questions concerning why “Indians” were so heavily represented in the Masque . For the majority of its performers, participation in the city’s largest civic spectacle meant covering one’s face and body with copper greasepaint and “playing Indian,” a concept Philip Deloria has used to describe performances of nativeness by non-native peoples that serve to negotiate contradictory models of U.S. national identity. [20] In the Masque , the symbolic value of Indian bodies is so great that actual Indigenous bodies, as persistent reminders of colonial violence, are rendered invisible. MacKaye himself blamed the “reverted social state” of “the Indian race” on the invasion of the hordes of the bison. [21] Building on Deloria’s work, Shari Huhndorf provides additional context for an interpretation of the Masque through her focus on nineteenth- and twentieth-century examples of “going native” that contributed to “the regeneration of racial whiteness and Euro-American society,” particularly during “moments of social crisis that [gave] rise to collective doubts about the nature of progress.” [22] In keeping with Huhndorf’s assessment of the kinds of social malaise that “going native” has habitually addressed, representations of Indians in the Masque in fact bore little resemblance to other contemporary attempts to portray Indigenous peoples, such as those that took place in Wild West shows or World’s Fairs. Rather, “playing Indian” in the Masque was a way to engage and represent white urban workers to themselves—the same leisure-seekers who MacKaye’s Civic Theatre plan proposed to re-educate. That pageants often linked the bodies of Indians to those of white urban workers can be seen in countless images that represent workers and Indians mirroring one another in costume or in gestures of submission. In cartoons like one from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat , Masque participants perform gestures involved in Indian work and ritual on a mound “built by Moundbuilders Local no. 6,” and discuss “working class” themes such as baseball, lumbago, and the need for tobacco. The Masque’s representation of Indians was both a continuation of and an exception to the modes of “playing Indian” that took place in Wild West shows or in World’s Fairs, both of which had begun to attract massive audiences well before the pageant movement began. Like the Wild West shows in which Indigenous performers “[observed] traditional spiritual and cultural practices, [and] simulated hunting, shooting, and fighting back,” the Masque’s red-face performers engaged in similar activities for an audience. [23] Like the 1904 World’s Fair that took place in St. Louis, in which a model Indian school operated alongside a model ethnological village, the Masque aimed to articulate differences between “progressive Indians” and “primitive Indians.” [24] Unlike both the Wild West shows and the World’s Fairs, however, no Indigenous performers appeared in the Masque. As such, the Masque’s Indians did not aim at authenticity and were not subjects of an anthropological gaze. Rather, they offered an example of red-face performance that wholly consumed and expelled the bodies of Indigenous persons in order to re-present them as a collective symbol of a vanished past. Mass masques like MacKaye’s were spectacles that claimed to be anti-spectacle, and commercial enterprises that claimed to be anti-commercial. Defined as gatherings of the people and as events performed by the people (rather than as entertainments performed by paid professionals) the exclusion of Indigenous performers in pageants and masques was consistent with the contradictions inherent in an art form that sought to give shape to ideas of “the people” by excluding so many of them. To participate in a pageant not only meant “going native” but “becoming native,” in the sense of performing one’s affective belonging to a place in which one was not born. Indigenous peoples stood apart from the structures of belonging that the pageants and masques offered to others because, being neither white nor able to become white, they could only ever be foreign. Poster for A Pageant of Progress in Lawrence, Massachusetts (1911), courtesy of Dartmouth College Library, and “Sidelights on the Pageant.” St. Louis Globe-Democrat , May 29, 1914. The Prelude to the Masque depicted an invented lamentation ritual of the Mississippian or “moundbuilding” peoples, the eleventh-century inhabitants of the middle Mississippi river valley known for their creation of colossal earthwork mounds. In MacKaye’s mass pantomime, the Moundbuilders performed ceremonial dances, acrobatic feats, and prayers in honor of a deceased leader. Employing a ritualized mode of “playing Indian,” the Masque offered spectators a demonstration of a self-governing civic body that supported both MacKaye’s theatrical vision and the SLPDA’s economic vision, a body that achieved physical excellence through ritual dances imitating the geometrical forms of the city’s sacred architecture. Although few St. Louisans were familiar with them, MacKaye was so enchanted by his visit to the “Mounds” in nearby Cahokia, Illinois that he decided to recreate them in St. Louis’s Forest Park. The densely populated urban center of Mississippian culture, also called Cahokia, was composed of a vast central plaza, surrounded by mounds of differing geometrical shapes that may have corresponded to different civic functions. [25] The plan of this ancient city, with its monumental buildings, vast causeways, and interconnected plazas, correlated well with the city-of-the-future envisioned by the SLPDA. It also suited MacKaye’s goal, which was to imbue his Masque with classical values of form, beauty, and serenity. Despite the depiction of Moundbuilder rituals in the Globe-Democrat cartoon, the participants in the Prelude were not middle-aged men, but Boy Scouts and girls from local athletics clubs as well as young leaders of these organizations. Baker described the choreography of the scene: “Slowly and exquisitely, figures walking, swaying, dancing, filled the great stage [with] right arm extended before them and right knee raised high like figures in Assyrian bas-reliefs , [. . .] their bodies stained a yellow-brown.” [26] Ernest Harold Baynes added, “They represent the race at the very height of its civilization—a people beautiful of form and dress, lithe and graceful of movement, rejoicing in the strength and skill of their bodies which have been brought to a wonderful state of perfection.” [27] As described by Baker and Baynes, the athletic bodies of the Masque’s young performers provided the model material from which great civilizations may be built; moreover, their callisthenic acts confirmed that bodies can be “brought to perfection” through the performance of civic rituals such as the Masque . The Moundbuilders’ tightly choreographed ritual, designed by Joseph Lindon Smith, demonstrated their ability to create complex patterns without the instruction of a visible leader. [28] Instead, their movements were directed by the geometrical motifs of the emblematic setting: the cubic altar, the circular shrine, and the pyramidal mounds. Photographs taken during rehearsal and in performance indicate that although both male and female Moundbuilders entered in winding lines imitating the shape of a river, the boys soon began to dance in a rectangular pattern around the center altar while the girls danced towards them, eventually forming circles on stage left and right. The men playing older priests arranged themselves symmetrically at the edges of the largest central mound, creating a triangle while younger boys imitated their elders by making human pyramids on top of the two smaller mounds at stage left and stage right. In Smith’s choreography, the Moundbuilders were represented as a people who have so thoroughly incorporated the architectural shapes surrounding them that they need no leader to guide their movements. They performed as a self-governing civic body, whose rational and efficient movements corresponded in every detail to the design of their city. Moundbuilders rehearsing the Prelude , courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. As the Moundbuilders’ ritual faded from the audience’s view, an enormous puppet called Cahokia was revealed sitting on the center mound. Waking from a long sleep, he explained to the audience that the preceding Prelude enacted his dreaming memory of the glorious city in which he was once a revered priest. Now, Cahokia lamented, his people have vanished. MacKaye lovingly called Cahokia “my Über-marionette.” [29] Although the convention of beginning a pageant with a soliloquy delivered by an Indian was already well-established, MacKaye’s decision to use a giant puppet was unusual. Cahokia’s majestic presence not only underscored the extent of Edward Gordon Craig’s influence upon MacKaye’s ideas for reforming US theatre, it provided an aesthetic form through which MacKaye communicated his understanding of the relationship between the creative artist and the people in the socio-aesthetic work of pageantry. MacKaye’s profound reverence for Cahokia is unmistakable in numerous photographs that show him gazing up at the puppet and holding his hand. Conversely, photographs showing MacKaye rehearsing with actors tend to betray the posture of a stern disciplinarian. The different attitudes displayed in these photographs suggest that, for MacKaye, as for Craig, the human body was less suitable material for art than the Über-marionette. Unlike the “half-formed” people of St. Louis, who “provide[d] in themselves [the] creative material” for the poet-dramatist to shape and control, Cahokia’s puppet-body was an already complete work of art exemplifying MacKaye’s ideal civic body—his limbs, head, and hands moving in harmony with each other and with the music of the hidden orchestra. [30] MacKaye professed disagreement with Craig’s idea to banish from the theatre all “the personal elements implied in the work of the actor.” [31] However, his repeated descriptions of Masque participants as materials to be harmonized through performance suggest that MacKaye relished the opportunity to transform the individual bodies of St. Louisans as well as the civic body of St. Louis into works of art that might move with as much grace and precision as a puppet. MacKaye holds Cahokia’s hand. MacKaye directs Raymond Koch. Courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. Although the Moundbuilders, like Cahokia, embodied physical perfection, they did not speak. Consequently, it was left to Cahokia to speak as the last member of his once-civilized tribe: [. . .] Ai-ya, my people! Where are the tribes of Cahokia? Lo, where the trails of twilight Hide them, naked and scattered, Luring them backward—backward Deeper in primal darkness, Masking with brutes, and mating In lairs of the jungle.[32] With these lines Cahokia bewailed the de-evolution of his people into the beast-like Wild Nature Forces, a group of characters that allegorized all the allegedly savage Indigenous communities descended from the Moundbuilders. A brief glance at the text of Stevens’s Pageant helps makes this clear for its opening scenes trace the de-evolution of the Indian from a supposedly single, distinct culture (that of the Moundbuilders) to a passel of nomadic hordes whose degenerate habits are easily repelled, then reeducated through the heroic efforts of European colonists. In Stevens’s Pageant the Osage and the Missouri are represented as homeless, cowardly thieves who survive by means of begging and stealing. Those St. Louisans who played Osage and Missouri in Pageant scenes were double-cast as Wild Nature Forces in the Masque. [33] MacKaye’s stage directions indicate what has become of them: “ Below [Cahokia], mysterious, half-seen, at the foot of the mound—crouched on its sides and lurking in the dark background–brute-headed forms of the “Wild Nature Forces” move and mingle with glimmering limbs of savages .” [34] Recognizing the Masque’s Indians as a representation of the city’s rapidly expanding white working-class population, it becomes apparent that the transition from “playing Moundbuilders” to “playing Wild Nature Forces” signified a descent from civilization into savagery, and from culture into nature, that was resonant with contemporary fears about urban overcrowding and the corrupting influence of urban life. Like the denizens of modern cities, which sociologist E.A. Ross described as scenes of “mingling without fellowship and [. . .] contact without intercourse,” of “wolfish struggle, crimes, frauds, exploitations and parasitism,” the tribes of Cahokia, the puppet-priest explained, were lured away from their ancestral grounds. [35] No longer heeding Cahokia’s prayers, the Wild Nature Forces began to obey gods of Chaos who urged them to give into their basest animal instincts towards lust, greed, and violence. In all their aspects, the Wild Nature Forces illustrated the savagery of the modern city. Their movements consisted of lurking, crouching, crawling, mingling, mating, leaping, rushing and, unsurprisingly, crowding. Unlike the Moundbuilders, the Wild Nature Forces exhibited only groping, half-formed motions or rowdy, uncontrolled dancing. They gestured in multiple, arbitrary directions, all at the same time. They remained close to the ground where it was darkest and their shapes, which are described in the text of Masque as “half-seen” or “half-hidden,” were indistinguishable from one another. When the allegorical character named Saint Louis first entered the Masque , he appeared as a four-year-old boy, dragging behind him an immense sword that was too heavy for him to lift. Sensing his weakness, the Wild Nature Forces attacked the child, attempting to kidnap him. At the moment Saint Louis miraculously heaved the sword high above his head, the Wild Nature Forces suddenly froze, stunned into stasis and silence, “the beast faces [. . .] startled, glowering, murmurous.” [36] Then, all at once, they “swarm[ed] down the mound sides, rush[ed] into the darkness and vanish[ed].” [37] Saint Louis’s first victory in the Masque was one in which the mere appearance of a symbol of European conquest possessed the power to bring savage bodies to order and banish them from the stage. Having cleared the stage of actual Indigenous persons, stage Indians, and allegorical Indian figures by the end of the first act, the remainder of MacKaye’s Masque followed the actions of an equally complex representation of the urban masses: the Pioneer. Like the Indian, the Pioneer was familiar from earlier public celebrations. Scenes of pioneers marching with the tools of their various trades or symbolically clearing the land in front of them with axes had been a staple of US civic parades since the eighteenth century. [38] Participants in such performances embodied the nation’s pursuit of manifest destiny and the conquest of the frontier. In the Masque of St. Louis , however, the Pioneer was adapted to reflect twentieth-century concerns. Whereas the Masque’s Moundbuilders illustrated a vanished preindustrial and proto-national collective subject, the Pioneers of the second act represented an emerging national and progressive collective subject, one that must repeatedly confront the problems of participatory democracy in an age of industrialization and mass immigration. The first of the Masque’s Pioneers entered a theatrical space from which the ritual center, the sacred altar fire of the Moundbuilders, had been removed. The only remaining light on stage emanated from the small shrine at the apex of the center mound. “Marching [forward] in widespread numbers” with spades, scythes, axes, and rifles, the Masque’s Pioneers were unlike their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century forebears. [39] Carrying useless tools that clear no land, they presented themselves as lost and leaderless bands of men, desperately in search of a place to make camp or a direction in which to move. As if suddenly recognizing the urgent need for guidance, one Pioneer cried out: “Our trails blaze with desire and danger and hope born of to-day. For tomorrow is dim and yesterday–dead. Now lead us to-day! Lead us, St. Louis!” In unison the others echoed: “Lead us, St. Louis!” Emerging from a nearby shrine, Saint Louis suddenly appeared as a young knight clad in white armor with a brilliant white sword. The sword, as tall as the actor, animated the immense spaces of the pageant stage, directing the Pioneers onstage and the spectators’ attention. From this scene onward, the Pioneers did not move or act unless directed to do so by Saint Louis and his sword. As the Masque’s promptbook reveals, the leaders of each of the three Pioneer groups were given typewritten sheets that explained where their groups should assemble and provided precise instructions for movement and choral speech. When read together, and in conjunction with the text of the Masque, they demonstrate the degree to which the Pioneers functioned as an automatic onstage audience, one formed by a reflexive, nearly involuntary instinct to applaud the actions of civic leaders. [40] Though the Pioneers were unable to move forward on their own, they were able to pledge their obedience to new leadership without hesitation. By performing spontaneous consensus and by demonstrating their willingness to be guided by familiar symbols of Anglo-European culture, the Pioneers provided an onstage model of the kind of civic responsiveness SLPDA members hoped St. Louisans would emulate offstage. Throughout the Masque’s Second Act, the Pioneers displayed their boundless energy. The prompt sheets instructed them to move swiftly from mound to mound and between various parts of the stage, often for no reason connected to the action of the scene. [41] Though their movement rarely indicated any achievement, it nevertheless performed the dynamism of modernity MacKaye sought to represent. Whereas the measured, ritualized group movement of the Moundbuilders expressed the rhythms of ancient, civilized collectivities, the velocity and urgency of the Pioneers’ numerous flights across the stage expressed the rhythms of the modern city. Though they did not represent a self-organizing collective body on the model of the Moundbuilders, the Pioneers were no less attuned to the necessity of precision, repetition, and rhythm in their collective movements. Once they arrived at their appointed positions on the stage, their vocabulary of gestures was even more restricted than that of the Moundbuilders. Confined to gestures of deference and supplication, the prompt sheets instructed them to stand, half-kneel or kneel, to extend their arms up or out, and to point towards symbols as they appear on stage. Perhaps one of the only opportunities for creative self-expression came in the form of a repeated request, appearing in almost every prompt sheet, for the Pioneers to “make a great show of interest” through audible noises and visible gestures whenever any astonishing action occurred onstage. The Pioneers provided an onstage audience for the allegorical Saint Louis that was intended to serve as an exemplary model for the Masque’s actual audiences. Their prescribed range of movement suggests that in the Masque’s view, being an active participant in modern civic life meant being an appreciative and impressionable spectator. It meant performing one’s patriotism by recognizing symbols, manifesting visible and audible signs of reverence for them, and agreeing to be led by those who employ them. Saint Louis and the Sword, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. If MacKaye hoped that audiences would concentrate on the mass symbols and choreographies performed by their fellow citizens, the St. Louis press was more focused on the masses of spectators themselves. Local newspapers attempted to give readers an experience of the Masque’s scale by printing panoramic photographs of its audiences, which by the end of its run comprised more than a half-million individuals. Many more saw the Pageant and Masque during its week of rehearsals prior to opening day. The test of any pageant’s success was the degree to which it could hold the attention of its vast crowds. As such, newspaper accounts remarked on the degree to which St. Louisans paid attention to an event that so many had presumed they could not understand. Spectators reportedly sat silent through sizzling summer days just to watch rehearsals, stood in the rain for many hours to gain access to the pageant grounds, and climbed dangerously high into trees to get the best viewing spots. Sitting amongst the minority of spectators who paid for their seats, Baker described several of his co-spectators chattering through the Prelude. From his perspective, they chatter because they are leisure-seekers, unaware that they are participating in a civic ritual. Eventually, however, the Masque worked its magic; the group became quiet and still as the performance continued. Before they left, he explained, they turned back to look at the stage once more before silently walking away. For Baker, this transformation proved that the Masque had succeeded in sparking a moment of collective attention that might be mobilized for social purposes if repeated often enough. [42] Despite Baker’s insistence on its singular social and cultural significance, MacKaye’s Masque , like so many previous civic entertainments, was absorbed into the urban spectacle it promised to transcend. Local papers reported everything from women overcome by heat, children lost in crowds, horses run astray, and water boys mobbed by thirsty spectators. Far from the ideal of civic enlightenment MacKaye describes in The Civic Theatre , spectators at one performance broke through seating barriers and caused a brawl. Rather than diverting attention away from the city’s commercial entertainments, some members of the Pageant and Masque’s chorus performed onstage at one of the city’s vaudeville houses immediately after an evening performance of the Masque. Although the Masque ’s critical and popular success was unsurpassed by any previous or subsequent event to emerge from the American Pageantry movement, its legacy remains fraught. On the one hand, the Masque’s success directly contributed to the passing of the charter, which in addition to its construction projects ensured stronger concentration of authority in the mayor’s office, fewer elected and more appointed positions, and rezoning provisions that narrowed participation in the political process. On the other hand, it also led to the establishment of the St. Louis Municipal Opera Company, the expansion of St. Louis’s public arts programs, and the construction of a permanent outdoor amphitheater in Forest Park. Despite MacKaye’s belief that large-scale participation in the Masque would encourage St. Louisans to work together for reforms that grew out of their own desires and imaginations, he misunderstood the extent to which the SLPDA’s interpretation of the Masque as well as its definition of popular participation predetermined its potential social meanings. Luther Ely Smith, who saw the Masque as evidence of “the [same] civic spirit which will build our bridge, pass our charter, [and] stretch a plaza from 12th Street to Grand Avenue” was but one of many voices echoing the official interpretation. [43] In the end, MacKaye’s Masque may have taught St. Louisans more about collectively performing towards the aspirations of its leaders, than about collective action or even collective dreaming. It stands as an unusual cultural experiment, and as a reminder that greater participation by citizens in the social and cultural work of performance neither equates nor necessarily leads to greater participation in official political processes. The work of coalition-building requires more sustainable performance practices than pageant-makers like MacKaye tended to have in mind. Acts of inclusion, when performed on a monumental scale, have the power to make a positive impact on communities, and even to instantiate processes of engagement, but their long-term efficacy depends on how they cultivate the meaning and the practice of collective participation before, during, and after the crowds go home. References [1] George Pierce Baker, “The Pageant and Masque of St. Louis.” World’s Work , vol. 28 (Aug 1914), 389. Though known primarily for pioneering the study of playwriting in the United States, Baker was a prominent advocate of pageantry as well as a pageant writer and director. [2] Thomas Dickinson, Playwrights of the New American Theater (New York: McMillan, 1925), 19. Despite his lack of popular success, Dickinson and others considered MacKaye one of the most important playwrights of his day. His most well-known plays are The Canterbury Pilgrims (1903), Jeanne d’Arc (1906), Sappho and Phaon (1907), The Scarecrow (1911), and Yankee Fantasies (1912). [3] Directly quoting Craig’s On the Art of the Theatre (1912) in his own book, MacKaye described realism as “the blunt statement of life, something everybody misunderstands while recognizing,” (Percy MacKaye, The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure. New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1912: 28). Despite their occasional disagreements, MacKaye and Craig were lifelong friends and correspondents. On their relationship, see Susan Valeria Harris Smith, Masks in Modern Drama (Berkeley: UC Press, 1984): 49-84. [4] Percy MacKaye, quoted in Joyce Kilmer, Literature in the Making, By Some of its Makers (New York: Harper, 1917), 314. [5] Letter from Percy MacKaye to Grenville Vernon, March 12, 1907, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. MacKaye’s work in the masque genre predated the rise of the pageantry movement. The Saint-Gaudens Masque , performed at the Cornish Art Colony in 1905, was MacKaye’s first critical success. His first pageant was performed at Gloucester, Massachusetts in August 1909 and, though it never materialized, he developed a pageant for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1910. After The Masque of St. Louis MacKaye created his most well-known and most often studied masque, Caliban by the Yellow Sands, based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest. It was produced both in New York and Boston in 1916. MacKaye remained a member of the American Pageantry Association’s Board of Directors until its dissolution in 1930. [6] David Glassberg’s American Pageantry: the Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990) currently serves as the starting point for scholarship on MacKaye’s Masque . Two dissertations also consider the event in some detail from different perspectives: Kenneth Graeme Bryant, “Percy MacKaye and the Drama of Democracy,” (PhD diss., Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1991), ProQuest AAT 9200131, and Michael Peter Mehler, “Percy MacKaye: Spatial Formations of a National Character,” (PhD diss., University of Pittsburgh, 2010), ProQuest AAT 3417299. [7] A bibliography of contemporary works on American pageantry can be found in Caroline Hill Davis, Pageants in Great Britain and the United States: a List of References (New York: New York Public Library Association, 1916). The American Pageant Association (APA), founded in 1913, was organized for the purposes of protecting the new genre from commercialization, disorganization, and low aesthetic standards. Its founding and development is discussed in Naima Prevots, American Pageantry : a Movement for Art and Democracy (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1990). [8] For examples of the variety of forms that current pageant scholarship takes, see the following: Karen Blair, “Pageantry for Women’s Rights: The Career of Hazel MacKaye, 1913-1923, Theatre Survey , Vol. 31, no. 1: 23-46; Brook Davis, “Let the children speak: The ‘Pageant of Sunshine and Shadow,’ a child labor pageant by Constance D’Arcy Mackay,” Theatre Studies , 1997, Vol. 4: 33-44; Brian Hallstoos, “Pageant and Passion: Willa Saunders Jones and Early Black Sacred Drama in Chicago,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre , 2007, Vol. 19, no. 2: 77-97; Hannah Hammond, “A Masque on Behalf of the Birds,” New England Theatre Journal , Vol. 27: 41-62; Jenna L. Kubly, “Staging the Great War in the National Red Cross Pageant,” Journal of American Drama and Theatre , 2012, Vol. 24, no. 2: 49-66. [9] Percy MacKaye, The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure , 30-31. In the Civic Theatre MacKaye draws heavily on Jane Addams’s Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909) and Michael D. Davis’ Exploitation of Pleasure (1911) for support for his ideas. See also, George Elliott Howard, “Social Psychology of the Spectator,” American Journal of Sociology , vol. 18, No. 1 (July 1912): 37-41. [10] Percy MacKaye, “On the Need of Imagination in the Drama of To-day,” Harvard Advocate , vol. 63, no. 10 (June 30, 1897): 140. [11] Luther Gulick, quoted in Glassberg, American Pageantry , 199. [12] Percy MacKaye, Saint Louis: A Civic Masque (New York: Doubleday, 1914), xi-xii. [13] Anne Throop Craig, “Pageantry,” Encyclopedia Americana (Encyclopedia Americana Co., 1919): 101. [14] Percy MacKaye, “Worcester Address on Pageantry,” February 26, 1912, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library; MacKaye, Saint Louis , xiv. [15] MacKaye, Saint Louis , x. [16] Ibid., xvi-xix. [17] Tara Zahra, The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2016), 4. For demographic data see The Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in the Year 1910: Statistics for Missouri , 602-622. [18] My description of the casting process is based on Glassberg, 178-181, and upon documents in the Dartmouth College Library. [19] Alessandra Lorini, Rituals of Race: American Public Culture and the Search for Racial Democracy (Charlottesville: Virginia University Press, 1999), 236-243. [20] Glassberg, American Pageantry , 178; Philip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 5. [21] MacKaye, Saint Louis , xix. [22] Shari Huhndorf, Going Native (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001): 3, 14. [23] Rosemarie K. Bank, “Show Indians/Showing Indians: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and American Anthropology,” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism , vol. 26 (Fall 2011): 152. [24] L.G. Moses, “Indians on the Midway: Wild West Shows and the Indian Bureau at the World’s Fairs, 1893-1904,” South Dakota History, vol. 21 (Fall 1991): 24. [25] Sally A. Kitt Chapel, Cahokia: Mirror of the Cosmos (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 142-145. [26] Baker, 391. [27] Ernest Harold Baynes, “The Biggest Show Ever Staged,” Boston Evening Transcript , undated, courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. [28] Joseph Lindon Smith was a painter known primarily for the skill with which he recreated ancient artifacts discovered on archaeological expeditions in Egypt. My description of his choreography for the Prelude is based on more than fifty rehearsal and performance photographs in the Dartmouth College Library, as well as dozens of newspaper accounts from MacKaye’s scrapbook on the Masque , also in the Dartmouth College Library. [29] MacKaye wrote this on the back of a photograph of Cahokia in the PMK Papers. Edward Gordon Craig explains his theory of the Über-marionette in On the Art of the Theatre (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2008), 54-94. Both Robert Edmond Jones and Thomas Dickinson regarded the Masque as the only theatrical work to successfully explore the possibilities of the Über-marionette on the US stage. [30] MacKaye, Saint Louis , x. [31] MacKaye, The Civic Theatre (fn.), 27. [32] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 7-8. [33] Program of the Pageant and Masque of St. Louis , PMK Papers. [34] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 5. [35] Edward Alsworth Ross, Social Control: A Survey of the Foundations of Order (New York: MacMillan, 1901), 19. Highly influential during his lifetime (1866-1951), Ross wrote twenty-seven books and over 300 articles on social psychology, history, and urban reform. [36] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 22. [37] Ibid. [38] See, for examples, Susan G. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theater in Nineteenth-Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1986), David Waldstreicher , In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: the Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1997), and Simon P. Newman, Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2000). [39] MacKaye, Saint Louis , 42. [40] Promptbook of The Masque of St. Louis , courtesy of Dartmouth College Library. [41] Ibid. [42] Baker, 391. [43] Luther Ely Smith, “Pageant to Make City Better Place to Live In,” Bulletin of the Pageant and Masque of Saint Louis , No. 2 : 7. Footnotes About The Author(s) SHILARNA STOKES is a Lecturer in Theater Studies at Yale University. Her research centers on how mass theatrical events give shape to ideas about public space, collectivity, and political life. Editorial Board for Special Issue: David Bisaha Meredith Conti Leah Lowe Inga Meier Robert Vorlicky Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Introduction: Embodied Arts Collective Choreography for Weathering Black Experience: Janelle Monáe and The Memphis "Tightrope" Dance Unruly Reproductions: The Embodied Art of Mimicry in Vaudeville "Must Be Heavyset": Casting Women, Fat Stigma, and Broadway Bodies Choreographies of the Great Departure: Building Civic Bodies in the 1914 Masque of St. Louis Defiant Indigeneity: The Politics of Hawaiian Performance. Stephanie Nohelani Teves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018; Pp. 220. Ellen Stewart Presents: Fifty Years of La MaMa Experimental Theatre. Cindy Rosenthal. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017; Pp. 198. In Search of Our Warrior Mothers: Women Dramatists of the Black Arts Movement. La Donna L. Forsgren. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 200. Memory, Transitional Justice, and Theatre in Postdictatorship Argentina. Noe Montez. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2017; Pp. 239 + xi. Big Deal: Bob Fosse and Dance in the American Musical. Kevin Winkler. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018; Pp. 368. Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America’s Past. Renee C. Romano and Claire Bond Potter, eds. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2018; Pp. 399. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

David Pellegrini Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 34 1 Visit Journal Homepage The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected. Edwin Wong. Victoria, Canada: Friesen Press, 2019; Pp. 363. David Pellegrini By Published on December 9, 2021 Download Article as PDF In 2019, the Langham Court Theatre in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada inaugurated the Risk Theatre Modern Tragedy Competition, awarding top prize ($8,000 Canadian) to In Bloom by Brooklyn-based playwright Gabriel Jason Dean. Selected from 182 new play submissions from 11 countries, In Bloom focuses on a “well-intentioned, but ultimately reckless documentary filmmaker in Afghanistan” whose actions led to the death of an Afghan boy—a tragedy he lies about in his award-winning memoir. This 21st century competition for tragic playwriting began as a partnership with classicist Edwin Wong, who lays out a blueprint for playwrights (and the competition’s rules) in The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected. Wong exalts three golden eras—ancient Greece; the English Renaissance; and German Romanticism—noting that after Eugene O’Neill, whom he cites as the last “true” tragedian in the Aeschylean tradition, tragic art largely vanished. That tradition is premised on a fairly simple formula, albeit with myriad variations: each dramatic action is also a gambling act involving varying degrees of unforeseen or unexpected risks. Wong’s goal with this book, like the contest, is to revivify this tragic principle for our contemporary age in which “low-probability, high consequence events lie in wait” (xxv). Although tragedy may have trafficked in uncertainty since its inception, Wong emphasizes the moral exigencies of examining the upside and downside values of risk and unintended consequences in an era in which there is an over-reliance on technology, nuclear energy, and the variabilities of global economic exchange. Wong’s overall argument in The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy is erudite, elucidated with extensive passages from canonical and lesser-known works and a wide range of theoretical citations. He is partial to the troika, apropos of ancient trilogies, and efficient in outlining the tripartite structure by which characters confront temptation, make wagers, and cast dice. In the first three chapters, Wong elaborates on the gambling metaphor and constructs a lexicon of qualifying terms. His first major categorization is premised on “tempo”; specifically whether the three gambling acts are presented gradually over the course of a play; backloaded, in which time lapses between wager and die-cast to build suspense; or frontloaded, in which the wager occurs early with the bulk of action depicting the ensuing chaos. Nestled within these categories is the frequency of the wager, e.g., standalone, if it occurs once as in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus; parallel-motion, in which several characters confront multiple risk events as demonstrated by O’Neill’s Strange Interlude; or perpetual-motion, whereby one wager generates subsequent wagers as in the Oresteia. Together, these first three chapters become a kind of periaktoi, the ancient, multi-surfaced scene-changing device conjectured by Vitruvius, underpinning Wong’s structural analysis. This first section grounds the third, “A Poetics of Tragedy: How to Write Risk Theatre,” providing playwrights with a comprehensive, formal analysis of the genre and a toolbox of dramaturgical strategies from which to choose. These “commonplaces” include the following features: a range of heroic types all driven by “white-hot” passions and best represented by elites since they have the most to lose; the interference of unreliable confidantes and meddlers; and dangerous, unstable environs, including, if necessary, the supernatural. As a writer, Wong’s associative style is entertaining, tempering what might appear to be an overly schematic approach. Moreover, when employing a wide range of ideas from social theory to the physical sciences to elucidate his foundational metaphor, Wong manages some impressive hypothetical risk-taking of his own. This audacity emerges most clearly in the book’s second and fourth sections in which Wong expounds on the philosophy of tragedy and galvanizes his case about risk theatre’s relevancy to modernity, respectively. For example, Wong poses an original paradigm (“the myth of the price you pay”) in which he traces how tragedy developed as a counter-force to the commodification of life via labor, when the psychic and existential dimensions of humanity such as camaraderie, desire, and honor became objects for philosophical contemplation. Tragedy, therefore, emerged when it became necessary to demonstrate that “what is worth possessing cannot be monetized” (107). Relatedly, Wong’s paradigm of “counter-monetization,” refers to the human costs of the wager depicted in tragedy—its irrevocability, gravity, and frequent culmination in death and destruction. The final, equally compelling strand of his argument surveys the time-bound parameters of tragic theories from the French Academy through Hegel and Nietzsche to arrive at our own “risk age,” in which “the scale of technology to do good or to do evil has increased, and continues to increase, by powers of ten” (262). There is much to admire in Wong’s argument, and it is remarkable how much the language of so many tragedies explicitly allude to gambling, economic costs, and risk-related values, both monetary and existential. Still, there are numerous counter-arguments advanced in the seemingly inexhaustible body of tragic theory that are noticeably absent or side-stepped in this study. For example, Wong’s opinion that the best tragic heroes come from a nobler breed legitimates the aristocratic bias rebuffed by practitioner/theorists from Lessing to Miller. Also, since he devalues the artificiality of the deus ex machina, Sophocles fares far better than Euripides, even though scholars have long argued that the latter’s subversion of tragic structure served to critique Attic social hypocrisies and cosmological fallacies. Further, feminist scholars will certainly reject the phallocentrism and linearity of what is, at base, a reformulation of Aristotelian and neoclassical models; it is noteworthy that Wong does not discuss any plays written by women. Relatedly, although Wong’s aim to rejuvenate tragic theatre is valiant, some consideration of film and, especially, any number of episodic television programs that veer towards tragedy would perfectly illustrate his parallel- and perpetual-motion categories since the cliff-hanger is predicated on temptation, wagers, and risks—and sometimes all three at once. Still, the fact that there were over three-hundred entries in the Langham Court Theatre competition in its first two years and that the top prizewinners, including most of the nine runners-up, are American suggests that risk theatre may well be a fitting response to an era in which the United States confronts improbable, (perhaps) unforeseeable, and oftentimes catastrophic events. References Footnotes About The Author(s) David Pellegrini Eastern Connecticut State University Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience: The Tourist as Actor. Jennifer A. Kokai and Tom Robson, eds. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019; Pp. 292. The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected. Edwin Wong. Victoria, Canada: Friesen Press, 2019; Pp. 363. Susan Glaspell’s Poetics and Politics of Rebellion. Emeline Jouve. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, 2017; Pp. 258. Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry. Soyica Diggs Colbert. New Haven: Yale, 2021; Pp. 273. The Mysterious Murder of Mrs. Shakespeare: Transgressive Performance in Nineteenth-Century New York “What Will Be Changed?”: Maxwell Anderson and the Literary Legacy of Sacco and Vanzetti Theatre of Isolation “A Certain Man Had Two [Kids]”: Tragic Parables, “The Prodigal Son,” and Edward Albee's The Goat “Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells [Her] Story”: An Intersectional Analysis of the Women of Hamilton Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Watch The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be by Andrea Kleine at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. In December 2020, Andrea Kleine and Bobby Previte moved into The Chocolate Factory Theater and lived alone in the pandemic-shuttered New York City venue for two weeks. They arrived with an air mattress, a toaster oven, a cooler of frozen Trader Joe’s meals, and an inflatable kiddie pool to bathe in. Every night they performed on stage for no one. Completely unscripted, the result is a hilarious and heart-breaking film about what it means to be a performer without an audience. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Andrea Kleine Theater, Documentary, Film, Performance Art This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks. About The Film Country United States Language English Running Time 82 minutes Year of Release 2022 In December 2020, Andrea Kleine and Bobby Previte moved into The Chocolate Factory Theater and lived alone in the pandemic-shuttered New York City venue for two weeks. They arrived with an air mattress, a toaster oven, a cooler of frozen Trader Joe’s meals, and an inflatable kiddie pool to bathe in. Every night they performed on stage for no one. Completely unscripted, the result is a hilarious and heart-breaking film about what it means to be a performer without an audience. A film by Andrea Kleine. Featuring Andrea Kleine and Bobby Previte as “themselves.” Music by Bobby Previte. Lighting Design by Madeline Best. Commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater with funds from the New York State Council on the Arts. Additional funds provided by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant Program. An official selection of the 2022 Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. About The Artist(s) Andrea Kleine is a performance artist and the author of the novels, CALF, a Publishers' Weekly Best Fiction Book of 2015; and EDEN, named one of "Summer's Smartest and Most Innovative Thrillers" by Vanity Fair and a finalist for a Publishing Triangle Award in LGBTQ fiction. Her work includes fiction, essays, performances, and, most recently, films. She is a five-time MacDowell fellow, a Ucross fellow, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow. Her critically acclaimed performance works have been presented extensively since the 1990s, and for which she has received numerous commissions, grants, and awards. She has been described as an "enigmatic and eccentric" (The New York Times), "brainy, allusive Downtown artist" (The Village Voice), whose work is "wry, poignant" (The New York Times), "something like genius" (ArtVoice), and “fiercely engages with the complexities of the cruelty we impose on each other as individuals and as a society” (Bomb). Get in touch with the artist(s) andrea@andreakleine.com and follow them on social media https://www.andreakleine.com , https://www.instagram.com/andreaandreakleine Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

Patrizia Paolini Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 37 2 Visit Journal Homepage How Can an Artist Respond to Censorship? The Dilemma That Faces Contemporary Creatives in the UK Patrizia Paolini By Published on July 1, 2025 Download Article as PDF In April 2023, my work became the object of censorship—both indirectly and a posteriori . The precipitating incident involved a late middle-aged male performer appearing in a vest, a pair of cowboy boots, and a slightly grubby yet arguably innocuous pair of Y-fronts. The body reveal of such a character had been carefully constructed. It was informed by an aesthetic I share with my ensemble Jesus Paolini Park (JPP), and which makes satirical and critical reference to the biased perception of female versus male and young versus senior bodies. I am a theatre and live performance practitioner who has been based in the UK since 1997. Since 2016, my practice has been linked to Hoxton Hall, an original music hall in the East End of London. At Hoxton Hall, JPP and I developed Ms. Paolini’s Phantasmagoria Cabaret , a “deconstructed cabaret” and the focus of my doctoral research on “Post-Variety & Cabaret,” a theoretical, self-made term describing what I do: a form between genres. Extracts from that work, including the “Y-fronts,” were chosen by the artist and producer Margot Przymierska for inclusion in a programme designed to animate an evening in April 2023 at the Polish Cultural Institute in London. The adverse reaction of The Polish Cultural Institute (“a part of Polish diplomatic mission, dedicated to nurturing and promoting cultural ties between the United Kingdom and Poland”) to the material contrasted strongly with Margot’s judgment and with the work’s reception at numerous showings in Hoxton Hall. It was described by the event’s organizers as “obscene.” It was claimed, by the same organizers, that it had triggered a “recurring nightmare.” The sight of a mature male in Y-fronts was labelled as indecent. As a consequence, Margot was banned from the Institute and her fee significantly reduced. The ramifications of this night, a detailed account of which appears in Cabaret and Decency: How Contemporary Definitions of Cabaret are Shaped By Censorship have not just landed me in the thick of a continually evolving debate on censorship and propelled me into wider-ranging research on the correlation between contemporary censorship and the perennial “high versus low” cultural divide in the UK,(1) but have also caused me to reflect on how the experience may resonate globally, more particularly with the readership of JADT , as well as with the wider theatrical community of the U.S. Philip Fisher’s remark that “excessive behaviour [in the U.S.] is likely to be mirrored by equivalent extremists [in the UK] before too long” prompts the question as to whether the two countries could be mirroring each other, and therefore potentially learning from each other.(2) As Arjun Appadurai’s concept of “global cultural flows” has taught us, the phenomenon of globalization means that theories and ideas are spreading worldwide, from one place to another, with ease.(3) We are both countries where free expression is supposed to be enshrined in law. As a slew of recent articles in the British press point out, in both countries, censorship is creeping in and disturbing arts and artists, causing them to wonder how, or if, to act.(4) What, if anything, can the U.S. learn from the UK? Perhaps the relevance and potential usefulness of my own experience for the American artistic community is to be found in the insights that my reflection offers and the ensuing conversations that were held, rather than in a particular strategy or solution that should be immediately adopted by artists and scholars in the U.S. Any reaction to censorship, it could be argued, is particular to the context and may be dependent on a specific funding situation. Can we afford, in other words, to speak out? As Nicholas Serota told the Financial Times , “the role of Arts Council England is to act as a protector of artistic freedom, and if we don’t have that freedom, then we move towards living in a country where liberty of both thought and voice is constrained,”(5) adding that “we see plenty of places – look at the US now – where direct funding can be withdrawn as a result of a change of government.”(6) The unexpected reaction to what I call “the Y-fronts episode” has led me, both as a researcher and practitioner, to reflect on the current dynamics of censorship in all societies and how: “What we believe about censorship often reveals how we understand society and the self.”(7) In this regard, it would be useful to summarize at the outset the salient aspects of contemporary censorship discourse centered around New Censorship Theory (NCT). In Reimagining Repression: New Censorship Theory and After , Matthew Bunn offers a critical analysis of NCT. Emerging in the latest decades of the twentieth century, NCT’s central objective has been “to recast censorship from a negative, repressive force, concerned only with prohibiting, silencing, and erasing, to a productive force that creates new forms of discourse, new forms of communication, and new genres of speech.”(8) Bunn argues that in this way the controlling effect of censorship [conceived to prevent offences] has been shifted from state control of production and distribution [of speech], onto self-censorship and its dependence on the “market.” It is my hope that by raising questions and offering reflections, the conversations that follow with fellow practitioners and professionals will draw attention to the current censorship discourse and its significance to practitioners and the wider sector. The interviewees introduced below were each asked about censorship as part of the process of my questioning about what actually happened on that April evening in 2023.(9) TESTIMONIES The interviewees responded identically to two aspects of the subject.(10) Firstly, the word “censorship” itself provoked a whole series of hesitations: “Oh! Umm…”, “Oh, dear!”, “Umm!”, “Well... in which sense?”, “Really?”, “Hemm!” and “What do you mean?” This unanimous reaction to the term suggests censorship is not an appealing subject for discussion. Secondly, none of the interviewees were familiar with NCT. Both these reactions seem to indicate that arts professionals in the UK are reluctant to engage with notions of contemporary censorship. While leaving it to the reader to consider the questions that could follow on from this initial observation, it seems significant to note that, before proceeding with the interviews, I received the distinct impression that censorship was not their favourite subject. Interviewees were all asked identical questions. Rather than transcribe the full interview of each interviewee, I report each interviewee’s most distinctive approach to the issue. I have grouped together those who shared the same approach and highlighted similar and contrasting views. Benevolent Approach Expressed no concerns about censorship. John Callaghan British musician, writer, and performance artist. PATRIZIA: Have you ever been censored? JOHN: I don't think my stuff is susceptible to censorship, particularly because…I'm not swearing. I'm not attacking any particular government. I'm just being me.(11) Kieron Jecchinis Classically trained English actor. Graduated from Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1979. Film: Full Metal Jacket (1987). Theatre: West End. Member of JPP ensemble, played Y-front character. PATRIZIA: What do you think about censorship? KIERON: When I go and see some theatre I just find it so refreshing. You just think. Oh, ****. They can say that! And to be able to say that…it's just so affirming. PATRIZIA: …And the Y-Fronts? You’ve become a recurring nightmare to some staff. KIERON: I think there must have been some misunderstanding between the Institute and Margot.(12) Sarcastic Approach Approached the conversation with sarcasm. Margot Przymierska Performer, writer, facilitator and creative producer born in Białystok (Poland) and based in London (UK). Producer of PolBud Cabaret, commissioned by Polish Cultural Institute, leading up to the indirect and a posteriori censorship April 2023 . PATRIZIA: Do you think it makes sense to implement censorship in whatever capacity? MARGOT: …it makes complete sense to have censorship if you want to own the narrative or perspective on a particular thing. And if you want to silence the artist, maybe all the voices that disagree with your point of view. So it's a very useful tool. And, less sarcastically, MARGOT: I think if you want to have censorship, you have to put in place a clear mechanism. As Margot, was the direct recipient of the Y-fronts a posteriori censorship, our conversation expanded: PATRIZIA: What do you think about how the Polish Cultural Institute treated you? MARGOT: A real exercise of power and authority…they needed to appear like they're taking the complaints from the audience members seriously and they have to show to them that they have punished the person who's responsible … They told me – “You breached the contract…if I went to you and I've ordered something and you gave me a different product, you wouldn't have a leg to stand on. We would then refer to that contract. Like we didn't order this.” – Yeah, but, I don't make sausages in Tesco.(13) You cannot order something off the shelf because it doesn't exist. I'm making it fresh, fresh performance and it's not as finite as a sausage.(14) Reactionary Approach Strongly disapprove of censorship. Claire and Roland Muldoon Artists, entrepreneurs, partners in work and in life. Core members of CAST (Cartoon Archetypical Slogan Theatre), UK counterculture and alternative comedy pioneers. PATRIZIA: NCT sees censorship as a positive tool to be used in society, as it facilitates the best way of expressing something without offending anyone… CLAIRE (in a gentle yet direct manner): It can hurt…It hurts people who are the right people to hurt. It is important to express what has to be expressed. ROLAND: I can't imagine it [NCT] working, really. Referring to their long career: PATRIZIA: So, you really were quite troublemakers? ROLAND and CLAIR (finishing each other’s sentence): Oh yeah, usually yeah. Performing, I mean, what else is there? Otherwise there is no point … that's the function (of performing) otherwise…You know, it turns into Hollywood.(15) Subtle, Necessary Approach The following interviewees are both heads of arts and cultural organizations. Stuart Cox Current director of Hoxton Hall, the music hall in Shoreditch, London, originated in 1838, and which has hosted my work since 2016 . PATRIZIA: Since state censorship had been abolished (in the UK), in 1968, who should decide how to control expression these days? STUART: You have to do it….Or the audience will let you know…the artist has to be cautious and question very honestly what might be the impact of their work. PATRIZIA: How do you approach circumstances related to censorship in your role as chief director of Hoxton Hall? STUART: … that basically is my role, in every aspect. So like you know … Do I pay this person this amount of money? What's the impact of that? Do I take this piece on? What's the impact of that? I'm looking at this piece and I see something that had caused me a worry about whether that is right…I have to really think about the decision around things, and that includes why you're telling a person they can't do that at this stage and just be very…true to who you are and those decisions…And I think I would hope that always when I'm facing those decisions, I try to do it with thought. And consider everyone in that process. Inspired by the Muldoon’s opposing view, I say: PATRIZIA: Maybe, rightly or wrongly, I'm sure, it may happen that there may be the need to…or maybe the feeling that it would be right… like we need and want to “break” something. They, the artist wants to do something that…it is a risk because it could…in fact, offend somebody, because it may be important to do so… STUART: You know, I get what you're saying. But…I still think that you have to kind of talk to everyone. You kind of like involve the artists themselves in this conversation…There has to be, I think…to move on something in the centre…and then make the kind of decision about that … In a positive way…(16) Karena Johnson Former Artistic Director and CEO of Hoxton Hall. Since 2022 Head of Creative Collaboration & Learning at the Barbican.(17) PATRIZIA: What’s your thought about current censorship? KARENA: I think it's a tricky time … the Internet and all that … although we might be in a live performance space, actually we still work within a digital landscape and the digital world allows you to say anything you want uncensored. And so the idea that you can behave as you would digitally in real life is not really … A tenable thing to do. PATRIZIA: Did you ever have to enforce censorship? KARENA: I think no, I've never really had to censor anything. Because, I think the work finds the audience that it speaks to… no one is going to come and pitch me something that’s going to be, like racist or sexist or homophobic, because all the organisations I've ever worked in are very clear about that and my politics have aligned very clearly with those institutions. However, it's only in bigger institutions … It's because of visibility. It has other things to deal with like, you know, like funders, like sponsors, like patrons ... Yeah. And I think that conversation, comes up when you have to deal with the bigger institutions... PATRIZIA: Who exercises control, censorship these days? Institutions or culture itself? KARENA: Yeah … big institutions, maybe are controlling or looking after or leading their culture, having different level of responsibility than you do when you've got a fringe venue … Also, I think that there's a very big difference between what an institution and what and artist might think is censorship or not. Is censorship saying you can't do that thing? Maybe, … or … It's not for me. I would say that's just a choice. But for the individual artist … [it] is important … that nobody should ever say no, and that if you're saying no, it's censorship. But I don't think that is actually censorship.(18) Within the industry, Cox’s and Johnson’s professional roles differ from the other interviewees (all artists), in that they operate in a realm between artists and institutions. This seems to influence their similar approach to censorship. To counterbalance the Cox-Johnson approach, we’ll look at another professional in a leading role at a cultural organization: Will Gompertz. The former artistic director of the Barbican Cantre and a former BBC arts editor clarifies his position on censorship by identifying “cancel culture as the greatest challenge facing the arts.”(19) In an interview in Prospect magazine, he responds to the question “What is the greatest challenge facing the arts industry today?” by saying: … it has to be cancel culture. The purpose of the arts is to question, challenge, reflect and enlighten. Great art reveals a truth, and debate and disagreement about the nature of that truth is a function of art. But such is the rallying power of social media, debate is being stifled by self-censorship and fear of disagreeing with the prevailing orthodoxy. Previous generations have fought hard for free speech; so must we.(20) Gompertz held his position as director of the Barbican Centre, from 2021 to autumn 2023. His appointment and resignation were surrounded by controversy. The beginning of his time at the Barbican, when the Centre was dealing with serious accusations of racism within the organization coincided with the need of a “long journey of cultural change at the Barbican”(21) as indicated by The City.(22) Dex reports: “The Centre’s director of Arts and Learning, former Tate and BBC man Will Gompertz, has been hastily elevated to ‘joint interim managing director’”, which lead to Gompertz’s final appointment as artistic director. Shortly before his departure, the Barbican cancelled Resolve Collective’s exhibition in the wake of “anti-Palestinian censorship.”(23) As reported, collective artist Yto Barrada’s statement, “We cannot take seriously a public institution that does not hold a space for free thinking and debate, however challenging it might feel to some staff, board members, or anxious politicians,”(24) indicates the complexity of the event. In a joint statement with Claire Spencer, Gompertz said: “During the run of their exhibition, Resolve Collective and their collaborators have been subject to a number of unacceptable experiences...…we are taking this situation extremely seriously and are currently working with the broader Barbican team to understand the details of what happened.”(25) A few months later Will Gompertz left the Barbican Centre for a much less prestigious position. Official declarations on the reasons for his sudden departure are unavailable. Gompertz’s relevance to this observation is his clear position on censorship, as reported by Prospect in 2023, a position not commonly shared or expressed by people of his profile. Coincidently, Will Gompertz, with the aim of making the Barbican a more inclusive and diverse center for art, education and enterprise, created the position of Head of Creative Collaboration & Learning at the Barbican to which the last interviewee, Karena Johnson, was appointed. Conclusion By bringing together the interviewees’ testimonies, this piece has raised several questions. On the one hand, we have The Muldoons encouraging a self-censorship that aims to protect the “trouble making” nature of the material; “otherwise there is no point.” On the other hand, we have Cox insisting on the importance of self-censorship as a way of being in control of the impact of what the practitioner says, in respect of all involved. Consequently, self-censorship could promote or have an adverse effect on what would be expected to be a controlled outcome. Is it possible, then, contra NCT, that what is called self-censorship could promote unwanted reactions? As a practitioner, it seems necessary to remark on the noticeable division between the Cox-Johnson approach and that of the other interviewees. The preoccupations and responsibilities of heads of arts and culture organizations seem closely correlated with the person in charge of these organizations. Gompertz’s case is a good example of the complexity of control at that level. The Y-fronts episode has unveiled artists’ inability to predict all possible reactions to their work. Also, applying self-censorship could paralyse the artist’s practice altogether if all possible offences should be considered by the artist. The vivid testimony of the final interviewee would perfectly elucidate my thinking. Factual Approach Ridiculusmus A multi award-winning theatre company led by David Woods and Jon Haynes that has been producing seriously funny theatre since 1992. PATRIZIA: What do you think about the Y-fronts episode? And what about censorship currently defined by NCT? JON: It makes me think about a walkabout act David and I did in Dublin in the 1990s. I think he’d nicked the idea from somewhere else. We walked through the streets following each other, joined by a rope tied in a noose around each of our necks. It seemed to be going well. Then a woman sidled up to me and said, “I find what you’re doing offensive because my brother committed suicide the other week.” How could you have applied NCT to that? Just not to have done the act, I suppose. One has to go about one’s practice under the assumption that with anything you do there is always going to be someone somewhere who will find what you do offensive (“And not in a good way,” as the saying goes). But then, following on from that, there will always be someone somewhere who finds the watered down, safe and possibly more insipid version of your original (or nicked) idea offensive as well. Which means that in the end you’re frozen and can’t do anything.(26) References Patrizia Paolini, “How Contemporary Definitions of Cabaret are Shaped by Censorship,” Comedy Studies 16, no. 1 (2025): 118-133. Philip Fisher, “Censorship Rears its Ugly Head”, British Theatre Guide , February 17, 2023, accessed June 4, 2025. https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/features/censorship-rears-its-ugly-head-592 . Arjun Appadurai. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”. Theory, Culture & Society 7, no. 2-3 (1990): 296. Natasha Tripney, “Cancel Cultures: Theatre Censorship Around the World”, The Stage , March 8, 2024, accessed June 3, 2025, https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/cancel-cultures-theatre-censorship-around-the-world ; Lyn Gardner, “How Will Artistic Freedom Endure as Political Tides Shift?” The Stage , April 28, 2025, accessed June 3, 2025, https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/how-will-artistic-freedom-endure-as-political-tides-shift-arts-council-lyn-gardner ; Kate Maltby, “Artistic Freedom in our Theatres is Being Lost to Fear and Self-Censorship,”’ The Guardian , October 12, 2024 accessed June 3, 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/12/artistic-freedom-in-theatres-lost-to-fear-self-censorship . Arts Council England is a UK government-funded body. Founded in 1994, it is dedicated to promoting the performing, visual and literary arts in England. Nicholas Serota, quoted in Franklin Nelson, “Axing Arts Quangos Risks ‘Liberty of Thought’ Says Nicholas Serota,” Financial Times , April 18, 2025, accessed June 4, 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/4229bcfe-80a4-4a62-b5f8-ec8f11d99976 . Matthew Bunn, “Reimagining Repression: New Censorship Theory and After,” History and Theory 54, no. 1 (2015): 29. Bunn, “Reimagining Repression: New Censorship Theory and After,” 26. The interviews were conducted in accordance with the ethical requirements put in place by the University of Kent. The interviews included in this essay were conducted with ethical approval through the University of Kent, UK. Each participant provided written consent for their names and interview contributions to be published in this essay. John Callaghan, interview by Patrizia Paolini, August 27, 2024 Kieron Jecchinis, interview by Patrizia Paolini, December 7, 2023 A renowned UK superstore. Margot Przymierska, interview by Patrizia Paolini, October 8, 2023. Claire and Roland Muldoon, interview by Patrizia Paolini, August 28, 2024. Stuart Cox, interview by Patrizia Paolini, November 3, 2023. The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London. It is owned, funded, and managed by the City of London Corporation. Karena Johnson, interview by Patrizia Paolini, February 2, 2024. Harriet Sherwood, “Will Gompertz to Become Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum,” Guardian , August 4, 2023, accessed November 20, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/04/will-gompertz-to-become-director-of-sir-john-soanes-museum . Prospect Team, “Will Gompertz: Cancel Culture is Stifling the Arts,” Prospect , May 10, 2023, accessed November 19, 2024, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/music/61326/will-gompertz-barbican-cancel-culture-arts . Robert Dex, “Racism Row at the Barbican - How Did It Start and What Happens Next?,” Evening Standard , November 15, 2021, accessed November 19, 2024, https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/racism-row-barbican-centre-what-happens-next-b966025.html . The City of London Corporation is the governing body of the Square Mile, dedicated to a vibrant and thriving City. The Barbican Centre is in part of this governing body. Garreth Harris. 2023. “Barbican Exhibition Cancelled in Wake of 'Anti-Palestinian Censorship' Row,” The Art Magazine , June 23, 2023, accessed November 19, 2024, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/06/22/barbican-exhibition-cancelled-in-wake-of-anti-palestinian-censorship-row . Lanre Bakare, “Two Artists Withdraw Work from Barbican Show in Row Over Gaza Talk,” Guardian, March 8, 2024, accessed November 19, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/08/two-artists-withdraw-work-from-barbican-show-in-row-over-gaza-talk . Garreth Harris, “Barbican Exhibition Cancelled in Wake of ‘Anti-Palestinian Censorship’ Row,” The Art Magazine , June 23, 2023, accessed November 18, 2024, https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/06/22/barbican-exhibition-cancelled-in-wake-of-anti-palestinian-censorship-row . Ridiculusmus, Jon Haynes, and David Woods, interview by Patrizia Paolini, November 28, 2023. Bibliography Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy”. Theory, Culture & Society 7, no. 2-3 (1990): 295–310. Bakare, Lanre. “Two Artists Withdraw Work from Barbican Show in Row Over Gaza Talk.” Guardian , 8 March 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/08/two-artists-withdraw-work-from-barbican-show-in-row-over-gaza-talk . Bunn, Matthew. “Reimagining Repression: New Censorship Theory and After.” History and Theory 54, no. 1 (2015): 25-44. Callaghan, John. “On Contemporary Censorship.” Interview with author, 27 August 2024. Cox, Stuart. “On Contemporary Censorship.” Interview with author, 3 November 2023. Dex, Robert. “Racism Row at the Barbican - How Did It Start and What Happens Next?’. Evening Standard , 15 November 2021. https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/racism-row-barbican-centre-what-happens-next-b966025.html . Fisher, Philip. “Censorship Rears its Ugly Head.” British Theatre Guide . 17 February 2023. https://www.britishtheatreguide.info/features/censorship-rears-its-ugly-head-592 . Gardner, Lyn. “How will artistic freedom endure as political tides shift?” The Stage . 28th April 2025. https://www.thestage.co.uk/opinion/how-will-artistic-freedom-endure-as-political-tides-shift-arts-council-lyn-gardner . Harris, Garreth. “Barbican Exhibition Cancelled in Wake of ‘Anti-Palestinian Censorship’ Row.” The Art Magazine , 23 June 2023. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/06/22/barbican-exhibition-cancelled-in-wake-of-anti-palestinian-censorship-row . Jecchinis, Kieron. “On Contemporary Censorship.” Interview with author, 7 December 2023. Johnson, Karena. “On Contemporary Censorship.” Interview with author, 2 February 2024. Itzin, Catherine. “CAST (Cartoon Archetypical Slogan Theatre).” In Stages in the Revolution , Routledge, 1980 Maltby, Kate. “Artistic freedom in our theatres is being lost to fear and self-censorship”. The Guardian . 12th October 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/12/artistic-freedom-in-theatres-lost-to-fear-self-censorship . Muldoon, Claire, and Roland Muldoon. “On Contemporary Censorship.” Interview with author, 28 August 2024. Nelson, Franklin. “Axing Arts Quangos Risks ‘Liberty of Thought’ Says Nicholas Serota.” Financial Times , 18 April 2025. https://www.ft.com/content/4229bcfe-80a4-4a62-b5f8-ec8f11d99976 . Paolini, Patrizia. “Cabaret and Decency: How Contemporary Definitions of Cabaret are Shaped by Censorship.” Comedy Studies 16 (2024): 118-133. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2040610X.2024.2404298?src= Prospect Team. “Will Gompertz: Cancel Culture is Stifling the Arts.” Prospect , 10 May 2023. https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/music/61326/will-gompertz-barbican-cancel-culture-arts . Przymierska, Margot. “On Contemporary Censorship.” Interview with author, 8 October 2023. Ridiculusmus, Jon Haynes, and David Woods. “On Contemporary Censorship.” Interview with author, 28 November 2023. Sherwood, Harriet. “Will Gompertz to Become Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum.” Guardian, 4 August 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/04/will-gompertz-to-become-director-of-sir-john-soanes-museum . Tripney, Natasha. “Cancel Cultures: Theatre Censorship Around the World.” The Stage , 8 March 2024. https://www.thestage.co.uk/long-reads/cancel-cultures-theatre-censorship-around-the-world . Footnotes About The Author(s) PATRIZIA PAOLINI (she/her) is a theatre maker and live performance practitioner with over twenty-five years’ experience. Currently, she is working on a practice-based research PhD project, ‘Post Variety & Cabaret,’ at The University of Kent. Her broad career includes many original productions and collaborations. Since 1999, she has been an associate of Ridiculusmus, the award-winning theatre company that has produced, among other acclaimed works, The Eradication of Schizophrenia in Western Lapland . Since 2016, her deconstructed cabaret, Ms. Paolini’s Phantasmagoria Cabaret, has been regularly programmed at Hoxton Hall, London. Her practice is the invaluable, rich terrain, base of her research which focuses on popular performance, the ‘high - low’ cultural divide, and social class dominance’s dynamics. Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Censorship/Public Censure and Performance Today: Special Issue Introduction Remembering Censorship in the World Premiere of Seán O’Casey’s The Drums of Father Ned: Lafayette, Indiana, 1959 The Stage as Networked Battleground: Dissent and Censorship in Contemporary Canadian Theatre and Performance Censor/Censure: A Roundtable Which of These Are Censorship? The Divide Between Prior Restraint and Soft Censorship How Can an Artist Respond to Censorship? The Dilemma That Faces Contemporary Creatives in the UK The LGBTQ+ Artists Archive Project: A Roundtable Conversation Life is Drag: Documenting Spectacle as Resistance An Interview with Rachel Rampleman Middle Eastern American Theatre: Communities, Cultures, and Artists. Michael Malek Najjar. Critical Companions Series. London: Methuen Drama, 2021; Pp. xvi + 237. Lessons from Our Students: Meditations on Performance Pedagogy. Stacey Cabaj and Andrea Odinov. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 126 Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene. Angenette Spalink. Studies in Theatre, Ecology, and Performance Series, no. 3. New York: Routledge, 2024; Pp. 116. Fauci and Kramer Our Town Frankenstein Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Shauna Vey Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 32 1 Visit Journal Homepage Staging Family: Domestic Deceptions of Mid-Nineteenth Century American Actresses Shauna Vey By Published on November 6, 2019 Download Article as PDF Staging Family: Domestic Deceptions of Mid-Nineteenth Century American Actresses. Nan Mullenneaux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2018; Pp. 400. In Staging Family: Domestic Deceptions of Mid-Nineteenth Century American Actresses, Nan Mullenneaux looks at significant figures of American theatre in a new way. From actresses active on the US stage in the mid-nineteenth century, she has selected those whose words remain in published memoirs, press interviews, or private correspondence. A comparison of their extant writings to the known facts of their lives reveals numerous deceptions, both large and small, by the actress-authors. What were they trying to hide? Mullenneaux organizes her interdisciplinary study around themes that emerge in the writings including motherhood, beginning a career, theatre work, family, moral refinement, marriage, mobility, and patriotism. Although each women’s experience is idiosyncratic, their tales coalesce into a fascinating picture of one cohort’s experience of, and reaction to, being a working woman of the American stage between 1830 and 1870. Virtually every aspect of these actresses’ lives put them at odds with nineteenth-century ideals, as the book argues. They worked, conducting business and exercising agency, while an “ideal” woman was dependent and docile. They continually traveled when it was generally accepted that a woman’s proper sphere was the home, and they sought acclaim when motherhood was considered a woman’s highest calling. In other words, their careers and life choices “threatened … the prescriptive gender roles” of the day (292). What Mullenneaux exposes in these proto-feminists is an unwillingness to claim their heterodox identities. Instead, in writings that adopt a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do approach, the actress-authors strove to disguise themselves as non-ambitious, patriotic homebodies. According to their self-reports, as Mullenneaux notes, none of these actresses entered the theatre ambitious for fame. Of course not. Only an urgent calling to rescue destitute fathers (or other kin) forced these dutiful women from the warmth of the hearth to the glow of the footlights. As we read multiple versions of this tale — from Fanny Kemble, Anna Cora Mowatt, Charlotte Cushman, Olive Logan, Mrs. Charles Calvert, Clara Morris, Kitty Blanchard, and others — the constructed nature of the actress persona becomes self-evident. Mullenneaux contrasts this assemblage of female testimony with that of contemporaneous male actors who readily claimed talent and ambition as their motivation. Mullenneaux seals her argument by introducing contradictory facts from the biographies of her female subjects. A particularly compelling instance is the collision between Laura Keene’s personal life and the nine-year legal battle she waged over intellectual property rights to Our American Cousin . Mullenneaux argues that Keene ultimately withdrew the suit for fear that testimony would “unmask her domestic deception” (290). Never having divorced her first husband, Keene had presented their children as orphaned nieces while covertly cohabitating with her business manager. Mullenneaux’s insightful analysis of the barely-averted scandal illuminates a larger history. While the pre-copyright entertainment industry was being modernized by the long-running single-play format, legal restrictions still prevented a woman, even a savvy business manager, from testifying in court. In addition to presenting themselves as ideal mothers and wives, this nineteenth-century cohort needed to appear all-American. Hence, they masked their origins and international travels with an aggressive patriotism that fit the age of nation-building and celebrated refined whiteness. Olive Logan supported the “looming genocide against the Native Americans” (158); Fanny Kemble described the black population of New York as “beyond description, grotesques” (156); and in Egypt, Rose Eytinge contrasted the subjugation of women in that “heathen territory” with the American woman “born and reared in freedom,” blithely glossing over millions of enslaved women in the US (156-7). Mullenneaux allows that “conformity to white supremacist views” may have been sincere, but might also have enacted a strategy for social acceptance (156-8). The book briefly discusses the African Grove actresses and some touring singers, highlighting that few non-white women had opportunities for acting careers in this era; Mullenneaux notes that no members of her cohort evidenced concern over this racial exclusion. By the mid-nineteenth century, actresses were often using photography for publicity and Mullenneaux’s astute analysis of their poses and costuming (and the commonalities among them) enhances the book. Another useful asset is an appendix with short biographies of sixty-five actresses mentioned in the text. The author’s choices of actresses give her work both focus and limitations. The women discussed do not represent a cross-section in any scientific sense, but rather the availability of documentation. Thus, the more verbose ladies-in-print, notably Clara Morris, Rose Eytinge and Olive Logan, dominate the conversation. We cannot guess how representative they were, but Mullenneaux is resourceful in seeking evidence and expands her cohort when she can. Furthermore, while she notes the difference between a memoir published at career’s launch and one written after decades in the public eye, she doesn’t adequately factor their differences into her analysis. The plays written by these actresses are also missed opportunities for additional insights. A closer focus on the women’s’ chronological relation to one another would be useful, and the book index should include entries for patriotism, photography, slavery, and each actress discussed. However, the book’s critical strategy is also its major strength. By examining the actresses’ own verbal and visual choices, Mullenneaux restores to them a degree of the agency they sought to obscure. Their biographies attest to their talent and courage; the accumulated evidence of their deceptions convincingly reveals the absolute and unforgiving nature of the gender-based strictures under which they labored. Each woman seems to have independently reached the same conclusion: violating the code would end career and livelihood. How they maneuvered is appropriate reading for an age when working women still face a constellation of questions about when, where, and if to compromise in order to persevere. Staging Family’s dense, panoramic depiction of the era is a treat for theatre historians and nineteenth-century scholars. The focal actresses are situated within the web of familial and professional interconnections that constituted the period’s theatre industry. Over the course of this book, we repeatedly cross paths with individuals as they might have crossed paths with each other. Ultimately, Mullenneaux paints a latitudinal picture, thoroughly contextualized and packed with detail. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Shauna Vey New York City College of Technology City University of New York Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity Black Movements: Performance and Cultural Politics Law and Sexuality in Tennessee Williams’s America Stolen Time: Black Fad Performance and the Calypso Craze Staging Family: Domestic Deceptions of Mid-Nineteenth Century American Actresses Excavating American Theatrical History: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Neighbors, Appropriate, and An Octoroon Mabou Mines Tries Again: Past, Present, and the Purgatory of Performance Space Rehearsing Bereavement with Laughter: Grief, Humor, and Estrangement Affect in Sarah Ruhl’s Plays of Mourning Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Courtney Ferriter Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 31 1 Visit Journal Homepage Are We “Citizens”? Tony Kushner’s Deweyan Democratic Vision in Angels in America Courtney Ferriter By Published on November 8, 2018 Download Article as PDF In his recent book Democracy in Black (2016), Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. argues that for Americans, “collective forgetting is crucial in determining the kind of story we tell ourselves. Ours is the chosen nation, the ‘shining city upon a hill,’ as Ronald Reagan called it. America is democracy. . . . To believe this, we have to forget and willfully ignore what is going on around us.” [1] While Glaude is particularly concerned with the distortions and fairy tales Americans continue to tell ourselves about race, Tony Kushner’s epic two-part play Angels in America tackles this same theme of conveniently forgetting and willfully ignoring so as not to disrupt the American self-image with respect to sexual orientation and the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play received much acclaim from critics and scholars alike for many years following its initial publication—resulting in initial runs on Broadway and the National Theatre in London in 1992-1993 and an award-winning 2003 HBO mini-series starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, and Emma Thompson—but more recently, it seems to have fallen out of favor among scholars, despite a successful 2010 revival at the Signature Theatre and a 2017 production at the National Theatre that transferred to Broadway in February 2018. Indeed, many (although not all) scholarly articles that discuss Kushner and Angels in recent years focus on how AIDS functions in the play, [2] with scant consideration of Kushner’s portrayal of democracy. I argue that Kushner is especially relevant in the socio-historical moment in which Americans currently find ourselves—one marked by political polarization and distrust of those who think differently than we do. The 2016 election was symptomatic of these problems and brought them into full view for any who still harbored doubts about how deep this divide runs, but Kushner’s play proves instructive for how to build an engaged democratic citizenry. In the epilogue to Part Two of Angels in America , Prior leaves the audience with an optimistic vision for the future, stating, “The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.” [3] He then offers a blessing of “more life,” and the play concludes with the same phrase that appears at the end of Part One: “The Great Work Begins” ( Perestroika , 146). As David Kornhaber has observed, many scholars and critics are dissatisfied with the play’s conclusion due to “the reconciliationist politics it seems to espouse,” [4] which for them provides “a too-easy gloss on more intractable problems” [5] that continue to plague society. Thus, Kornhaber reasons, “a lot must depend on how one figures what seem to be the two key concepts of Kushner’s conclusion: citizen and blessing.” [6] Like Kornhaber, I believe that individual understanding of the term “citizens” as well as broader notions of what constitutes citizenship figure heavily in interpretation of both the epilogue and Angels as a whole. Furthermore, I contend that Kushner’s idea of citizenship is necessarily linked to the beginning of the “Great Work” invoked at the end of both parts of the play. In Angels , “citizens” are those who are part of a Deweyan community, made up of diverse people with sometimes conflicting opinions who listen to each other and who are nonetheless connected by their desire to enact positive change in the world, to progress toward a more ideal and inclusive democracy. This is what Prior (and by extension, Kushner) means by “Great Work.” Individualism and undemocratic communication—represented by Roy Cohn and Joe Pitt—fall away by the end of Angels in America , making room for what Atsushi Fujita calls a “a new model of community,” [7] consisting of Belize, Hannah, Louis, and Prior, who value inclusivity and democratic communication. John Dewey argues in Freedom and Culture (1939) for a distinction between “society” and “community.” Society arises from the politics of individual nations, how a particular country governs, and what policies are enforced, whereas community is unrestricted and made up of individuals or groups who share a common solidarity. He explains, “[F]or a number of persons to form anything that can be called a community in its pregnant sense there must be values prized in common. Without them, any so-called social group, class, people, nation, tends to fall apart into molecules having but mechanically enforced connections with one another.” [8] Thus, for Dewey, one characteristic of community lies in shared values. Furthermore, Dewey adds democratic communication to his idea of community, arguing that “there is a difference between a society, in the sense of an association, and a community. . . . Natural associations are conditions for the existence of a community, but a community adds the function of communication in which emotions and ideas are shared as well as joint undertaking engaged in.” [9] In the case of Americans, our joint undertaking is the democratic experiment, and for this reason, we should likewise strive to embody democratic ideals of communication. In the vein of Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy, Kushner emphasizes the importance of inclusive, democratic community in Angels in America . The play models Deweyan communities while also highlighting models that are anti-Deweyan: there is no great community—no solidarity between different groups of Americans—and thus, there is no realized democracy. Kushner writes in the Afterword to Perestroika that Americans “pay high prices for maintaining the myth of the Individual,” [10] which he contrasts with the idea that “the smallest indivisible human unit is two people, not one; one is a fiction.” [11] This juxtaposition of individualism with community, illustrated in the play by Roy and Joe as opposed to the community envisioned in the epilogue, is central to Kushner’s understanding of democratic progress and what it means to be a citizen. Some leftist critics may bemoan the ending of Angels as “turn[ing] away from the kind of collective action demanded by Marx and staged by Brecht,” [12] but as Hussein Al-Badri has observed, the play’s main flaw in this regard is merely presenting “a different politic[s] than its detractors would like it to be.” [13] Kushner is ultimately more concerned with how to enact Deweyan democracy and community—which he believes will lead to real and lasting social change—than he is with envisioning an America based around socialism or Marxism. In recent years, John Dewey’s notions of community and his pedagogy have come under scrutiny from critics who rightly cite the ethnocentrism that undergirds much of his early philosophy in these matters. [14] Thomas Fallace notes that because pragmatism is “a self-correcting theory of knowledge,” [15] by 1916, Dewey understood that “a plurality of cultures was necessary for democratic living and intellectual growth.” [16] Nevertheless, Fallace argues, “ethnocentrism was built right into Dewey’s early pedagogy and philosophy.” [17] This ethnocentrism troubles Dewey’s notion of community; he conceived of community as “not merely a variety of associative ties which hold persons together in diverse ways, but an organization of all elements by an integrated principle.” [18] If Dewey believed that white people represented a more advanced form of civilization that people of color had not yet achieved, then how would it be possible to form a community in which “all elements” are organized by the same principle? As Glaude has noted, democracy for Dewey “is a form of life that requires constant attention if we are to secure the ideals that purportedly animate it.” [19] Likewise, Scott Stroud emphasizes that a “real amount of openness is implicated in the [pragmatist] habits of democracy.” [20] In other words, democracy is a process, one which must continually be reexamined to ensure that we are increasing democracy and participation among citizens, creating a more inclusive community rather than excluding or marginalizing certain voices, as Dewey was guilty of doing in his early career. As Dewey himself put it, “only when we start from a community as a fact, grasp the fact in thought so as to clarify and enhance its constituent elements, can we reach an idea of democracy which is not [merely] utopian.” [21] One particular benefit to considering the vision of Deweyan community and democracy in Kushner’s Angels is that, several generations removed from Dewey, he is interested in how to incorporate citizens from different backgrounds with vastly different life experiences into the great community Dewey envisioned, particularly African Americans and people who identify as queer. Thus, Kushner’s reexamination of community and inclusive democracy as demonstrated in Angels is itself pragmatic in its consideration of the conditions and context of American life and democracy in the 1980s and ‘90s, revising Dewey’s idea of community by incorporating more and varied groups and voices into it. Fallace argues that an important part of Dewey’s pragmatism was context: “all knowledge was context-bound; it served a purpose in a particular situation and its usefulness was dependent upon that context.” [22] Kushner speaks to a particular historical moment in his work on community, examining the anxieties and shortcomings of American democracy in light of black/white and gay/straight relations. Thus, reading Kushner as a pragmatist increases our understanding of what an ideal community might look like, taking into account the experiences of those who are often pushed to the margins of society by the not-so-silent majority. A consideration of how Kushner treated the power disparities he observed at work in society may also prove instructive for how the U.S. might address current forms of oppression and marginalization in society. I argue in the remainder of this essay that the “Great Work” to which Kushner refers at the end of both Millennium Approaches and Perestroika is, in part, a call to the greater democratic community reflected in the play’s epilogue, which is championed over the closed views of community embodied in Roy Cohn and Joe Pitt. Kushner’s vision of Deweyan community emphasizes inclusion and listening to marginal voices, for characters in Angels in America who ignore the voices of the other do so at their peril. Roy Cohn and Joe Pitt are representative of undemocratic communication in the play—Roy because he dominates those around him, and Joe because he cannot be truthful with others or see beyond himself. Dewey writes that in a democracy, “both parties learn by giving the other a chance to express itself, instead of having one party conquer by forceful suppression of the other.” [23] For Roy, suppression of the other in communication is par for the course. One early example of this occurs in Act One, Scene 9 of Millennium Approaches when Roy’s doctor Henry diagnoses him with AIDS. Roy then tries to force Henry to call him a homosexual, finally threatening, “No, say it. I mean it. Say: ‘Roy Cohn, you are a homosexual.’ And I will proceed, systematically, to destroy your reputation and your practice and your career in New York State, Henry. Which you know I can do” ( Millennium , 44). When Henry gives him the diagnosis of AIDS, Roy counters, “No, Henry, no. AIDS is what homosexuals have. I have liver cancer” ( Millennium , 46). Roy forcefully suppresses Henry from telling anyone that Roy is gay by threatening his career, and he even manages to suppress the diagnosis of AIDS. The next time Henry appears is in Perestroika to facilitate Roy’s admission to the hospital, where even his medical charts, as Belize reads them, say “liver cancer” ( Perestroika , 21). Roy’s relationship with his nurse Belize in Perestroika is similarly domineering, as Roy makes racist and homophobic remarks, goads Belize into using an anti-Semitic slur in one scene, knocks over pills he is supposed to take, and generally proves to be an insufferable patient. Roy also makes it clear that even though he is somewhat dependent on Belize, he does not consider him an equal in any way. Bemoaning his imminent disbarment in Act Four, Scene 1 of Perestroika , Roy says, “Every goddam thing I ever wanted they have taken from me. Mocked and reviled, all my life” ( Perestroika , 87). When Belize identifies and responds, “Join the club” ( Perestroika , 87). Roy says, “I don’t belong to any club you could get through the front door of. You watch yourself you take too many liberties” ( Perestroika , 87). Shortly after Roy has a series of violent spasms, Belize says that he almost feels sorry for him. Roy is quick to remind him, “You. Me. No. Connection” ( Perestroika , 88). Thus, Roy suppresses Belize any time Belize attempts to identify with him in the slightest. If democracy is characterized in part by open communication, then Roy’s constant desire to “win” or conquer in conversations with others exposes him as a totalitarian at heart. Roy’s totalitarian communication is a natural result of his individualism. He relishes his status as “the dragon atop the golden horde” ( Perestroika , 55), maintaining that “Life is full of horror; nobody escapes; nobody; save yourself. Whatever pulls on you, whatever needs from you, threatens you” ( Millennium , 58). This philosophy clearly runs counter to Kushner’s belief in the smallest indivisible unit as two people. Nevertheless, Kushner includes Roy in the play, explaining in an interview that he is “a part of the gay and lesbian community even if we don’t really want him to be a part of our community.” [24] This indicates a capacity for inclusivity in his democratic vision that Roy himself disdains in the play. This inclusive community is similarly emphasized when Louis, aided by the ghost of Ethel Rosenberg, recites the Mourner’s Kaddish for Roy, thus accepting him into the greater Jewish community of which they are part (albeit in death). While Joe is not like Roy in his communication in the sense that he has to win or dominate others in conversation, his general dishonesty and unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions make him undemocratic in his dealings with other characters in the play. Kushner has sometimes been criticized in scholarship on Angels in America for being too hard on Joe. Hussein Al-Badri, for example, asserts that Kushner’s omission of Joe from the community included in the epilogue runs counter to Kushner’s “own political ideology of inclusion and inclusiveness.” [25] However, this dramatic punishment seems more fitting when Joe’s undemocratic communication and individualism are taken into consideration, for then it is clear that like his mentor Roy, Joe too spurns community and democratic communication. Dewey argues for truthful communication in “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us” writing, “knowledge of conditions as they are is the only solid ground for communication and sharing.” [26] Joe lies about his identity as a gay man to his wife Harper, he keeps from Louis the fact that he is a Mormon, and he repeatedly tells Harper that he is not going to leave her, only to abandon her anyway. Because Joe lacks a foundation of truthfulness with people who are important to him, open, democratic communication is not possible. Like Roy, Joe also acts with the individual—himself—in mind, rather than considering community or the circumstances and experiences of others. Following an irreparable fight with Louis in Perestroika , Joe tries to return to Harper, not because she needs him but because he is thinking of himself. He tells her, “I don’t know what will happen to me without you. Only you. Only you love me. Out of everyone in the world. . . . Please, please, don’t leave me now” ( Perestroika , 139). Joe is unable to sustain a community or communicate democratically with others because he never considers the experience of the other person and only considers his own needs and desires. In fact, Joe even tells Louis that “sometimes self-interested is the most generous thing you can be,” ( Perestroika , 73) a notion that serves as Joe’s modus operandi throughout the play. Deweyan communication requires what Hongmei Peng calls sympathetic thinking, the ability to “step outside of [one’s] own experience and see it as the other would see it by putting [oneself] in the place of the other and using imagination in order to assimilate the other’s experience.” [27] Since Joe proves incapable of imagining the other’s experience, he necessarily excludes rather than includes others in his would-be community, particularly Harper and Hannah. His unwillingness or inability to change in this regard is why he is not included among the democratic “citizens” in the epilogue, since undemocratic communication and exclusive community building stand in opposition to Kushner’s Deweyan model of community. Although Roy and Joe form a community of sorts in Angels , it proves to be undemocratic and representative of anti-Deweyan communication. In spite of the father/son-type relationship that Roy and Joe maintain throughout most of the play, there is much that they keep from one another, and their relationship is marked as much by silence as it is by the closeness and warm feelings for one another as mentor and mentee. This silence comes to a head in Act Four, Scene 1 of Perestroika , when Joe visits Roy in the hospital. When Joe reveals that he left his wife Harper and has been living with Louis, Roy forcefully silences Joe: JOE : Roy, please, get back into… ROY : SHUT UP! Now you listen to me. [. . .] ROY : I want you home. With your wife. Whatever else you got going, cut it dead. JOE : I can’t, Roy, I need to be with… ROY : YOU NEED? Listen to me. Do what I say. Or you will regret it. And don’t talk to me about it. Ever again. ( Perestroika , 85) Roy not only silences Joe in this particular moment of the play, but he commands him never to speak of his relationship with Louis or to make any allusion to homosexuality again. Thus, Roy’s silencing of Joe is distinctly undemocratic and unrepresentative of the kind of communication expected in a democratic community. Far from being an outlier, this is not the first time Roy has stifled Joe’s communication with him. Rather than being open to hearing what Joe wants to express (even if he disagrees with it), Roy chastises him in Millennium Approaches for having ethical reservations about interfering with the disbarment committee hearing, calling Joe “Dumb Utah Mormon hick shit” ( Millennium , 106) and “a sissy” ( Millennium , 107). As for Joe, he claims to love Roy, but is unwilling to go to bat for him when the chips are down. Although this is a legal as well as an ethical quandary, it demonstrates that Joe’s love for Roy is more theory than practice. He asserts, “I’ll do whatever I can to help,” ( Millennium , 66) but those are empty words, since he ultimately refuses the job in Washington he is offered and fails Roy. Joe and Roy cannot agree on a shared ideal toward which they can work together, and thus, their efforts at community building are doomed to fail. Given Dewey’s assertions that community involves “communication in which emotions and ideas are shared” [28] and that such community is “a pressing [concern] for democracy,” [29] Roy and Joe fail at both democratic communication and maintaining a community even with one another. In addition to their undemocratic communication, Roy and Joe are devoted to exclusion rather than inclusion and to individualism rather than community, qualities that are distinctly anti-Deweyan, and for which (along with their undemocratic communication) they are dramatically “punished” by Kushner. Roy succumbs to his illness, while Harper leaves Joe for good and Joe is nowhere to be found in the democratic community of the play’s epilogue. Unlike Roy and Joe, Louis is able and willing to change, demonstrating by the end of the play a commitment to open communication and revising harmful beliefs and actions. While Louis initially abandons Prior when the effects of AIDS become more than he can handle, he eventually sees the error of his ways and atones for his past misdeeds. Prior tells Louis when they meet after Louis’s month-long absence in Perestroika that when he cries, he “endanger[s] nothing. . . . It’s like the idea of crying when you do it. Or the idea of love” ( Perestroika , 83). Similarly, Belize remarks to Louis in Millennium Approaches , “All your checks bounce, Louis; you’re ambivalent about everything” ( Millennium , 95). For much of the play, Louis claims to support things in theory, but his practice reveals his own ambivalence on the subject, from his alleged love for Prior to his support of the Rainbow Coalition. However, following a conversation with Belize in Act Four, Scene 3 of Perestroika in which Belize observes that Louis is “up in the air, just like that angel, too far off the earth to pick out the details. Louis and his Big Ideas. Big Ideas are all you love,” ( Perestroika , 94) Louis realizes that theory and practice must be joined, both in love and in democracy. This is confirmed for him when he researches Joe’s legal decisions written on behalf of Justice Wilson and finally understands that Joe, who wants to be “a nice, nice man” ( Millennium , 107)—as Roy aptly puts it—has rendered legal decisions that have real and damaging consequences for children and gay people. Dewey argues for praxis in democracy, asserting that democracy is “a personal way of individual life. . . . Instead of thinking of our own dispositions and habits as accommodated to certain institutions we have to learn to think of the latter as expressions, projections, and extensions of habitually dominant personal attitudes.” [30] Joe thus expresses a clearly undemocratic viewpoint when he tells Louis of his legal decisions, “It’s law not justice, it’s power, not the merits of its exercise, it’s not an expression of the ideal” ( Perestroika , 109). The discrepancy between Joe’s theory and practice in multiple areas of life, including love and democracy, causes him to think that he must accommodate himself to institutions—like “legal fag-bashing” ( Perestroika , 109) or heterosexual marriage, for example—rather than viewing such institutions democratically, as potential sites for expressing his own experiences and habits. Louis recognizes his own behavior in Joe’s habits, and after their fight, Louis finally understands the extent to which he has failed Prior. He later asks to come back to Prior and tells him, “Failing in love isn’t the same as not loving. It doesn’t let you off the hook, it doesn’t mean you’re free to not love,” ( Perestroika , 140) indicating a respect for praxis that he previously lacked. In addition, Louis gains “expiation for [his] sins” ( Perestroika , 121) through his recitation of the Mourner’s Kaddish for Roy Cohn. Although he had previously refused to identify with Roy in any way, calling him “the polestar of human evil … the worst human being who ever lived, he isn’t human even,” ( Perestroika , 93) with some coaxing from Belize and help from Ethel Rosenberg’s ghost, Louis recites the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead, thus affirming Roy as part of the Jewish community. Framji Minwilla argues that the coming together of Belize, Ethel, and Louis to say Kaddish for Roy “invent[s] a more complex yet exact sense of self and a more expansively conceived idea of community.” [31] This community is a democratic one, in which people who have ideas and beliefs differing from the mainstream (like Roy, for whom this is the case not in life nor in the Reagan years of the play, but within the politics espoused by Kushner and the characters in the epilogue of Angels ) are nevertheless included and acknowledged as part of the larger community. Based on his joining together of theory with practice and expanding his idea of community by praying for Roy, Louis is able to participate as a “citizen” in the epilogue: he argues at points with Belize about politics, but he is ultimately able to listen and value the presence of differing opinions in his community. Prior also makes a few missteps, but like Louis, he ultimately “succeeds because he is willing to change,” [32] to become more democratic in his communication with others and his vision of community. For instance, when he first meets Joe’s mother, Hannah, he assumes that because she is Mormon, she must be trying to convert him when she helps him to the hospital. After they arrive at the hospital, Prior tells Hannah about his visit from the Angel, and she says he had a vision, drawing a comparison with Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, and Prior once again rushes to make assumptions about her because of her Mormonism: PRIOR : But that’s preposterous, that’s… HANNAH : It’s not polite to call other people’s beliefs preposterous. He had great need of understanding. Our Prophet. His desire made prayer. His prayer made an angel. The angel was real. I believe that. PRIOR : I don’t. And I’m sorry but it’s repellent to me. So much of what you believe. HANNAH : What do I believe? PRIOR : I’m a homosexual. With AIDS. I can just imagine what you… HANNAH : No you can’t. Imagine. The things in my head. You don’t make assumptions about me, mister; I won’t make them about you. ( Perestroika , 102) This is the first moment of democratic communication between Prior and Hannah. He acknowledges her point, listening and taking to heart her experiences. This openness serves him well when Hannah advises, “An angel is just a belief, with wings and arms that can carry you. It’s naught to be afraid of. If it lets you down, reject it. Seek for something new” ( Perestroika , 103). Prior takes her advice, struggling with the Angel of America and returning the Book of the Anti-Migratory Epistle to Heaven. He previously identified with the Angels—their abandonment by the Almighty and desire to go back—but ultimately he insists upon progress and forward movement. Additionally, Prior’s vision of community becomes more expansive and inclusive by the end of the play. He tells Louis in Millennium Approaches that if Louis walked out on him, he would hate him forever. While he does not take Louis back as a partner in Perestroika , he forgives him, tells him he loves him, and Louis remains an important presence in Prior’s life based on their interaction in the epilogue. In Hannah’s first appearance, she does not seem particularly inclusive or capable of democratic communication given her outrage at Joe’s admission that he is gay, however she experiences a transformation in Perestroika and shows more concern for others, particularly Prior and Harper. Despite Hannah’s somewhat gruff manner—she is described by Sister Ella Chapter in Millennium Approaches as “the only unfriendly Mormon [she] ever met” ( Millennium , 82)—and her claim that she “[doesn’t] have pity,” ( Perestroika , 101) she tends to both Prior and Harper, both of whom have been abandoned by the person closest to them. Hannah explains her actions by claiming, “I know my duty when I see it,” ( Perestroika , 66) which suggests that unlike Joe, she is willing to take the needs and experiences of others into consideration before acting. Much like Dewey, Hannah acknowledges that communication and community require cooperation, “understanding, learning, [and] other-regarding thinking.” [33] Given her sympathy and concern for Prior and Harper as well as her advice to Joe to reflect on his actions and beliefs by asking himself “what it was [he was] running from,” ( Perestroika , 96) Hannah has become a Kushnerian “citizen” in the epilogue, musing about the “interconnectedness” ( Perestroika , 144) of people in the world and providing hope for Prior to keep moving forward. Her advice to Prior that he should “seek for something new” ( Perestroika , 103) if his beliefs fail him demonstrates her own willingness to revise previous assumptions and incorporate new knowledge into her experience, an essential quality in a member of a democratic community. As for Belize, who has been described in scholarship as the moral center of Angels in America , [34] his actions toward Roy and Louis show a commitment to inclusivity in line with Deweyan democratic community. Belize empathizes with Roy and Louis as fellow gay men, despite his outright hatred for some of their actions and ideologies. He advises Roy about the best course of treatment for late-stage AIDS, contra the opinion of Roy’s “very qualified, very expensive WASP doctor,” ( Perestroika , 26) and warns him about the double-blind AZT trials. Despite the fact that Roy is a terrible patient and person who, as mentioned previously, takes every opportunity to remind Belize that Roy considers him beneath him, Belize feels, as he puts it, a sense of “solidarity. One faggot to another,” ( Perestroika , 27) and reminds Louis that Roy “died a hard death” ( Perestroika , 122). With Louis, Belize embodies the democratic value of believing in human nature’s capacity for change. Dewey argues in “Creative Democracy” that democracy is “a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature.” [35] Although Belize disdains Louis for his abandonment of Prior, he meets with Louis in both Millennium Approaches and Perestroika and offers him some moral guidance, indicating that he has not given up on Louis and retains some hope that he will change for the better. Belize’s inclusivity is unsurprising considering his description of Heaven as encompassing “voting booths … everyone in Balenciaga gowns with red corsages, and big dance palaces full of music and lights and racial impurity and gender confusion” ( Perestroika , 76) with gods who are all “brown as the mouths of rivers” ( Perestroika , 76). This utopic vision eradicates all of the obstacles to justice and democratic participation of marginalized groups in the United States; everyone has gained suffrage, wealth inequality has been destroyed, and racism, sexism, and transphobia have all been tempered by mixed-race divinities and blurred gender boundaries. Belize’s idea of Heaven is aligned with Kushner’s philosophy on freedom; he argues that freedom “expand[s] outward” [36] and the most “basic gesture of freedom is to include, not to exclude.” [37] This sounds remarkably like Dewey, who concludes in “Creative Democracy” that the task of democracy is always to create “a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute.” [38] Belize’s vision of Heaven and Kushner’s understanding of freedom express Dewey’s practical ideal for democracy. The four characters included in the epilogue to Angels in America —Belize, Hannah, Louis, and Prior—represent democratic community either because they have demonstrated a willingness to change, listen to others, and revise previous beliefs/actions in the course of the play, or (in Belize’s case) because that kind of inclusivity and democratic communication had already been attained. Michael Cadden argues that the epilogue to Angels “leaves us with the image of four individuals who, despite their very real differences, have chosen, based on their collective experience, to think about themselves as a community working for change.” [39] Similarly, Ron Scapp suggests that Kushner’s ending embraces “the hope of democracy.” [40] For Kushner, the “hope of democracy” is embodied in these characters who have become “citizens” ( Perestroika , 146) with differing thoughts and opinions who are nevertheless capable of working together to accomplish the “Great Work” ( Perestroika , 146) of expanding democracy. Roy and Joe, who were neither inclusive of dissenting voices nor able to form democratic communities, are incapable of acting as citizens and thus omitted from the epilogue, even as Kushner includes them in the greater community of the play itself. The epilogue to Angels in America ultimately advocates for a more ideal democracy, which must begin with individuals who act as citizens. This is the kind of democracy envisioned by Dewey, where all citizens believe “that even when needs and ends or consequences are different for each individual, the habit of amicable cooperation … is itself a priceless addition to life.” [41] Such a community stands in stark contrast to the exclusive, undemocratic, and homophobic legislation and political rhetoric of the Reagan years as portrayed in the play and embodied by Roy and Joe. Kushner’s small democratic community at the end of Angels reminds the audience that democracy is a process, one toward which we must constantly work to ensure we are applying the democratic method of expanding rights and freedoms outward, revising beliefs or actions based on experience and new information, and opening ourselves to democratic communication with others. Kushner begins from the premise that including marginalized voices is not only beneficial but essential to democracy. This revises some of Dewey’s early notions, which had been grounded in ethnocentric thinking, and provides a foundation for what including others in a democratic community looks like. The inclusivity Kushner portrays in Angels in America demonstrates that democracy does not mean that all voices are considered to be equally valid; rather, Kushner highlights voices that are similarly committed to democracy as method. Roy Cohn and Joe Pitt provide examples of voices that are too partisan and too committed to their own individualistic and undemocratic ways of thinking. However, it is important to note that such people are not irredeemable; they have the capacity to change, as we see Louis do over the course of the play. As a result, such individuals deserve to be included in the larger community (as Kushner includes Roy) even if their ideology is itself anti-democratic. Kushner cautions, however, that such individualism and anti-democratic thinking is harmful to democratic inclusivity and communication. Thus, anti-democratic ideology must not be allowed to dominate at a legal level, as we see its harmful consequences in the exclusive, homophobic legislation of the Reagan administration. In addition, democratic communication is encouraged on a personal level, too, otherwise relationships and communities run the risk of being torn apart, as evidenced by Roy and Joe or Joe and Harper. Like Dewey, Kushner believes that it is necessary to revise our methods to become always more democratic and more inclusive—like the “citizens” referred to in the epilogue—progressing slowly but ever closer to true democratic communication and community with one another. In our present political moment in the United States, democratic communication and community seem like essential tools to cultivate as we work together toward a future like the one Kushner envisions in his epilogue rather than resigning ourselves to undemocratic rule by the Roy Cohns of the world. References [1] Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul (New York: Broadway Books, 2016), 48. [2] See, for example, Alexander Peuser, “AIDS and the Artist’s Call to Action,” Lucerna 11 (2017): 10-22; Dennis Altman and Kent Buse, “Thinking Politically about HIV: Political Analysis and Action in Response to AIDS,” Contemporary Politics 18, no. 2 (2012): 127-140; Laura L. Beadling, “The Trauma of AIDS Then and Now: Kushner’s Angels in America on the Stage and Small Screen,” Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance 5, no. 3 (2012): 229-240; and Claudia Barnett, “AIDS = Purgatory: Prior Walter’s Prophecy and Angels in America ,” Modern Drama 53, no. 4 (2010): 471-494. [3] Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika [1992] (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004), 146. All subsequent references to the play will be indicated parenthetically, e.g. ( Millennium , 64) or ( Perestroika , 75). [4] David Kornhaber, “Kushner at Colonus: Tragedy, Politics, and Citizenship,” PMLA 129, no. 4 (2014): 728. [5] Ibid. [6] Ibid, 729. [7] Atsushi Fujita, “Queer Politics to Fabulous Politics in Angels in America : Pinklisting and Forgiving Roy Cohn,” in Tony Kushner: New Essays on the Art and Politics of the Plays , ed. James Fisher (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2006), 125. [8] John Dewey, Freedom and Culture [1939] in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953 , vol. 13: 1938-1939, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988): 71. [9] Ibid, 176. [10] Tony Kushner, “With a Little Help from My Friends,” [1993] in Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004), 149. [11] Ibid, 155. [12] Kornhaber, “Kushner at Colonus,” 736. [13] Hussein Al-Badri, Tony Kushner’s Postmodern Theatre: A Study of Political Discourse (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 73. [14] See, for example, Shannon Sullivan, “From the Foreign to the Familiar: Confronting Dewey Confronting Racial Prejudice,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 18, no. 3 (2004): 193-202; Frank Margonis, “John Dewey’s Racialized Visions of the Student and Classroom Community,” Educational Theory 59, no. 1 (2009): 17-39; and Thomas D. Fallace, Dewey and the Dilemma of Race: An Intellectual History, 1895-1922 (New York: Teachers College Press, 2011). [15] Thomas D. Fallace, Dewey and the Dilemma of Race: An Intellectual History, 1895-1922 (New York: Teachers College Press, 2011), 4. [16] Ibid. [17] Ibid. [18] John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1927), 38. [19] Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 6. [20] Scott R. Stroud, “The Challenge of Speaking with Others: A Pragmatist Account of Democratic Rhetoric,” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 29, no. 1 (2015): 100. [21] Dewey, The Public and Its Problems , 149. [22] Fallace, Dewey and the Dilemma of Race , 9. [23] John Dewey, “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us” [1939] in John Dewey: The Later Works, 1925-1953 , vol. 14: 1939-1941, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988): 228. [24] Charlie Rose, “Tony, Tonys, and Television,” in Tony Kushner in Conversation , ed. Robert Vorlicky (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1998): 46. [25] Al-Badri, Tony Kushner’s Postmodern Theatre , 93. [26] Dewey, “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us,” 229. [27] Hongmei Peng, “Toward Inclusion and Human Unity: Rethinking Dewey’s Democratic Community,” Education & Culture 25, no. 2 (2009): 82. [28] Dewey, Freedom and Culture , 176. [29] Ibid, 177. [30] Dewey, “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us,” 226. Emphasis in original. [31] Framji Minwilla, “When Girls Collide: Considering Race in Angels in America ,” in Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America, eds. Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997): 110. [32] Al-Badri, Tony Kushner’s Postmodern Theatre , 101. [33] Peng, “Toward Inclusion and Human Unity,” 82. [34] See, for example, Minwilla, “When Girls Collide,” 104-105; or Al-Badri, Tony Kushner’s Postmodern Theatre , 96. [35] Dewey, “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us,” 226. [36] Tony Kushner, Thinking about the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995), 6. [37] Ibid, 7. [38] Dewey, “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us,” 230. [39] Michael Cadden, “Strange Angel: The Pinklisting of Roy Cohn,” in Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America, eds. Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997): 88. [40] Ron Scapp, “The Vehicle of Democracy: Fantasies toward a (Queer) Nation,” in Approaching the Millennium: Essays on Angels in America, eds. Deborah R. Geis and Steven F. Kruger (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997): 98. [41] Dewey, “Creative Democracy—The Task Before Us,” 228. Footnotes About The Author(s) COURTNEY FERRITER is Assistant Professor of English at the University of North Georgia. Her research interests include American pragmatism and 20th century Jewish and African American literature. She has published articles in James Baldwin Review and Education & Culture . She is currently at work on an article about Harryette Mullen’s poetic wordplay as a form of resistance against white supremacy. Editorial Board: Co-Editors: Naomi J. Stubbs and James F. Wilson Advisory Editor: David Savran Founding Editors: Vera Mowry Roberts and Walter Meserve Editorial Staff: Managing Editor: Kiera Bono Editorial Assistant: Ruijiao Dong Advisory Board: Michael Y. Bennett Kevin Byrne Tracey Elaine Chessum Bill Demastes Stuart Hecht Jorge Huerta Amy E. Hughes David Krasner Esther Kim Lee Kim Marra Ariel Nereson Beth Osborne Jordan Schildcrout Robert Vorlicky Maurya Wickstrom Stacy Wolf Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Are We “Citizens”? Tony Kushner’s Deweyan Democratic Vision in Angels in America Pageants and Patriots: Jewish Spectacles as Performances of Belonging “Anyway, the Whole Point of This Was to Make You Feel Something”: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and the Reconstruction of Melodrama Edward Albee’s Sadomasochistic Ludonarratology in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Disability Theatre and Modern Drama: Recasting Modernism. Kirsty Johnston. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016; Pp. 240. Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting. Amy Cook. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; Pp. 198. The Late Work of Sam Shepard. Shannon Blake Skelton. New York: Bloomsbury, 2016; Pp. 256. Latinx Theater in the Times of Neoliberalism. Patricia A. Ybarra. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2018; Pp. 247. Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Watch MUSE by Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films at the Segal Film Festival on Theatre and Performance 2024. An intimate journey with the founder of a one-of-a-kind circus space hanging on by a thread in Brooklyn, NY. The Martin E. Segal Theater Center presents MUSE At the Segal Theatre Film and Performance Festival 2024 A film by Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films Theater, Circus / Movement, Documentary, Performance Art This film will be available to watch online on the festival website May 16th onwards for 3 weeks, and it will also be screened in-person on May 20th. About The Film Country United States Language English Running Time 10 minutes Year of Release 2024 An intimate journey with the founder of a one-of-a-kind circus space hanging on by a thread in Brooklyn, NY. Director/Producer/DP: Pete O'Hare Editor: Raven Dahlin Score: Forest Christenson About The Artist(s) Pete O’Hare is an Emmy-nominated Director and Cinematographer based in New York City, born and raised in Cleveland, OH. Coming from a musical background, he loves how a well-composed frame can transport you to another place. Pete directed the mini documentaries "A Day In September" and "Baby Boy A", and has filmed for ESPN+, Netflix, McDonald’s, General Electric, 3M, New York Knicks, NBC, MTV, National Geographic, Samsung, Verizon, Sprint, Whole Foods, and Vogue Italia, among others. Get in touch with the artist(s) pete@warehousefilms.com and follow them on social media https://www.peteohare.com/, https://vimeo.com/peteohare, https://www.instagram.com/pete_ohare/ Find out all that’s happening at Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance (FTP) 2024 by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and YouTube See the full festival schedule here. "Nightshades" - Veronica Viper Ellen Callaghan Dancing Pina FLorian Heinzen-Ziob Genocide and Movements Andreia Beatriz, Hamilton Borges dos Santos, Luis Carlos de Alencar Living Objects in Black Jacqueline Wade ORESTEIA Carolin Mader Schlingensief – A Voice that Shook the Silence Bettina Böhler The Hamlet Syndrome Elwira Niewiera & Piotr Rosolowski Wo/我 Jiemin Yang "talk to us" Kirsten Burger Die Kinder der Toten Nature Theater of Oklahoma:Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Hans-Thies Lehmann – Postdramatic Theater Christoph Rüter MUSE Pete O'Hare/Warehouse Films QUEENDOM Agniia Galdanova Snow White Dr.GoraParasit The Making of Pinocchio Cade & MacAskill Women of Theatre, New York Juney Smith BLOSSOMING - Des amandiers aux amandiers Karine Silla Perez & Stéphane Milon ELFRIEDE JELINEK - LANGUAGE UNLEASHED Claudia Müller I AM NOT OK Gabrielle Lansner Making of The Money Opera Amitesh Grover Red Day Besim Ugzmajli The Books of Jacob Krzysztof Garbaczewski The Roll Call:The Roots to Strange Fruit Jonathan McCrory / National Black Theatre/ All Arts/ Creative Doula next...II (Mali/Island) Janne Gregor Chinoiserie Redux Ping Chong Festival of the Body on the Road H! Newcomer “H” Sokerissa! Interstate Big Dance Theater / Bang on a Can Maria Klassenberg Magda Hueckel, Tomasz Śliwiński Revolution 21/ Rewolucja 21 Martyna Peszko and Teatr 21 The End Is Not What I Thought It Would Be Andrea Kleine The Utopians Michael Kliën and En Dynamei Conference of the Absent Rimini Protokoll (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel) / Film By Expander Film (Lilli Kuschel and Stefan Korsinsky) GIANNI Budapesti Skizo, Theater Tri-Bühne Juggle & Hide (Seven Whatchamacallits in Search of a Director) Wichaya Artamat/ For What Theatre My virtual body and my double Simon Senn / Bruno Deville SWING AND SWAY Fernanda Pessoa and Chica Barbosa The Great Grand Greatness Awards Jo Hedegaard WHO IS EUGENIO BARBA Magdalene Remoundou

Erin Rachel Kaplan Back to Top Untitled Article References Copy of References Authors Keep Reading < Back Journal of American Drama & Theatre Volume Issue 30 2 Visit Journal Homepage Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Erin Rachel Kaplan By Published on May 27, 2018 Download Article as PDF Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s . Chrystyna Dail. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016; Pp. 194. In Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s , Chrystyna Dail reveals a significant piece of theatre history and asserts its rightful place in the canon of American drama. Dail begins the book by arguing that the claim often made by theatre historians such as John Gassner that social activist theatre died in the 1930s, only to resurface in the 1960s is a false one. Engaging with Douglas McDermott’s political performance continuum, Dail contends that the group Stage for Action (SFA) created a new kind of socially conscious theatre that served as a propaganda machine for the progressive left, as well as a megaphone for civil rights, workers’ rights, the fight against fascism, and more. For Dail, SFA did more than raise awareness about these issues; it was “diligently involved in theatrical praxis,” demanding and proposing solutions to social justice problems of the day (22). Dail breaks down her historical study of SFA clearly and concisely containing just enough cultural, political, and economic history to contextualize fully the work of SFA. Dail first offers a chronicle of its creation, arguing that SFA became a “reimagining of progressive performance, both during the War and after, and as an underappreciated model for social activist theatre in the United States” (15). Founded by four young women—Perry Miller, Donna Keath, Berilla Kerr, and Peggy Clark—SFA began as a tool to support the War effort in Europe and to bring attention to the “menace of native fascism” (33). In its brief three years, SFA amplified the voices of the some of the most radically anti-racist, anti-fascist, and pro-union thinkers of the era; was one of the earliest racially integrated theatre groups in the US; and became an integral part of Henry A. Wallace’s failed 1948 presidential campaign. Dail argues that what started as a small New York-based volunteer theatre group became the breeding ground for a multitude of progressive causes nationwide. To buttress this argument throughout the book, Dail highlights particular plays within the SFA canon that exemplify the progressive politics of the group. For the second chapter, Dail “explicates the relationship between Stage for Action and labor unions during and following World War II ” (45). Dail argues that Arthur Miller’s That They May Win put SFA in the spotlight. Eleanor Roosevelt discussed the play in her nationally syndicated “My Day” column, and it played to sold-out audiences in New York and around the country. For Dail, Miller’s “missing years” (1945-1946) were spent pouring “himself into revolutionary work and leftist theatrical criticism” (47). He ultimately became the playwright in residence of the SFA. That They May Win existed in multiple versions and called for better military wages, state-sponsored childcare, and the political activism of everyday Americans. Dail also critically analyzes Les Pine and Anita Short’s satirical musical Joseph McGinnical, Cynical Pinnacle, Opus II . Dail claims that “August 1946 through November 1948 saw SFA producing work that substantiated its position as the premier social activist theatre group of the late 1940s” (69). Chapter three examines specific SFA plays that adopted progressive views on racial politics including Charles Polacheck’s Skin Deep . The play was written to advocate for racial equality and address the anti-black violence and race riots making their way across the nation. In addition, Dail includes a detailed analysis of Ben Bengal’s 1946 play All Aboard , which dealt with transportation segregation, as well as Dream Job by Arnold Perl and Talk in Darkness by Malvin Wald. Performed as a part of the Wallace campaign, which fiercely advocated for full civil rights, universal healthcare and childcare, a robust social safety net, federal minimum wage laws, and equality for women in the workplace, among other policies, these SFA productions forced Truman to take up the cause of civil rights (though not as fervently as Wallace did) in order for him to win the 1948 presidential election. In her fourth chapter, Dail looks at yet another project of the SFA—its fight against the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Based on close readings, she argues that Miller wrote The Crucible after Sidney Alexander’s Salem Story , noting that “the plays share the same basic plotline and major characters” (112) and that “too many parallels exist between these two artists for the overlap in their plays to be mere coincidence” (116). Finally, she chronicles the red-baiting that several members of SFA suffered. She observes that “during the decade of 1946-1956 informants ‘named’ 40 percent of Stage for Action membership as Communists or subversives” (139) and that several SFA members were called to testify in front of HUAC. Due to the outcomes of these hearings, some lost their careers and even their lives. In her final chapter, Dail somewhat undercuts her argument that HUAC brought an end to SFA. While the group formally disbanded, several socially activist theatres and productions rose in its place. She offers in-depth readings of the post-SFA plays Open Secret by Robert Adler, who addressed the horrors of the atomic bomb, as well as We Who Are the Weavers by Joseph Shore and Scott Graham Williamson, who strongly critiqued the colonization of Puerto Rico. Dail closes her analysis and argument by making the point that the professionalism and dedication to social justice found in the SFA directly links the workers’ theatres of the 1930s with the companies founded after its disbandment such as the Free Southern Theater and El Teatro Campesino. Stage for Action serves as a fascinating and incredibly well-researched and well-written exploration into an important and oft-forgotten piece of theatre history. Given SFA’s commitment to the notion that “entertainment should have a purpose…and that purpose must be exerted to prevent war, stamp out race hatreds, combat poverty” (151) and more, I cannot think of a more appropriate time to revisit and revive their works. References Footnotes About The Author(s) Erin Rachel Kaplan University of Colorado Boulder Journal of American Drama & Theatre JADT publishes thoughtful and innovative work by leading scholars on theatre, drama, and performance in the Americas – past and present. Provocative articles provide valuable insight and information on the heritage of American theatre, as well as its continuing contribution to world literature and the performing arts. Founded in 1989 and previously edited by Professors Vera Mowry Roberts, Jane Bowers, and David Savran, this widely acclaimed peer reviewed journal is now edited by Dr. Benjamin Gillespie and Dr. Bess Rowen. Journal of American Drama and Theatre is a publication of the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. Visit Journal Homepage Table of Contents - Current Issue Stages of Struggle and Celebration: A Production History of Black Theatre in Texas Immersions in Cultural Difference: Tourism, War, Performance Stage for Action: U.S. Social Activist Theatre in the 1940s Samuel Beckett’s Theatre in America: The Legacy of Alan Schneider as Beckett’s American Director The Contemporary American Monologue: Performance and Politics Black Performance on the Outskirts of the Left Introduction: Mediations of Authorship in American Postdramatic Mediaturgies Kaldor and Dorsen's "desktop performances" and the (Live) Coauthorship Paradox Ecologies of Media, Ecologies of Mind: Embodying Authorship Through Mediaturgy Dropping the Needle on the Record: Intermedial Contingency and Spalding Gray's Early Talk Performances #HEWILLNOTDIVIDEUS: Weaponizing Performance of Identity from the Digital to the Physical Previous Next Attribution: This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.