Querying Difference in Theatre History [1 ed.] 9781443814997, 9781847183033

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Querying Difference in Theatre History

Querying Difference in Theatre History

Edited by

Scott Magelssen and Ann Haugo

CAMBRIDGE SCHOLARS PUBLISHING

Querying Difference in Theatre History, edited by Scott Magelssen and Ann Haugo This book first published 2007 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing 15 Angerton Gardens, Newcastle, NE5 2JA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2007 by Scott Magelssen and Ann Haugo and contributors

All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN 1-84718-303-4; ISBN 13: 9781847183033

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Images ...........................................................................................viii Preface/Acknowledgements ....................................................................... ix Editor’s Introduction ................................................................................... 1 Part I: Historiography Ten-Foot-Pole Historiography: Liberal Democracy, Ideological Difference, and Despicable Acts John Fletcher ............................................................................................. 16 The Play Review as a Means of Querying Difference, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Performative Henry Bial ................................................................................................. 25 Who is the Historical Theatre Historian? Unearthing the Roots of Positivist Assumptions in Theatre History Studies Robert Shimko........................................................................................... 31 The Trouble with Tribades: Struggles of Sex and Class in French Revolutionary Performance Alan Sikes.................................................................................................. 38 Part II: Performance and Cultural Exchange The Master and the Mademoiselle: Gender Secrets in Plain Sight in Non-Text Based Antebellum Performance Shauna Vey................................................................................................ 48 “People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire”: Ira Aldridge, Stephen Price, and the 1828 Coburg Theatre Lawsuit Kate Roark................................................................................................. 61

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Table of Contents

Proximity and the Demarcation of the Other: Three “Chinese” Productions on the Early-Twentieth-Century London Stage Dongshin Chang ........................................................................................ 71 The paduanos and the Theatrical Construction of California’s Mexican Past Andrew Gibb ............................................................................................. 80 Haunted Landscapes: Ping Chong’s East / West Productions Kay Martinovich........................................................................................ 86 Part III: Imagined Communities and The Performance of Cultural Identity From Camille to Lulu Belle: Constructing the Black Courtesan in the American Brothel Drama Katie N. Johnson ....................................................................................... 94 The Moral Tetralogy: American Social/Political/Cultural Commentary in the Later Writings of Steve Tesich Michael A. Rothmayer ............................................................................ 106 Acts of Transfer: the 1975 and 1976 Productions of Raven and Body Indian by Red Earth Performing Arts Company Julie Pearson-Little Thunder ................................................................... 114 Constructing the Fruited Plain: The “red,” The White, and the imbued Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson...................................................................... 126 The Immigrant, the Exile, the Refugee in Wertenbaker’s Credible Witness: A Poetics of Diaspora Sara Freeman ........................................................................................... 133 Puerto Rican Stages: Theatre in the Metropolis, On the Island, on the Margins Elena García-Martín ................................................................................ 141 Querying Difference on the Battlefield Leigh Clemons......................................................................................... 148

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Notes........................................................................................................ 157 List of Contributors ................................................................................. 183 Index........................................................................................................ 186

LIST OF IMAGES

Fig. 1-1 The negotiation of meaning in the theatre event ............................... 26 Fig. 2-1 “‘Zoara’ [Zoyara] in white dress holding whip” ................................ 49 Fig. 2-2 “Eugene [in suit]” .............................................................................. 52 Fig. 2-3 “Eugene. [Dressed as woman]”.......................................................... 56 Fig. 2-4 “‘Ella Zoyara, Equestrian”................................................................. 58 Fig. 2-5 “Scenes from ‘A Chinese Honeymoon’ at the Strand Theatre: Act I—The Gardens of the Hotel at Ylang Ylang”.......................................... 73 Fig. 2-6 “Miss Lilian Braithwaite and Mr. Matheson Lang in ‘Mr. Wu’.” ..... 74 Fig. 2-7 “In the Chinese Manner: ‘The Yellow Jacket,’ at the Duke of York’s.” ........................................................................................................... 76

PREFACE/ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to use this space to acknowledge their sincere gratitude to those who helped make this volume possible: First of all, to the authors herein, each of whom took up the initial call to “query difference” at the Mid-America Theatre Conference’s Theatre History Symposium in Chicago in the spring of 2006, and then contributed their essays and shared their enthusiasm for this project. We are also grateful to the members of the 2005-06 MATC executive committee, especially John Poole, Bill Jenkins, and Rhona Justice Malloy, and to Bob Schanke and Don Wilmeth, who provided excellent advice as we assembled the project. We owe particular thanks to Wendy Arons, who helped us think through the ways we wanted to present the work and choose our audience, especially in regard to the length and number of essays. Many thanks to Jonathan Chambers, Michal Kobialka, Peter Kivisto, Dan Lee, Pramod Mishra, and Warren Fincher, who also offered advice on early stages of the project. Thank you to Amanda Millar, Carol Koulikourdi, and Andy Nercessian at Cambridge Scholars Publishing for advocating for this project and bringing it to print. And finally, we are deeply grateful to our families for all their patience and support.

INTRODUCTION SCOTT MAGELSSEN, BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY AND ANN HAUGO, ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY

Terms such as race, ethnicity, otherness, and pluralism are becoming increasingly problematic as we grapple with issues of identity in the “postmulticultural” discursive landscape of the twenty-first century. Querying Difference in Theatre History draws together a cohesive selection of scholarly essays that address and complicate circulating notions of difference as they apply to the way we understand theatre and performance in the last few centuries. Together, these essays draw out the dilemmas that emerge when attempting to constitute ideas about difference from ideological or scientific points of view, and offer new modes of inquiry and critical vocabulary for contemporary students and scholars of theatre history. Querying Difference in Theatre History is comprised of sixteen essays that examine constructions and contestations of difference in the history of theatre and performance. These essays were selected from the nearly sixty papers presented at the Theatre History Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre in Chicago in March 2006, and appear herein revised and in a more substantial form. The papers for the volume were selected on the basis of scholarly rigor, savvy in dealing with complex notions of identity and performance, and with an eye toward a balance in methodological approach, geographical location, material, and time period. While many of these essays deal with complex theoretical notions, each are written to be accessible and “pleasurable” to read. To query implies both an expression of doubt as well as a question— that is, an opening for critical dialogue that generates new knowledge as often as it responds to received knowledges. The essays in this volume move beyond the repetition of received categories of difference in theatre history and instead probe the boundaries and intersections of seemingly

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disparate identity formations. We also sought papers that incorporate discursive modes that challenge traditional notions of the archive and the text, to give voice to the lived pasts of historically disenfranchised groups and individuals whose pasts have often gone unrecorded in academic spaces. While “difference” may immediately conjure issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and/or sexuality, we include essays that examine differences more broadly construed: nationalisms, economic gradations, and so forth. The critical issues probed in the essays range from: emerging critiques of “multiculturalism” and alternative discourses (for instance, “trans-“ or “interculturalism,” diaspora, multi-locationality, and flexible identity), historiographic methods for researching and writing about historically disenfranchised groups and/or individuals, questions of theatre and “otherness,” postcolonial and decolonial representations of racial/ethnic identity, national identity, and so forth, case-studies and analyses of performance of difference, such as indigenous theatre and performance, contact and border zones, “fantasy heritage,” and historic dilemmas in the practice of theatre. The essays are grouped in the volume according to similarities in methodological approach, modes of inquiry, or discursive lines of connection, rather than by “kind of difference”–which the editors feel, at best, would merely replicate or reiterate historically-perceived notions of identity and culture, or, at worst, threaten to “ghettoize” papers into categories by discipline, time period, or subject. We have chosen to group papers into those that examine and interrogate “Historiographic Practices,” those that treat case studies dealing with “Performance and Cultural Exchange,” and those that treat case studies dealing with what we have termed (taking our cue from Benedict Anderson) “Imagined Communities and the Performance of Cultural Identity.” While we have deliberately selected essays that comprise a wide scope, the reader will find that the pieces cohere with one another very well. Taken together, the collection asks about ways of seeing and interpreting difference across geographic region, theoretical approach, and periods of theatre history. It is logical, and even necessary, to include works that treat subject matter usually outside of familiar terrain to studies of difference (essays, for instance, about difference in nineteenth-century America, or seventeenth-century England), in order to broaden the range of application of theoretical models the book has to offer, and therefore be more helpful to teachers, students, and scholars of theatre history. We hope that this book will be helpful to students in graduate programs and upper-division undergraduate students in the fields of

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theatre history and performance studies as well as scholars and researchers in those fields, while secondary audiences in history, cultural studies and comparative literature, visual communication, and media studies should also find these investigations thought-provoking. Specific essays in the volume will appeal to students and scholars in Native American Studies, women and gender studies, and programs with courses treating issues of race, ethnicity, class, and nationality. Before this book, no single collection has treated the theoretical concepts of difference vis-à-vis a multiplicity of events, individuals, groups, and periods of theatre history. Often, book-length works on theatre and difference center on theatre and performance having to do with particular racial categories (black theatre, Asian theatre, etc.), political categories (feminist theatre) or other socially constructed categories (Gay and lesbian theatre). On the other hand, similar collections of smaller works have also served to either reinscribe or reconstitute notions of difference, to deconstruct notions of difference without offering scholars new approaches in their place, to confine their analysis to geographically specific regions, or to examine primarily dramatic literature, rather than theatre history and performance. Querying Difference in Theatre History contrasts with these works in that it approaches its wealth of material from multiple discursive areas and foci, and, in so doing, allows for parallels, echoes, and connections in theory and vocabulary across events and performances that may not normally be grouped together. We feel that this approach will foster new and dynamic discussion in the classroom—as it certainly did at the conference at which early versions of these papers were presented—as the approaches inspire connections across the often rigid borders between areas of varying identities and time periods. The essays in our collection, taken separately or together, neither deconstruct, nor reinscribe difference, but realign ways of thinking about difference. In this way, Querying Difference in Theatre History contributes to new discussions and understandings of the ways identity, difference, and otherness have been constructed and contested in theatre history in the last few centuries. We begin the first section of the collection, “Historiography,” with John Fletcher’s compelling essay on the limits of objective discourse when grappling with the subject matter of difference; “Ten-Foot-Pole Historiography: Liberal Democracy, Ideological Difference, and Despicable Acts.” As Fletcher reminds us, to query difference is an action demanded of us if we are to be democratic scholars and citizens in their fullest enunciations. Fletcher looks to Chantal Mouffe’s notion of radical democracy as a starting point. “Radical democracy,” explains Mouffe,

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“demands that we acknowledge difference—the particular, the multiple, the heterogeneous—in effect everything that had been excluded by the concept of Man in the abstract.” But there are some forms of difference that push us to our ideological and ethical “limit-points,” especially when it comes to those individuals or groups that actively solicit belief in the illegitimacy of our own existence (i.e., our destruction and condemnation). “How, then,” Fletcher asks, “do we as difference-querying historians and scholars represent those who are politically different from us—not just different than us, despicable to us?” While it is tempting, and, at times, necessary to distance ourselves from these individuals and groups though rhetorical strategies and other means in our scholarly work, Fletcher warns of the dangers of using what he terms ten-foot-pole historiography as a methodology. Similarly highlighting both historiographic subjectivity and the historian’s confrontation with what cannot be responsibly ignored, “The Play Review as a Means of Querying Difference,” by Henry Bial, “zooms in on” performance reviews to point out the particular ways in which the use of language in the Critic’s essay shapes our own view of difference. “When it comes to issues of identity,” writes Bial, “the categories or ‘frames’ through which productions are evaluated and assessed do more than simply reflect already-existing constructions of ‘difference’; they also produce (and reinforce) those constructions, those differences.” Bial’s essay begins with the difficulties in gleaning the specific relationship between audience and performer in particular recent productions. He argues that “any theatre historian who depends on published reviews to determine What Actually Happened must employ what I call ‘a historiography of strategic naivete,’” recognizing, on the one hand, that the critic is not the objective viewer he or she may claim to be through third-person reportage-style journalism, but on the other hand needing to accept some of the critic’s subjective categories in order to access—and engage in—that critic’s discourse. “The historian’s strategic naivete is the third corner of the triangle which – along with the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief and the actor’s “As if”—comprises the collective fiction necessary to the theatrical enterprise.” Bial takes on contrasting critical reviews of Kushner’s Angels in America that, through acts of elision and assumption of reader’s complicity in category production, either create and disseminate disturbing notions of Jewishness, or homosexuality, for example, or constitute also unhelpfully simplistic imagined communities of ideological and aesthetic sameness. When Robert B. Shimko takes on the field (and the very “health”) of theatre historiography in “Who is the Historical Theatre Historian?

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Unearthing the Roots of Positivist Assumptions in Theatre History Studies,” he probes the borders that past practitioners of theatre history have established and shored up, and by which they have policed the canon of legitimate theatre-historical writings. Shimko traces a conservative and positivistic strain among those past historians who have sought to exclude certain sections of the archive because they do not fit to a tightly conservative genealogy. These historians, Shimko argues, establish difference though a kind of pedigree, the celebration of bloodlines of the family proper, while dismissing those works that do not fit the nineteenthcentury and largely accepted model. Shimko looks to alternative genealogy-tracing, specifically that of Foucault. “Foucaultian genealogy allows us to abandon lingering preconceptions of theatre historiography as the progressive working out of increasingly sophisticated methods for writing about the theatre of the past,” and instead, “invites one to examine the historicity of a multiplicity of writers who dealt, each in their own way and under specific conditions, with various aspects of theatre in the past.” As a case study, Shimko examines the work of Richard Flecknoe in the years shortly following the period of civil war and interregnum in seventeenth-century England during which theatre was banned—a decidedly vital shift whereby Flecknoe began to historicize English Theatre in a new way—and situates past historian’s relegation of Flecknoe’s work into the margins of theatre history as particularly telling junctures where historiographic dilemmas of difference emerge. In the final essay of the section, “The Trouble with Tribades: Transgressive Desire and Performance During the French Revolution,” Alan Sikes directs us to another dilemma in theatre historiography. While historians (in many fields) have used both class-based politics and sexbased politics as lenses through which to view their subjects at particular historical moments, seldom do these historians examine the intersections between these two areas. Taking on these intersections, Sikes advises, allows for the possibility of rich discursive terrain that is especially key in understanding the ways in which these moments have been commented upon by the artists and theatre practitioners that experienced them. Sikes demonstrates such possibilities in his analysis of the “tribade” in antiroyalist pamphlets and short satirical performances composed in the years immediately following the French Revolution of 1789. The portrayal of Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI, and Mademoiselle Raucourt, a famous eighteenth-century actress, as tribades in these works signals the emergence not only of discourses on same-sex desire, but also “a proliferation of debates over the acceptability of that desire and the social status of those who exhibit it,” which will unfold throughout the modern

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era. The ascription of tribade in these texts renders the identities of their characters unstable, writes Sikes, and links the instability of the tribade to the concomitant instability of the nobility and the revolutionary at this moment of flux. Indeed, Sikes reminds us, theatre “has long been a site for troubling the truth or falsity of identity.” We begin the second section of the collection, “Performance and Cultural Exchange,” with Shauna Vey’s fascinating look circus performance, blackface minstrelsy, and cross-dressing equestrians/ennes in antebellum America, focusing specifically on two of the most famous pop-culture phenomena of the era, Mademoiselle Zoyara and Master Eugene. Vey’s essay, “The Master and the Mademoiselle: Gender Secrets in Plain Sight in Non-Text Based Antebellum Performance,” won the Robert A. Schanke Research Award at the Mid-America Theatre Conference in Chicago in 2006. In the essay, Vey queries the periodspecific notions of gender, sex, class, and race that circulated around these figures in their billing and advertising, and in the way reviewers responded to their performances in the U.S. and abroad. She argues that much of the contestation of these categories emerged at the particular moments when performers broke not only the conventions of their venue (e.g., the circus trick), but the very conventions of the feminine ideal—conventions held tightly at a time when white, working-class audiences were anxious about the state of flux in which they found their own identity and agency. Next, in “‘People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire’: Ira Aldridge, Stephen Price, and the 1828 Coburg Theatre Lawsuit,” Kate Roark takes us across the Atlantic where we find a similar transgression of the comforting boundaries whites have historically put in place to shore up their destabilized identity. Roark examines the particulars of an intriguing 1828 court case in which London’s Coburg theatre was found to be in violation of the nearly century-old Licensing Act of 1737. While the verdict, on the face of it, seemed merely to censure the theatre for breeching the financial rights of the patent theatres, Drury Lane and Covent Garden, Roark finds that this case showcases the monopolies’ anxiety over the emergent boom of minor theatres in London, and a (failed) attempt to exert control over them. Much more insidiously, however, argues Roark, behind the financial reasons stated in the suit lay a deeper anxiety over the blurred national and artistic boundaries resulting in the Coburg’s employment of black American actor Ira Aldridge. “An examination of the 1828 lawsuit against the Coburg in the context of Aldridge’s career” writes Roark, “demonstrates how the serious English drama was integral to both England and American cultural identities, and how the performance of this serious drama by an African American actor

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created a crisis in both cultures over the racial boundaries of those national identities.” Dongshin Chang’s essay, “Proximity and the Demarcation of the Other: Three ‘Chinese’ Productions on the Early-Twentieth-Century London Stage,” treats the manner in which the London stage has handled another cultural intersection (and sometimes perceived threat), this time the cultural and economic “proximity” with China that had reached a peak in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chang notes that depictions of Chinese had been long been a popular draw for London theatres, and that practitioners since the late seventeenth-century sought to incorporate examples from real-life ethnographic sources for authenticity—or at the very least, theatrical effect. Chang points to three particular turn-of-the-century pieces that demonstrate the manner in which U.S. and British theatre practitioners utilized their connections with local Chinese communities, or the high-profile presence of China in popular Western culture, to portray the Chinese in three very different genres and with three very different approaches. Chang illustrates the way that playwrights not only played upon the British fascination and anxieties that accompanied their newfound proximity with China, but also how these fascinations and anxieties were picked up on and expanded in the comments of the reviewers. “The critical receptions of these pieces, especially,” writes Chang “reveal the British’s fantasy, doubt, hope and inspiration—a wide range of responses—toward the increasing proximity of the Other and the possible consequences of that proximity.” Andrew Gibb’s essay, “The paduanos and the Construction of California’s Mexican Past,” treats the “fantasy heritage” performances of Mexican and Mexican-American identity in 1930s southern California in his close examination of the popular dinner theatre and other enactments staged at the Padua Institute. The Institute’s “Mexican American Players”—preferring to call themselves “paduanos”—a mostly Mexican American company under an all-white management, have historically brought issues of agency and other politics of ethnicity to the fore in critic’s attention. Gibb’s analysis, however, circumvents the traditional critiques of the Institute’s “fantasy heritage” performances, and instead offers a fascinating analysis of the way the Institute’s use of space, the dual role of “actor” and “server” the performers’ bodies were required to fulfill, and the manner in which pop-culture notions of “Mexican” and “Mexican American” were both reinscripted and contested in order to offer a compelling account of the way the paduanos, in their specificity, shifted the notions of fantasy heritage in the early twentieth-century United States. “While it is true that the costumes and settings of the

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fantasy heritage plays historicized the bodies of the paduanos,” writes Gibb, “their open transformation from wait staff to californios and back suggested the historically continuous presence of Mexican-descended peoples in California. It legitimated, in a sense, the paduanos as citizens of California, and in so doing undermined the tenet of the fantasy heritage that California’s Mexican heritage was a thing of the past.” Yet, Gibb points out, the end result was still the perpetuation of the Mexican American as a “foreign” entity never fully absorbed into the modern California landscape. Gibb looks to the ways in which these performers, ambivalent about their complicity in perpetuating such notions, needed to negotiate the way they resisted or embraced the identity they produced and disseminated. In “Haunted Landscapes: Ping Chong’s East/West Productions,” Kay Martinovich explores the “haunted landscapes” of the first two installments of theatre practitioner Ping Chong’s East/West Quartet, Deshima and Chinoiserie. The former treats the complex encounter of eastern and western cultures and identity in the history of Dutch-Japanese contact and the Japanese confinement of Dutch traders and missionaries to the island of the play’s title. The latter’s title refers to both the influence of Chinese motifs in visual and decorative art, but also acts as a catchall term for the Orientalist consumerism on the part of westerners. Chinoiserie functions, too, as an autobiographical performance as Chong “witnesses to and participates in” his own Chinese-American history, even taking to the stage himself at points in the production. Invoking Jacques Derrida’s notion of hauntology, the trace, and the notions of mis- and disremembering, as her historiographic approach, Martinovich submits “that Chong creates these haunted intercultural spaces to lament the loss of “other” narratives and to contend with the embedded hostilities and contentious relationships that constitute ‘race’ in Japan and America, China and Britain, East and West.” By framing the productions in this manner, Martinovich demonstrates how Chong’s subjects defy easy (and traditional) western discursive categorization: as Martinovich put it: “[t]he ghost, as an undecidable–both absent and present–upsets stability and certainty.” The third and final section of the collection, “Imagined Communities and the Performance of Cultural Identity” begins with Katie N. Johnson’s essay, “From Camille to Lulu Belle: Constructing the Black Courtesan in the American Brothel Drama.” Johnson draws together a telling taxonomy of turn-of-the-century plays centering around prostitutes, fallen women, and “hooker-with-a-heart-of gold” characters, and articulates a set of troubling observations. While by the early twentieth century, brothel

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dramas (extensions of the progressive-era captivity narrative, and almost exclusively featuring white women) had stopped “killing” their female protagonists at the end, David Bellasco’s 1926 revival of the Camille story, Lulu Belle, featured a black title character, and subjected her to a gruesome death scene at the close of the play—seemingly answering to white anxieties regarding the danger of a black courtesan’s incontinent sexuality. To further complicate the matter, while the chorus of this “negro drama” consisted of over one-hundred real-life black residents of Harlem, the leading characters were played in blackface by white actors including Leore Ulric and Henry Hill. Johnson’s essay feels out the contours of the cultural and political milieu in which Lulu Belle emerged and with which it intersected, looking to critical reception of the performance at the time, to the theoretical work of Harry Elam and E. Patrick Johnson, and to the discourses on blackface minstrelsy of Eric Lott, Errol Hill, James Hatch, and David Krasner. Noting not only how the play functioned within the “Harlem Renaissance, the rise of realism, and modernism’s obsession with primitivism,” Johnson also draws our attention to the manner in which “notions of so-called racial ‘authenticity’ were deployed both on and off stage.” Next, in “The Moral Tetralogy: American Social/Political/Cultural Commentary in the Later Writings of Steve Tesich,” Michael Rothmayer examines the last four plays of Serbian-born American playwright Steve Tesich, drawing our attention to a distinct shift in the Tesich’s successful writing career in film and theatre up to that point. Terming these plays Tesich’s “Moral Tetrology,” Rothmayer takes the reader through an increasingly pointed and bitter critique of America’s increasing moral ambiguity in regard to social issues, both domestic and abroad. Over the course of his work in the late 1980s to the late-mid 1990s, Tesich confronted his audiences with pointed critiques of Americans’ apathy and failure to realize the promises of their social engagement of the 1960s. Concomitantly, Tesich signaled the growing censorship of social criticism on the part of the government and other powers-that-be. Tesich’s frustration, with his adopted fellow citizens, writes Rothmayer, “came with a growing sense that societal apathy was being supplanted by a conscious choice to marginalize and even censor critical points of view.” Throughout his career, however, and especially during the years he composed this “tetralogy,” argues Rothmayer, Tesich’s writing was motivated by a deep and complex love for America that made his criticism all the more poignant. In his final months before dying of a heart attack in 1996, Tesich leveled his harshest critiques in what might be considered a supplement to his tetralogy: a series of unpublished letters to the New York

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Times. At the end of his essay, Rothmayer includes an excerpt from one of the most damning letters, “Niggerization: Everything, Not Just Charity, Begins At Home.” Beginning with Diana Taylor’s recently articulated notions of the archive and the repertoire, Julie Pearson-Little Thunder’s essay, “Acts of Transfer: The 1975 and 1976 Productions of Raven and Body Indian by Red Earth Performing Arts Company,” focuses on a particular moment in a two-decade period of Native theatre production the author terms, “Native Emergence Theatre.” Engaging specifically with the Red Earth’s first two productions, Pearson-Little Thunder explores the manner in which, in both cases, the artists’ performance was a way of moving beyond heavy reliance on the “archive” of Native theatre at the time (that is, a limited number of previously-written scripts), instead engaging in “acts of transfer” or “embodied transmission” of identity, values, knowledge, collective memory and emotions between the performers and the audience—the repertoire—through the commissioning and creation of the company’s own scripts. Of primary essence in discussing these works is a consideration of the ways (in the author’s words, the “why and the how and the what”) Red Earth adapted oral traditions and lived Native experience for the stage. By looking at the intersection of playwrights’ textual choices and the performing bodies of the actors, as well as audience reception, Pearson-Little Thunder illuminates the way that the actors not only performed the scripts, but also drew upon “Native habitus, gesture, and attitude” in order to exteriorize and transfer the “living practice” of their identity to their Native and non-Native spectators. Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson’s “Constructing the Fruited Plain: The ‘red,’ the White and the imbued,” also takes the construction of Native identity as its case study. In this instance, however, Van Der Horn-Gibson focuses on the construction and perpetuation of negative stereotypes of the Indian in popular stage manifestations of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. It is clear, she argues, that the characters of the Pickaninny Tribe, the Lost Boys, and Tiger Lily emerged within a very specific milieu of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American Frontier mythology and accompanying racialized discourses of Positivism, Manifest Destiny, and Survival of the Fittest (not surprisingly, Peter Pan was roughly contemporaneous with touring Wild West shows and “Real Indian” displays). But, more disturbingly, these troublesome images are re-emergent in stage productions of Peter Pan well into the current century, with, for example, the Caird and Nunn-produced revival’s inclusion of additional dialogue for the Pickaninnies, smacking of the worst kind of exoticization. Van Der Horn-Gibson aligns her analysis

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within recent work by Philip Deloria (Playing Indian) and William S. Yellow Robe, Jr., to argue that the native’s place in current American identity production is not as far off from late-nineteenth-century categorizations as we might assume. Sara Freeman’s essay, “The Immigrant, the Exile, the Refugee in Wertenbaker’s Credible Witness: A Poetics of Diaspora,” looks to Gabrielle Griffin’s reading of the theories of Avtar Brah in order to rethink outmoded notions of post-colonialism in dramatic literature, probing instead the emergent notion of “diaspora space.” Such space, writes Freeman, resists “ghettoization and opens possibilities querying difference from many locations. In this way, the notion of diaspora can migrate, for instance, to the work [of] Wertenbaker, whose theatre purposefully queries the multi-sourced nexus of national identity, ethnic identity, historical consciousness, and self-transformation.” Freeman uses Griffin’s figures of the “immigrant” and the “asylum seeker” to trace the way such figures operate in “internationally-minded” Wertenbaker’s treatment of the denizens of an immigrant detention centre in her play Credible Witness. Freeman articulates the way the playwright uses her characters to probe diasporic identity and the dilemmas of transnational exile, migration histories, the collision of nationalisms, and political and psychological abjection. The discourse on identity construction continues with “Puerto-Rican Stages: Theatre in the Metropolis, on the Island, on the Margins.” Elena García-Martín organizes her essay “along the broad lines of the Puerto Rican search for communal and national identity through theatre.” GarcíaMartín departs from traditional framing of Puerto Rican theatre with temporal metaphors (“tradition, history, or usable pasts”), and instead constructs her history along what she terms “spatial coordinates.” By privileging a spatial approach rather than a temporal one, García-Martín “emphasize[s] the importance of spatial continuity as a strategy of identity construction, but also, and more importantly, allude[s] to presence—both of bodies and spaces—as a dimension that links theatre and the spatial bindings of identity.” Drawing our attention to the disparity fomented by the academy’s foregrounding of commercial theatre produced in Puerto Rico’s capital San Juan and its relative neglect of the rich and compelling “unconventional” theatre and performance initiatives in the “margins,” the author examines the way these emergent initiatives challenge the narratives of identity perpetuated by the traditionally mainstream commercial venues. García-Martín offers as examples communal, sitespecific theatre such as “Teatro Rodante” and “Agua, Sol y Sereno,” and performances like Myrna Renaud’s “La Ruta Cangrejera” and those staged

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by the artists of “Museo del Barrio,” informed by the work by Deborah Hunt, which protested the expropriation and gentrification of the Santurce district in San Juan—highlighting the spatial relationship between subversive, populist theatre and the non-commercial spaces outside the metropolitan centers and logocentric cultural institutions where such theatre is found. The subject of Leigh Clemons’ essay, “Querying Difference on the Battlefield,” offers perhaps one of the largest numbers of queries of difference in the volume. Clemons’ deflates traditional scholarly dismissal or misconceptions of the complex performative and historiographic projects contemporary battle enactment hobbyists engage. Her essay approaches the rich and relatively un-traversed conceptual terrain, then, from many trajectories. Drawing from both observerparticipant accounts and cultural anthropology, as well as Gilles Deleuze’s notion of “contrariness,” Clemons cites tricky areas of difference in regard to friend and foe, soldier and supporting roles in historical in-character enactments or “impressions,” difference between reenactor and the general public (and the media’s role in perpetuating tensions between the two), difference (and tensions) between professional living historians and living history hobbyists, difference between rigorous, “authentic” reenactors (“hardcores”) and their “farb” counterparts within reenactments, and, delving into trickier areas, differences between reenactors who choose to portray “us” (the good guys) and those that opt to portray “them” (those the historical record has assigned the status of “bad guy,” e.g. Confederates or German soldiers in World War II). Clemons also looks at complex notions of race, gender, and ethnicity at these performances. “Disallowing the presence of persons who do not “look right” is defended as necessary to preserve authenticity,” she writes. “[T]o allow a person to play anyone he/she wanted would be bowing, in the minds of some reenactors, to revisionist political correctness and dilute the hobby’s educational mission.” While these performers strive for historical accuracy as a touchstone for authentic witnessing to the common-man soldier, Clemons notes counter-performances in these events that run against the grain of mainstream history. Even so, she argues, reenactors engage in identity management that often obfuscates deeper areas of difference. “The distinctness of the details provide a patina of similarity—the experience of the common soldier—that masks the very real differences implicit in their impressions and the arguments of authenticity which make those differences possible.” In each of these case studies, then, the author teases out some of the limitations of discourse concerning difference in theatre history today,

Introduction

13

whether it be racial, ethnic, geographic, sex-based, gender-based, economic, or particular amalgams thereof. Incorporating new approaches and theories for dealing with such issues, each serves as a complex and rigorous—yet readerly and pleasurable—text. As a collection, it is our hope that these essays will constitute a set of entry points into a dynamic and vital scholarly conversation.

PART I: HISTORIOGRAPHY

TEN-FOOT POLE HISTORIOGRAPHY: LIBERAL DEMOCRACY, IDEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCE, AND DESPICABLE ACTS JOHN FLETCHER

When is difference too different? Consider the activist demonstrations of the Rev. Fred Phelps, the pastor of the tiny Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Over the last fifteen years, Phelps and his congregation (much of which consists of his extended family) have gained infamy for their vitriolic protests of churches, conventions, celebrations, funerals—any event that they perceive as advocating or enabling a gay agenda. Or, in his words, Phelps bears witness against “fags,” “fag enablers,” “fag churches,” and the “fag nation” that enables them—all because, as his website proclaims, “God Hates Fags.”1 Westboro mounts as many as forty protests a week at points across the nation. The average demonstration (church members call them “Love Crusades”), often but not always led by Phelps himself, consists of a small band of church members (usually less than ten). Demonstrators drive out to the location of the event they are protesting, park their cars, coordinate with local police about where they can stand, and unload their paraphernalia. For the next four to five hours, the group heckles passersby about God’s impending judgment upon America for its refusal to reject (that is, “impose the death penalty on”) gay people.2 Declaiming their invective-filled sermons, they display bright, neon-colored, foam-core placards featuring catchy phrases like “Thank God for AIDS,” “USA = Fag Nation,” “Your Pastor is a Whore” and, the standard, “God Hates Fags.” Phelps typically attracts the most media attention for his protests of funerals: funerals of AIDS victims, of celebrities, and of late, of US soldiers who die in Iraq.3 Apparently Iraq is God’s righteous punishment for America’s toleration of “fags.” “Thank God For IEDs,” read their latest signs. As a scholar of activist performance, I cannot responsibly ignore Phelps. Over the last decade, he has gone from backwater kook to

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nationally-known pariah, securing a place in any history of grassroots American protests. Phelps, or recognizably Phelpsian characters, regularly figure as the star villains in pro-tolerance dramas like The Laramie Project or in Human Rights Campaign literature, acting as a rhetorical spur to those unsure about supporting gay rights, as if to say, “See the end result of intolerance?” Meanwhile, the more mainstream conservative, “profamily” (as opposed to “anti-gay”) movement now carefully contrasts itself as the sane, loving alternative to Phelps’ militant extreme.4 And, for the good, old-fashioned anti-gay crowd, Phelps serves as valuable freespeech pioneer, trailblazing his way into cultural celebrations and memorials of others. Given his importance, then, my scholarly task is clear: I am to place Phelps in a cultural context, situate his methods in terms of antecedent demonstrators, and evaluate his influence upon other political and cultural movements—in other words, historicize him. This I can do. After hours or research, I can discuss Phelps’ theology, explain his logic, position him in relation to other protest groups both past and present. I can acknowledge Phelps’ contributions to the field of political activism and public protest. I can even relate my own experiences of being protested by—and counterprotesting—Phelps himself. I could write an essay about how he and his hate-filled signs trigger passionate discussions about the limits of tolerance in US democracy. Which is a good thing, because I’ll tell you: I have trouble tolerating Phelps. The more I study him, read his web pages, collect articles about him, hear his sermons and interviews, watch him in person—the more I feel coated with slime. He emits hatred like radioactivity. Watching archival footage of Phelps in action reminds me of those movies where Dracula passes and the grass around him rots into black ash. And my dislike—my discomfort at the difference he represents—influences how I represent him in my scholarship. I find myself needing to distance myself from him, to talk about him at a remove, and to mark the difference between myself and him and his poisonous ideology through various rhetorical markers (sardonic prose, meta-narration, jokes about Dracula). In other words, I engage in ten-foot pole historiography when it comes to Fred Phelps, and I’m uncomfortable about that. The theme of this volume challenges us to query and contest difference, a project with both political and scholarly dimensions. I’m troubled because Phelps—his followers, his tactics, his views—go beyond mere difference for me. They represent something despicable, anathematic to my core convictions about what democracy should be or should tolerate. I struggle with the fact that Phelps’s particular brand of difference represents a limit-point to my

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Ten-Foot-Pole Historiography: Liberal Democracy, Ideological Difference, and Despicable Acts

critical and political ethics, the very commitments that spur me to query and contest difference in the first place. In this essay I try to clarify some of the issues around my ten-foot pole historiography, teasing out some of the reasons why what Phelps embodies so complicates my politics and my scholarship. I ground my scholarship and activism in what political theorist Chantal Mouffe calls a radical democratic ethic.5 Radical democracy endorses the democratic principle of liberty and equality for all. But it also recognizes that, at present, these principles remain only partially realized, tethered to an Enlightenment model of Man in the abstract as holder of rights and sovereignty. Many people remain excluded from effective recourse to human rights or political representation due to various divergences from that (white, male, European, Christian, straight) Enlightenment subject. Thanks to a the rise of what Mouffe calls “new social movements” based on differences of sex, gender identity, race, nationality, and culture, however, liberty and equality imply newer, more plural definitions and applications. Radical democracy seeks to expand and multiply the reach of liberty and equality in response to these new configurations of identity, exploring new arenas for human rights, new horizons for political representation, and new modes of citizenship. This volume’s challenge to query difference can be said to embody a radical democratic project. “Radical democracy,” explains Mouffe, “demands that we acknowledge difference—the particular, the multiple, the heterogeneous—in effect everything that had been excluded by the concept of Man in the abstract.”6 And thus the problem: I approach Phelps primed (I would hope) for the bracingly democratic confrontation with difference, ready to theorize new and exciting ways for his difference to deepen and enrich the scope of liberal democracy. But I simply balk when confronted with signs boasting “Matt Shepard in Hell” or “Thank God for 9-11.” I can laugh at Phelps, share his more bizarre offerings for shock value, and even dare myself to prove my liberal credentials by “understanding” him (after all, he’s probably repressing his own homosexuality…). But I have trouble representing him neutrally. I would like to believe that I would never consciously treat a racial, national, sexual, or economic other with as much cynicism or condescension as I do with Phelps. I don’t find his point of view merely different in an uncomfortable-but-I-can-extend-tolerancetoward-him sort of way; I find his world view despicable. It behooves me, then, to clarify the nature of the difference Phelps poses and to explore why I have difficulty incorporating it into even a radical and plural democratic ethic.

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I’ll begin by saying that I don’t think that “religion” adequately characterizes this sense of difference. I’m surrounded daily by religious difference—Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Pentecostals—heck, some of my best friends are non-Methodists. I have relatively little trouble tolerating them, by which I mean recognizing legitimate differences, affirming the relatively stable status of those differences, but committing to bracketing the existence of those differences in order to go about the process of social co-existence. In other words, for instance, I’m Methodist, not Mormon. Mormons and I are different; I’m not going to become Mormon any time soon, but for the most part we can agree to disagree. I can’t do this with the Westboro Baptist Church members. They don’t just preach intolerant messages in their church building; they deploy their messages in public, effectively insinuating themselves into the public rituals of civic religion—parades, memorials, fair days, and so forth. Moreover, the crux of Phelps’ beef with me has nothing to do with the fact that I don’t go to his church; indeed, Westboro Baptist is flatly uninterested in winning converts. His job is to state his sense of the truth; if this convinces some people to repent, that’s business between them and God.7 Instead, I characterize the difference between Phelps and myself as ideological or political difference. That is, Phelps and I hold competitive, mutually incompatible views concerning the proper makeup, purpose, and future of society. Through their speeches, their demonstrations, their web presence, their media interviews, Phelps and his band disseminate the viewpoint that an entire class of people (“fags”) holds no legitimate claim to human rights or political equality. It isn’t just that gay people are sinners; it’s that they should not be. Between this view and my own radical democratic ethic, no level of tolerance, of “agreeing to disagree” is possible. We lack even a common language to describe the issues that divide us. Terms I imagine as neutral—homosexual, gay, GLBT—have no place in Westboro Baptist’s lexicon, and to say that Phelps “dislikes” gay people is a corruption of his message. As Phelps has explained on several occasions, he uses the word fag intentionally for its etymological implications: the contraction of faggot—that which burns.8 The word for him accurately embodies the proper fate and status of homosexuals. I cannot represent their views neutrally because nothing about their viewpoint fits within a schema I recognize as value-neutral. The reverse is also true. He could not discuss my own beliefs about GLBT equality and human rights without betraying the language that defines his world-view. Each of us is, in each other’s eyes, fundamentally irrational and immoral. So why not just exclude him—treat him as a criminal element, as sociopathic vermin? After all, exclusion per se isn’t unethical. Indeed, a

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Ten-Foot-Pole Historiography: Liberal Democracy, Ideological Difference, and Despicable Acts

certain degree of intolerance is a necessary part any system, even a democratic one. No government could survive if it had to tolerate people or groups actively devoted to bringing about its destruction. Democratic systems have the right and the duty to exclude the Tim McVeighs who use para-political violence to impose their authoritarian world view on the rest of society. Yet, tempting as it might be to ban him from my society, Phelps is simply not in the same class as an antidemocratic terrorist. Unlike a Ku Klux Klan arsonist or a Neo-Nazi gay basher, Phelps does not actually disrupt anyone’s access to democratic liberties. Nor does he advocate personal violence against homosexuals and their supporters. Punishment, like conversion, is in Phelps’ eyes God’s job, and God clearly chooses to punish fag nations with hurricanes, terrorists, and Iraqi wars.9 In fact—and in contrast to many other protesters on the right and the left—Phelps and his group are scrupulous about staying within legal bounds. Civil disobedience (e.g., arranging sit-ins or sympathy-garnering mass arrests) isn’t one of their tactics—quite the opposite. Phelps’ family and congregation claim a surprising number of lawyers. Through legal savvy and years of experience, Phelps’ protesters are often better versed in the peculiarities of local protest law than are the officers assigned to protect/corral them. They know exactly where to stand, how far they can go, and they are quick to press charges through standard legal channels if their rights have been ignored. In a recent interview, Phelps boasted that as many as eleven of his close family members are lawyers. When asked about legal and media harassment, Phelps laughed, “A federal judge gave us $175,000 in fees for having to sue so many of the people over the laws they passed who were trying to run around the First Amendment.”10 Despicable as their stances may be, Phelps and his group choose to publicize them in strictly civil ways. Unlike terrorists or extreme activists, the Westboro crowd observes the rules of the political game, presenting its views as legitimate ideological positions in a larger democratic context. Phelps thus represents for me a political difference in Jacques Rancière’s precise sense of politics—a struggle not between opinions of how to distribute power among democratic players (say, Republicans versus Democrats) but a fundamental, irreconcilable disagreement over who counts as a player in the first place.11 Phelps and his followers simply do not consider fags like me legitimate participants in a political process. They live grudgingly in a society run by people they honestly and deeply consider irredeemably irrational and corrupt. Indeed, our co-existence within the same society depends upon the fact that the Westboro Baptist Church comprises only a hundred or so members,12 whereas the political community of people who don’t think, for instance, that gay people should

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be put to death numbers comfortably in the hundreds of millions. Phelps and I co-exist in the same democracy only insofar as Phelps’ platform remains a political loser, relegated to the radical fringe of US politics. Let me pause, briefly, to unpack this last point. It bears mentioning that at the 2006 Mid-America Theatre Conference in Chicago where I originally presented a draft of this paper, a respondent pointed out that my ability to reflect upon my scholarly treatment toward Phelps hinged on Phelps’ said status as political loser. I agree. Indeed, the contrast between the current political environment and a world arranged according to Phelpsian views defines the breadth of my political disagreement with him. If US culture and government were of Phelps’ opinion (gay people should not exist), academic conversation and play-by-the-rules democratic politics would be impossible for me. In such a scenario I would not be a recognized democratic player at all, but rather a form of what Giorgio Agamben terms “homo sacer”—humans who lack legitimate political existence.13 As Agamben and other theorists point out, current US practice deplorably fosters this state of being in its categorization of those classified as “enemy combatants” in the “War on Terrorism” who have been denied access to the political rights—which is to say denied access to the ostensibly human rights—enjoyed by prisoners of war. Though relevant to my larger project, pursuing this line of thought takes me beyond the scope of this essay. At this juncture, I limit myself to pointing out that in the current political environment Phelps in no way qualifies as homo sacer. He may be a loser politically, but he is nevertheless a legitimate player within US democratic life. Characterizing Phelpsian difference, then, as political as opposed to merely religious deepens the stakes, because political diversity is definitive of democracy itself. That is, a system must have at least some measure of significant ideological difference—some minimum competition between political viewpoints—in order to qualify as a democracy at all. Such a requirement distinguishes political difference from other categorical differences like race, ethnicity, nationality, class, or sexuality. Political difference may (and often does) coincide with these differences, but the mere existence of ideological diversity in no way guarantees or even assumes a concomitant diversity of race, sexuality, or culture. “Even a liberal society doesn’t require a multiplicity of ethnic groups or religious communities,” observes political theorist Michael Walzer. “Its existence, even its flourishing, is entirely compatible with cultural homogeneity.”14 Despite the common assumption that tolerance and diversity are integral to democratic thought, nothing in liberal democratic theory, per se, requires that people of differing races, classes,

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Ten-Foot-Pole Historiography: Liberal Democracy, Ideological Difference, and Despicable Acts

genders, and sexualities be included. Democracy demands diversity of ideas, not a diversity of citizens. Precisely for this reason, Mouffe believes (and I concur) that democracy must be radicalized, pushed to extend and deepen its reach to recognize, account for, and incorporate a diversity of differences beyond the merely political ones necessary for democracy’s minimal function. Crucially, however, a radical democratic ethic cannot be equated with democracy itself. As Mouffe is quick to point out, radical democracy is only one of many political options in the democratic field, and as such it cannot stand as triumphantly self-evident but must compete with other ideological options.15 Thus, while admirably suited to querying economic, sexual, and cultural differences, a radical democratic ethic—and, I would suggest, a historiography basing itself in such an ethic—stands illequipped to grapple with the one kind of difference absolutely essential to democracy itself. Fundamental political difference forms the limit-point of radical democratic inquiry. In order to survive with any coherence, radical democracy (or a radical democratic scholarship) must distance itself from those political ideologies that differ from and compete with it. How, then, do we as difference-querying historians and scholars represent those who are politically different from us—not just different than us, despicable to us? I don’t have a solution. I can’t ignore Phelps. I can’t exclude Phelps. But I lack a language to discuss him neutrally. I can only distance myself from him. Perhaps, however, we shouldn’t be thinking in terms of solutions. In this thought I gain some support from Michel Foucault: “[W]hat I want to do,” he says, “is not the history of solutions [. . .] I would like to do the genealogy of problems, of problématiques [. . .] . My point is not that everything is bad, but that everything is dangerous, which is not exactly the same as bad. If everything is dangerous, then we always have something to do.”16 I like the idea of ten-foot-pole historiography as a dangerous endeavor— necessary, unavoidable, but demanding a certain level of caution to use. Let me conclude by suggesting that a ten-foot pole historiography—or a ten-foot pole politics, for that matter—is dangerous to the extent that it can distract attention from the scholar wielding the pole. Consider the cottage industry of counter-protests that Phelps and his followers have inspired in the communities they target. In The Laramie Project, for instance, a group of high school students construct large, angel-winged costumes to surround and block out Phelps signs at Matthew Shepard’s funeral. Other towns have held counter-rallies, singing songs about love and tolerance to drown out Phelps’ yammering. Phelps has even inspired a national organization of motorcyclists, the Patriot Guard

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Riders, dedicated to countering his protests of soldiers’ funerals.17 Led by state and regional captains and coordinated through a central website, the Patriot Guard, numbering over 5,000 riders nationwide, identifies funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq who may be targets of Phelps. They then show up at the funeral (always only after being invited by the deceased’s family) and park their bikes in rows in front of Phelps’ setups, unfurling large US flags and chanting patriotic cheers so that funeral goers see and hear only patriotism and respect. On the one hand I applaud such techniques—I have myself counterprotested Phelps, and I don’t doubt that I will do so again in the future. At the same time, elements of such protests make me uncomfortable. For one thing, blockade protests suggest that tolerance and mutual respect don’t have to be better or more productive than Phelps’ rhetoric, merely louder. And it’s difficult to be self-reflective or thoughtful when out-shouting a bigot. Slavoj Žižek contends that, all too often, people invoke “democracy” as a reaction, citing not a positive, coherent definition but rather a difference between the goodness that is (their own) democracy and the evil that is terrorism, communism, intolerance, and so forth.18 “Asis” democracy—with all its shortcomings—becomes positively wonderful compared to Phelps’ vision. Focusing on such evilness, Žižek warns, can distract citizens from examining the system they support. And that’s the danger that despicable acts like Phelps’s pose: he’s what Žižek calls a denkverbot—a stoppage to thought.19 Phelps provokes reaction, criticism, and distancing while deactivating critical reflection. The Westboro Church’s protests are troublesome not because their side will “win”—the US isn’t likely to adopt an “execute all fags” policy. It’s rather that Phelps’ stance is too easy to fight, that he makes one’s democratic commitments a matter of facile performance: rev your motorcycle, don your angel wings, write an essay about how hateful he is, and pat yourself on the back for your democratic tolerance. It’s easy to play the melodramatic hero—the dashing activist, the penetrating critic— when you have a melodramatic villain. Don’t get me wrong: there are times when Dashing Activist and Penetrating Critic are roles that need to be filled, because there are times wherein Phelps does his best to play the part of villain. At such junctures, a ten-foot pole can be a useful tool. Seeing ten-foot pole historiography as dangerous, however, can hopefully keep us aware of how labeling an outrageous act as politically despicable can mask deeper problems that plague our present democracy, subtle bigotries that do not proclaim exclusionist attitudes with neon-colored signs or shocking words, but which act behind a façade of democratic tolerance so easily erected

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Ten-Foot-Pole Historiography: Liberal Democracy, Ideological Difference, and Despicable Acts

whenever a Fred Phelps appears. Surely an ethic that queries and questions difference can work to avoid that trap.

THE PLAY REVIEW AS A MEANS OF QUERYING DIFFERENCE, OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE PERFORMATIVE HENRY BIAL

Hello, my name is Henry and I’m a Theatre Historian. That said, my research, both by training and inclination, tends to fall under the rubric of Performance Studies. Specifically, I am interested in the negotiation of dramatic meaning that occurs between the performance and the audience, and I’m particularly interested in the part of that negotiation which is not self-contained in the play’s written text. How, for example, did audiences respond to the Emcee’s role in the original production of Cabaret? How does Fiddler on the Roof play differently, mean differently, with Alfred Molina or Harvey Fierstein in the role of Tevye, as opposed to Zero Mostel? Who was laughing during the record-setting five-year-run of Abie’s Irish Rose? Like many of you, then, I am utterly-if-not-exclusively dependent on published play reviews. If we wish to reconstruct the scene of the crime, we look to the testimony of the eyewitnesses. This raises, I don’t need to tell you, a host of historiographic anxieties, not the least of which is to what degree the critic really speaks for the audience; generally speaking, I tend to ignore, for example, William Goldman’s characterization of the archetypal New York theatre critic as “the dregs, the stage-struck but untalented neurotic who eventually drifts into criticism as a means of clinging peripherally to the art,”1 not because I have any evidence that Goldman is wrong, but because to proceed on that assumption gets me nowhere at all. So I engage my “magic if” and proceed instead on the supposition that the critic, as what Marvin Carlson calls an “Institutionalized Reader,”2 offers more reliable testimony than those other eyewitnesses: the diarist, the memoir writer, and the artist involved in the production. I make myself (and, I hope, my readers) feel better about this by incorporating as many different voices into the conversation as possible. But still, any theatre historian who depends on published reviews to determine What Actually Happened must employ what I call “a

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The Play Review as a Means of Querying Difference, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Performative

historiography of strategic naivete.” The historian’s strategic naivete is the third corner of the triangle which—along with the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief and the actor’s “As if”—comprises the collective fiction necessary to the theatrical enterprise (see Fig. 1-1).

Fig. 1-1. The negotiation of meaning in the theatre event.

What I want to zoom in on in this essay, however, is a subset of this general problem: specifically, I wish to explore the Critic’s use of language and particularly his or her deployment of various terms by which to categorize the performance at hand. We have long recognized the need to contextualize and historicize the writing of critics and other observers. Clearly when, say, Robert Benchley, writing in Life in the 1920s describes a light comedy as a “gay romp” he means something different than when, say, Michael Feingold writing in the Village Voice in the 1990s uses the same term to describe Love Valor Compassion! Just as clearly, theatre historians come to recognize that each critic has his or her biases and blind spots. One adores anything French. Another despises Arthur Miller. A third is homophobic. But I’m talking about something else: what I want to suggest here is that the critics’ language does not merely reflect the sociocultural conversation of the moment in which the performance under review takes place, or their personal idiosyncracies. The critics’ language also—to a not

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inconsequential degree—shapes that conversation. And when it comes to issues of identity, the categories or “frames” through which productions are evaluated and assessed do more than simply reflect already-existing constructions of “difference”; they also produce (and reinforce) those constructions (those differences) through a performative act of naming. When, for example, Clive Barnes writes in the New York Post of George C. Wolfe’s direction of Angels in America, Part I that “[It] emphasizes Kushner’s unexpectedly old-style “Boys in the Band” repartee, giving that gay-corpse humor a proper Harvey Fierstein Jewish twist, making it in sensibility very much a Gay Fantasia on New York, rather than American, Themes,” he reifies some very specific constructions of difference, nation, and community, even as he challenges or elides others.3 We may regard this kind of naming as an interpellation or hailing, a way for Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatus to bring into being a category or identity position, and hence turn the individual into a subject of the dominant culture.4 To quickly rehearse this argument (in grossly oversimplified form): the individual is hailed by a name that assumes their subject position within the prevailing Ideology: “Hey, Jew!”—and in this moment, the individual being hailed has two choices: 1) to answer, and by implication to accept the validity of both the identification and the significance of that identity, to subject oneself to the categorization; or 2) to ignore the call, and risk exclusion from the culture while simultaneously—perhaps—denying one’s own notion of self. Or to put it another way, the review is not a constative utterance, a statement that can be judged true or false. It is performative act.5 So in the quote at hand, what notions of identity, community, and, yes, Difference are being performed? At the broadest level, Barnes’ words deny the play’s claim to novelty or uniqueness. It may feel new and groundbreaking, but it’s essentially old wine in a new bottle. What Barnes finds “unexpected” is the very oldfashioned-ness of it. Angels, in this reading, is not just something we’ve seen before, it’s three things we’ve seen before: Boys in the Band, Harvey Fierstein, and New York Jews. This is a sentiment echoed elsewhere in the same review, where Barnes suggests that the play “works from a concept of those Big Themes that have seduced American playwrights from O’Neill onward.” At, let’s say, the next level down, Barnes is determining what the play is, in some sense, about. Every review describes the major events and themes of the play—all of them depend on the reader’s belief—or at least, willing suspension of disbelief, that they are simply reporting and evaluating what happens on the stage. And, for me, the historian, here’s

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The Play Review as a Means of Querying Difference, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Performative

the first invocation of my strategic naivete—I know from both theory and experience that this is not true, that Barnes appears to be putting the play into an already existing category while in fact inventing the already abject category as a way of belittling the play. Nevertheless, I (on behalf of the play) must answer the hailing, accept the interpellation, if I am to enter the critical discourse. Having agreed to accept this “description” (or “Constative”) at something like face value, I now ask myself what ideas of community, identity, and difference are inherent in that assessment. Well, because my recent book is about theatrical constructions of Jewishness, the first thing I notice is the uncomplicated elision from “Jewish” to “New York.”6 (The fact that I am Jewish and from New York may also have something to do with this act of noticing). So… Jews and New York (who’da thunk it?)…. Clearly, Clive Barnes did not invent this equation. In fact, throughout the entertainment industry, “New York” is often understood to be a code word for Jewish. Wendy Wasserstein, for example, wrote in her collection of essays Shiksa Goddess: “I came to accept that when my work was described as being “too New York” it was really a euphemism for something else.”7 But while the review at hand does not invent the code, it does invoke it. And in this invocation is another interpellation—what Judith Butler (also Jewish) would call a performative reinscription.8 Let’s peel away another layer—we’ve talked about “Jewish,” we’ve talked about “New York” and…. Oh, yes, “Gay,” a term which, in the discourse of this review is not equivalent to Jewish or New York, but it is not not-equivalent either. Personally, given the subject matter, I am more troubled by the unproblematic use of the phrase “That gay-corpse humor.” Not so much, perhaps the linking of gay and corpse, but the linking of the compound with the modifier “that”, again implying that:, 1) everybody understands and shares the chain of association that takes us from gay to corpse to humor to Harvey Fierstein to New York, to (in the next sentence) “No one has done this kind of bitch-camp humor better”; and, 2) it’s somehow old news. I’m not trying to pick on Clive Barnes. Nor do I wish to overestimate the opinion-making power of The New York Post [As the manager of Macy’s was infamously rumored to have said, “Our customers read the Times; our shoplifters read the Post”]. But as an historian, there it is in black and white. It’s part of the record of the performance, and it’s even published (on deadline, and not peer-reviewed, but nonetheless). I can’t ignore it, either. And so I can’t ignore the America which Barnes (a native Englishman) imagines he is writing about… and against which Barnes positions Angels (A Gay Fantasia on New York, rather than American

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themes…). It is, apparently, an America that, unlike New York, doesn’t appreciate Jews, or maybe gay-corpse humor, or maybe camp. It does, you’ll remember, seem to include O’Neill. So O’Neill is American, Kushner is not. And New Yorkers, the collection of campy Jewish queers that Barnes is nominally writing for… well, who knows about them? What is clear is that Barnes is not one of them, either. He’s a member of the other New York: the hip, sophisticated New York that is not offended by queer theatre, but bored by it. I’m not sure that’s better. But I am sure that if we as readers are to accept the review as a descriptive account of Angels in America, then we must imagine ourselves to be part of that same community. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth performative. I’d like now to compare Barnes’ hailing of Angels with a different set of interpellations that sat beside it on newsstands on May 5, 1993, Linda Winer’s review for New York Newsday: “Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer-Prize winning gay epic […] is a fierce and wonderful play—uncompromising and compassionate, unflinchingly partisan and intensely well-informed, as intimate and entertaining as it is monumental and spiritual.”9 Where Barnes language seemed to put Angels into an already-existing category (though in reality created that category in order to dismiss it), Winer—after declaring the historic “Pulitzer Prize winning” provenance of the play—seems just as interested in establishing the play’s singularity. By juxtaposing a series of apparently contradictory terms—fierce and wonderful, uncompromising and compassionate, etc., she prevents the reader from easily categorizing the play. Indeed, though she fires off a string of interpellations, the fact that these namings are apparently contradictory calls our attention to the failure of language to adequately categorize Kushner’s play, drawing out a kind of performative via negativa which enacts Winer’s assessment that Angels is sui generis—a whole new kind of animal. Winer’s review continues in this negatively positive way, eventually concluding, “There were some boos at the end of the preview I attended, and we can only guess why. Maybe the mainstream Broadway audience was shocked, maybe somebody was related to Jeanne Kirkpatrick, maybe somebody yearned for Cohn’s deferred dream of a Republican presidency and Supreme Court forever. Or, maybe, someone just didn’t want to have to wait until fall to find out how this important story ends. This, we understand.”10 Here, again, her technique is the mirror image of Barnes’. Where Barnes denigrated the play by establishing his difference from the undifferentiated mass of queer Jewish New Yorkers who he expects will like it, Winer indicates her endorsement of the play by differentiating

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The Play Review as a Means of Querying Difference, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Performative

herself from those who (she imagines) will not like it: in this case an undifferentiated mass of Republicans. As her crowning move, she also switches pronouns from first person singular “the Preview I attended” to plural “we can only guess” “we understand.” Like Barnes, then, Winer’s review ultimately hails the reader, challenging us to be part of the “we” that understand, the “we” that “can’t wait,” the “we” who don’t get Republicans at all. As peroration, a word of caution: one must be careful in applying the Althusser-cum-Butler notion of interpellation here. The play is not an individual, nor, ultimately, can it be a Subject in the sense that these theorists are talking about. The New York Post and Newsday, as free presses, don’t precisely fit Althusser’s definition of the Ideological State Apparatus—and whatever one thinks of their skills as writers or as evaluators of talent, Barnes and Winer are not Ideological State Apparatchiks. Yet each critic, under the guise of “reporting” or “reviewing” is in fact “reinventing” and “reimagining” the play. Moreover, as individual subjects of ideology, and as “institutional readers” whose livelihood depends on an imagined sense of community between critic and reviewer, these critics are hardly immune from Ideology. One penultimate thought: for the purposes of this argument, I’ve chosen a moment in recent theatre history explicitly to show how quickly the territory can become murky, and how easily reviews—or rather, the theatre historians who use them—fall prey to the anxiety of interpretation. In these pages I’ve just scratched the surface of two out of literally dozens of critiques, each with their own constituency (real or imagined). And it’s a play most of us know pretty well; some of my readers will have even seen the production of Angels these reviewers are talking about. How much more difficult is it for those working farther back in theatre history? To borrow a line from the first scene of the play we’ve been talking about, “Pretty soon… all the old will be dead,”11 and the reviews, for good or ill, will be what we have to go on. So what does this mean for the theatre historian who would use the play review as either an historical record or as a proxy for audience response? Working with critics as sources, I suggest, requires a kind of double-movement. First, we need to use all our skills of interpretation, contextualization, and historicization to discern what kind of reading community each critic imagines himself or herself to be speaking for and to. Second, we need to exercise our strategic naivete and proceed as if the critic is nonetheless an impartial witness, or, at the very least,is biased in a way that represents a significant portion of the play’s audience. Because, at the end of the day, what choice do we have?

WHO IS THE HISTORICAL THEATRE HISTORIAN? ROBERT B. SHIMKO

In his introduction to the series Redefining British Theatre History, Peter Holland expresses hope that the five volumes will collectively “chart the beginnings of a new future for theatre history, not least by making theatre historians newly and self-consciously aware of their own history, their practice and their future.”1 Bringing greater self-reflexivity to our study of theatre history is an admirable goal, but as we seek those figures who wrote about the theatres of their own pasts whom we might include as part of the same enterprise, important questions emerge as to who we choose to consider a “theatre historian.” As Michel De Certeau reminds us, “each historian situates elsewhere the inaugural rupture, at the point where his or her investigations stop; that is, at the borders demarcating a specialization within the disciplines to which he or she belongs.”2 Who then, are the theatre historians of history? Whom do we count among our ranks? At what point do the works of early practitioners of theatre history become so different from presently accepted models that we feel safe in marginalizing or even ignoring them? Every attempt in the present to describe not just the practices but the identity of theatre history has serious stakes in determining which works we are willing to consider as historical examples of theatre history writing, and indeed how we view the history of the discipline itself. Theatre history’s definition and its lineage have thus far flowed into one another like the two sides of a Möbius strip. In other words, theatre history’s perceived lineage shapes any attempt to define it in the present, while any present definition of theatre history depends upon what we now value as past contributions to that lineage. This predicament has lead to rather conservative pronouncements on the nature of theatre history. Ronald W. Vince, for instance, cites “historical concerns of development, influence, and cause and effect” as distinguishing “theatre history in a strict sense” from works more focused on “dramatic literature, biography, [and] evaluative commentary.”3 Vince

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Who is the Historical Theatre Historian? Unearthing the Roots of Positivist Assumptions in Theatre History Studies

uses works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to support his conclusions. Because these works lacked such distinction between discussions of contemporary theatre and drama and that of their past, Vince can conclude that “theatre history as a discipline distinct from literary history is the product of the late nineteenth century.”4 Coupled with this assignation of a point of origin, and in support of his goal of making theatre historians more aware of their own history, Peter Holland produces what can best be termed a “genealogy” of theatre history in the traditional sense,5 tracing a line of descent of the family of theatre historians through time. In a similarly exclusionary manner, Even Jacky Bratton, who has crafted the most inclusive history of early theatre history writing to date,6 begins in the eighteenth century because she limits the scope of her investigation to book-length studies which explicitly foreground theatre history as their main concern, effectively dismissing from consideration any work that discusses theatre history in support of an argument about literary values. While some shared sense of identity may be necessary in order to define theatre history as a discipline, to ground a shared identity in this conservative notion of the traditional genealogy is detrimental to an understanding of our subject. Such celebration of the bloodlines, tends to exclude “illegitimate” branches of the family tree, thus naturalizing the qualifications for legitimacy. It also tends to homogenize the widely different aims, audiences, and rhetorical strategies of early theatre historians and to gloss over the specific contexts in which their histories were produced. Are there really self-evident and fundamental features shared by all writers of theatre history throughout time? Is the search for such commonalities productive for new historiographical work in the present? I see an alternative in the different, and more specific, genealogical project practiced by Michel Foucault. Genealogy for Foucault is not a cataloging of related subjects but, rather, “a descriptive enterprise, the results of which […] undermine a series of notions that have informed traditional historical studies.”7 Foucaultian genealogy allows us to abandon lingering preconceptions of theatre historiography as the progressive working out of increasingly sophisticated methods for writing about the theatre of the past. As Shannon Jackson puts it in her Foucault-informed study of performance studies in the twentieth century: “The genealogical consciousness makes it less easy to uphold divisions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ approaches, sometimes reversing convenient notions of who is borrowing from whom and with them the categories of intellectual precedence and descent.”8 Instead of producing a list of names of people

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who wrote theatre history in traditionally recognized ways, Foucaultian genealogy invites one to examine the historicity of a multiplicity of writers who dealt, each in their own way and under specific conditions, with various aspects of theatre in the past. This way, the recognition of historical praxis leads to present definitions and not the other way around. Foucault’s example invites us to trace the emergence of the devices of positivist theatre history: periodization, teleology, and the privileging of the literary over the performative aspects of theatre. The employment of these concerns as organizing principles for the study of theatre history goes back further than we might expect. Their point of formation, in fact, must be sought in the moment that periodization, the keystone of positivist theatre history, became possible. I devote the remainder of my essay to the examination of such a moment in the English theatrical past, as a careful consideration of this moment is intimately linked to the produced notions of English theatre’s (and the English theatre historiographer’s) identity, both historically and at present. Taking up Foucault’s invitation, then, an analysis of the techniques of English theatre history must take notice of the point of rupture which allowed English writers to demarcate a theatre of the past, chronologically separate from, but foundational to, their present practices. When and how does the writing of periodized theatre history become possible in England? An answer depends on the distinction between two modes of thinking about the past: history and tradition. Michel De Certeau sees history as the relation between a practice of “making” and the thing made, namely historical discourse.9 The writing of history arises from a distinct practice of “breakage” through which the present differentiates itself from a dead past: “a past must be made from a tradition (by exclusion).”10 If history comes into being through differentiation, it follows that “historiography […] moves (or ‘progresses’) by changing what it makes of its ‘other.’”11 If we are to speak, then, of early practices of theatre history writing in England, it becomes essential to pay attention to how and when writers begin to create a theatrical past as the “other” of their own moment. This operation of othering the past is what distinguishes history from tradition. It becomes the task of the present day theatre historiographer, then, to locate the social forces and political events capable of prompting a shift in thinking from theatrical tradition to theatre history. So, what happened that allowed the conception of theatre as having a distinct past and present to become differentiated from an earlier understanding of an unbroken theatrical tradition? Foremost in the set of political and social forces responsible for this rupture was the eighteen-year theatre ban imposed by

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Who is the Historical Theatre Historian? Unearthing the Roots of Positivist Assumptions in Theatre History Studies

the new Puritan parliament of 1642 and lasting until the Restoration of Charles II to the Throne in 1660. This abrupt and drastic change in theatre’s legal status allowed for the formation, post-1660, of a previous “age” of theatre as something distinctly other than the new age of the Restoration. Before the theatre ban, discussions of the composition and performance of plays were constructed in the mode of tradition, their subjects expressed in terms of relative closeness to or distance from the present, but very much a part of the same uninterrupted practice. Thomas Heywood, for example, in his preface to the 1633 edition of Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, lauds Edward Alleyn’s performance of Barabas, “being in this later age commended to the stage.”12 Heywood, however, uses the crucial term “age” as loosely as a modern day writer might employ the term “generation.” In Jacobean England, there was no reason to understand earlier generations of actors or playwrights in any way other than as part of the continuing theatrical tradition. Heywood never suggests the theatre in his own “later age” was in any fundamental way different from that of Marlowe’s day. It was only through the sense of discontinuity aroused by the theatre ban that English writers came to understand their theatre as having a historical past, a precursing age with its own characteristics, rather than as a traditional inheritance. To begin understanding how this new notion of theatre history worked in practice, we can start with the one seventeenth-century figure acknowledged in the works of Holland and Vince (though never mentioned by Bratton) as a sort of proto-theatre historian: the Restoration playwright and critic Richard Flecknoe. Despite the credit Vince allocates Flecknoe as a pioneer, he devotes a just single sentence to him, citing his “professed admiration for Elizabethan dramatists and actors” and his “condescension when comparing Elizabethan playhouses with those of the Restoration.”13 Holland covers Flecknoe in two pages, but devotes most of his attention to the publication history of Flecknoe’s essay “A Short Discourse of the English Stage” and has little to say about the connection between Flecknoe’s historical moment and his historiographic technique. I suggest, though, that acknowledging that Flecknoe wrote theater history not in a vacuum but in the context of the first years following the theater ban complicates previous portrayals of Flecknoe as, at best, a precursor to the more recognizably modern theatre historians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Richard Flecknoe crafted his descriptive survey of English drama in a letter written to the Duke of Newcastle, William Cavendish, himself a dramatist and patron to his fellow playwrights.14 Flecknoe’s letter,

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subsequently printed as “A Short Discourse of the English Stage” at the back of his play Love’s Kingdom in 1664, presents a brief sketch of theatre’s “revival” in continental Europe during the Renaissance before moving to a fuller narrative of theatre history in England. He begins “about the midst of the last century” with the revival of plays in Italy and Spain, “after a long discontinuance.”15 Flecknoe cites “Guarino, Tasso, de Porta, and others” in Italy as the first of a new wave of European playwrights, soon followed by “Lopes (sic) De Vega” in Spain. One of the main themes Flecknoe elaborates is the immobilizing effect that domestic turmoil exerts on the progress of a national theatre. France offers his first example. He describes the French theatre as, “beginning later [than the Italian or the Spanish theatres] by reason of their Civil Wars, Cardinal Richelieu being the first that brought them into that vogue and esteem as they now are.” Flecknoe sets up Richelieu as a precursor to Charles II—at least in his relation to the theatre—a figure who used royal funds and authority to sponsor and legitimize a national drama. Echoing the political philosophy developed by Thomas Hobbes a decade earlier, Flecknoe forwards the notion that theatre can flourish only under the stable hand of a sovereign power. He portrays a mutually beneficial relationship between state power and drama of high morality. Richelieu’s great quality as a patron was that he recognized “how much the Acting [of] noble and heroic Playes, conferr’d to the instilling [of] a noble and heroick Spirit into the Nation.” Later, Flecknoe says much the same of Charles II, praising his monarch because “after his happy Restoration, he took such care to purge [the stage] from all vice and obscenity […].” That such a statement does not match the popular image of Charles II as a debauchee shows the extent to which political concerns conditioned Flecknoe’s statements. When he moves from his discussion of the French theatre to the English, Flecknoe makes explicit the Hobbesian philosophy underlying his historiographic model. Theatre advances exclusively during times of peace, and those advancements are all that should concern someone interested in the theatrical past: “For us [the English], we began before them [the French], and if since they have out-stript us, ‘tis because our Stage ha’s stood at a stand these many years; nor may we doubt, but now we shall soon outstrip them again, if we hold on but as we begin.” The cautiously neutral image of drama at a standstill (with no reference to it being suppressed) passes over an opportunity to cast blame on the Puritan opposition for closing the theatres and is as close as Flecknoe comes to describing the state of English theatre during the Interregnum, rather than before it.

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Who is the Historical Theatre Historian? Unearthing the Roots of Positivist Assumptions in Theatre History Studies

Flecknoe’s overriding interest in the points of highest achievement in English theatre history leads him to blur the distinction between moments of innovation and points of origin. He is dismissive of the medieval theatre and mentions no playwrights or actors by name until the late sixteenth century. Then, when “Poets and Actors [were] in their greatest flourish,” he begins assigning credit for the major achievements of the English theatre during what he terms the “last age”: For Playes, Shakespeare was one of the first, who inverted the Dramatic Style, from dull history to quick comedy, upon which Johnson refin’d, as Beaumont and Fletcher first writ in the Heroik way, upon whom Suckling and others endeavored to refine again….

The precedents he describes are questionable, but their veracity matters less than the teleology Flecknoe proposes: Shakespeare and his contemporaries invented English drama almost out of whole cloth; it was then improved upon by subsequent writers, then discontinued, and now it enters a new age of further improvement. Peter Holland observes that, “Flecknoe’s discourse is written from a recognition of the gap that separates the Restoration stage from the theatre before the closure of 1642.”16 Of course Flecknoe was imminently aware of the theatre ban and its effects, but can he be said to have perceived those eighteen years as a “gap?” Certainly he presents them that way, but there is an important difference between what one perceives and how one chooses to represent it. Flecknoe knew from first-hand experience that playing and playwriting continued, despite the law, throughout the Interregnum. He was himself a prolific playwright throughout the period and, further, William Cavendish, his original audience for the “Short Discourse,” also produced a number of dramatic works during that time. So the notion of an a priori “gap” in English theatre history as something Flecknoe came upon or “recognized” misrepresents the case. Flecknoe’s historical survey is a response not to an absence of drama or even theatrical productions but rather an attempt to create a coherent narrative of English theatre history amenable to a nervous political climate. The period of civil war, together with the rise and the eventual collapse of the Puritan Commonwealth, stands as one of the most profound traumas in the history of the English nation. It is not surprising, in the aftermath of so many previously inconceivable events—the spectacle of Charles I’s public beheading in 1649 not least among them—that the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Charles’s exiled son precipitated calls for a cooling of rhetoric from Republican and Royalist writers alike. If those writing from opposite sides of the political divide could find little common

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ground in their desires for the future of the state, they could at least agree to the necessity for a more tempered, less inflammatory public discourse. A history of the English theatre that dwelled upon such a politically charged issue as the Puritan’s theatre ban did not fit the bill. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that Flecknoe did not respond to a gap in theatre so much as he fashioned one in theatre history. One of the major issues facing those of us who care about the continuing health of theatre history is our discipline’s relation to its own historicity: a relation which is frequently either fractious or too comfortable. Posing the question “who is the historical theatre historian” is vital not for any particular list of names it may generate, or for any stable lineage it may reveal, but because the question invites us, through dialectic, to expose our criteria for judgment. It reveals our methodological assumptions and the “givens” of our field. When we look to the past for instances of theatre history writing, do we seek only the roots of an academic discipline and the development of modern research practices? I suggest that we instead endeavor to reveal unfamiliar modalities of thought, expressed in writings that conjured images of the theatrical past in response to particular historical events and material conditions. The historical theatre historian is not a mirror we hold up to ourselves for the sake of recognizing similarities. Instead, appreciating the radical heterogeneity of that earlier writer forces us to begin truly redefining theatre history.

THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBADES: STRUGGLES OF SEX AND CLASS IN FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY PERFORMANCE ALAN SIKES

In the year 1791, the French Revolution seemed to have run its course and resolved itself successfully. The National Assembly, first dismissed by Louis XVI, had won the upper hand and established a constitutional monarchy that, for all practical purposes, reduced the king to a national figurehead. The king himself had sworn his allegiance to the new constitution, and the populace now regarded him as the premiere citoyen, the first citizen of the nation. Yet, despite the apparently peaceful conclusion to the Revolution, anti-royalist pamphlets and performances still circulated throughout Paris, just as they had done in the years preceding the outbreak of the Revolution. Louis had long proved unpopular with his subjects and was often satirized in such performances as an impotent buffoon. Yet if these satires treated Louis with ridicule, they treated his wife, Marie Antoinette, with open revulsion. The Austrian-born queen was regularly accused of spying on France for her mother, Maria Theresa, and of seeking to ruin the country through her profligate spending. In addition to betraying the nation, however, the queen was also accused of betraying her husband by engaging in a number of illicit affairs. Her dalliances, moreover, were rumored to include not only rendezvous with those of the opposite sex, but with those of her own sex as well. Elizabeth Colwill observes in her study of depictions of Antoinette that “the charge the queen was a tribade—a common term in the early modern period for women who had sex with other women—was never the only sexual transgression cited in the pornographic pamphlets […]. Yet tribadism made a frequent appearance, and not just as the appetizer to a solid main course of heterosexual sex.”1 By representing the queen as a tribade, these depictions locate Marie Antoinette squarely at the intersection of two sets of political struggles that would unfold throughout the Modern era. On the one hand, such disparaging depictions of the queen attest to the class conflicts that gave

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rise not only to the French Revolution, but also to the series of revolutions that followed. On the other hand, the specific ascription of tribadism to the queen presages not only a proliferation of discourses on same sex desire, but also a proliferation of debates over the acceptability of that desire and the social status of those who exhibit it. Thus positioned at a crucial intersection of class-based and sex-based politics, a famous figure like Marie Antoinette would seem to invite inquiry into this intersection and the historical variations it displays throughout Modernity. Regrettably, however, it seems that such crossings of class-based and sex-based politics receive scant attention from historians, including those who work in theatre studies. Perhaps one reason that theatre scholars have neglected these intersections lies in the fact that, historically speaking, many political thinkers and activists have likewise missed opportunities to forge links between these two sets of political issues. In their essay “Leftist Politics and Homosexuality,” Hekma et al offer a detailed historical account of just such missed opportunities.2 On the one hand, political movements devoted to enfranchising sexual minorities frequently demonstrate a troubled relation to class politics. While the Stonewall era of gay and lesbian liberation spawned several activist interventions into both class and sexual politics, these interventions soon gave way to “an integrationist, assimilationist, ‘one-issue’ approach to gay rights” that by default was complicit with prevailing capitalist systems and the class inequalities they engendered; this new approach “replaced militancy with new and increasingly visible forms of gay culture, community building, and consumerism that developed in metropolitan centers during the 1970’s.”3 On the other hand, most leftist political movements have traditionally resisted open discussion of sexual politics; same sex desire has proven a particularly taboo topic. “Socialists have repeatedly ascribed homosexuality to the ‘class enemy,’ maintain Hekma et al, who likewise observe that “The socialist concept of progress has long envisioned a utopia in which homosexuality would have no place, indeed would automatically disappear as an outdated remnant of oppressive vice and social malaise.4 Certainly both class politics and sexual politics play key roles in theatre history; many landmark theatrical texts are viewed as historically significant precisely for their engagement with either one or the other set of political issues. Class politics are themes in the work of German playwrights from Büchner and Hauptmann to Brecht and Müller. Russian theatre depicts class struggle in the texts of Chekhov and Mayakovsky; American theatre dramatizes class conflict in the plays of Odets and

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The Trouble with Tribades: Struggles of Sex and Class in French Revolutionary Performance

Blitzstein. Sexual politics also play a central role in theatre history. Franz Wedekind scandalized German audiences in the 1890’s with Spring Awakening; Mae West did the same for American spectators in the 1920’s with The Drag. Both plays featured overt references, shocking at the time, to same-sex desire. More recently, contemporary playwrights like Terence McNally and Tony Kushner have garnered widespread fame and critical acclaim for their theatrical explorations of proscribed sexual acts and attitudes. Yet, while these writers are best known for their forays into either class or sexual politics, I believe that their texts, not to mention the productions they have generated, offer opportunities for the simultaneous exploration of both sets of political issues. To be sure, some playwrights like Caryl Churchill have sought to address intersections of class and sexual politics, and some theatre scholars like Sue-Ellen Case have urged attention to such intersections as well. Despite such efforts, however, I find that most narratives of theatre history contain little mention of the links between class-based and sex-based political struggles. In this essay, then, I attempt to carve out a niche for such links in the field of theatre history; Marie Antoinette points me toward a complex configuration of these links within French Revolutionary performance, and I hope this initial inquiry will inspire others to pursue similar scholarly paths in the future. I turn first to the performance text of Le Branle de Capucins, a petite opera in two acts first published in 1791. The text seems typical in its depiction of Antoinette—its doggerel verse, intended for settings to popular tunes, portrays the queen as a woman of insatiable appetites for both sexes. Act one takes place in the garden of the Chateau St-Cloud, a few miles to the west of Paris. The queen is visited by Charles-Philippe, comte d’Artois, and Yolande-Martine-Gabrielle de Polastron, duchesse de Polignac. The former is a brother to the king himself, the latter a close confidante of the queen and governess to her firstborn son; both were widely reputed to be lovers of the queen. The pair arrive together, costumed as the Capuchins referenced in the title. They have donned such disguises in order to secure a secret meeting with their mistress, because both the queen and her husband are under house arrest, sequestered in their chateau by La Fayette, the captain of the National Guard. The queen is of course delighted to see the pair and wishes to resume her illicit affairs—apparently with both of her lovers at once. Antoinette hatches a plot to win Artois and Polignac entry to the chateau, where they will engage in their amours literally under the nose of the king himself:

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Antoinette: I will make him believe that you are two monks of great piety, in whom I have placed all my confidence, so that I want you always with me—to advise me when I commit some error and impose some penance upon me. The fellow will fall into our trap and not see past his own nose. Then at table I will fill him with drink; after he signs off on anything I propose, I will redouble his drink and he will sleep like an owl.5

Act two takes place in the royal apartment, where Louis dutifully collapses in a drunken stupor and the amorous trio dances ‘The Branle of the Capuchins’ around him. The branle, an old circle dance that features back and forth movements from left to right, is also a slang term for masturbation, and so the choice of dance is doubtless a significant sexual double-entendre. In the midst of their revels the threesome are apprehended by La Fayette, who rouses Louis and warns him that the two Capuchins are not who they seem to be. The befuddled king, however, is quickly confused when the two monks refute the charge against them; the king takes no action, and the petite opera ends with Antoinette, the Capuchins, and La Fayette all singing his praises: Forever, the people must love you And you will hear them sing Long live our good king!6

This satiric short opera, with its scandalous portrayal of the royal family, clearly reflects the widespread anti-royalist sentiment of the period; the king is represented as a buffoon, and the queen is even more scandalously represented as an omni-sexual adulteress. I suspect, however, that here the image of the omni-sexual queen acts as more than a mere signifier of scandal, for I believe that it links an instability of sexual identity to a new instability of class identity emerging during the Revolutionary era. Consider the fact that class status is undergoing a rapid and radical redefinition; the possession of wealth now trumps the possession of a pedigree, and privilege is won not through the accumulation of titles but through the accumulation of capital. Yet capital, then as now, proves a troublingly unstable gauge of class position, especially when compared to those gauges that governed the hierarchical class system of the past. As the rising bourgeoisie knew very well, wealth can come and go, currency can increase or decrease in value, especially given the economic upheavals that attended the Revolution. Thus the new instability of class identity proves resonant with a similar instability of sexual identity, and it is here that the figure of the tribade emerges in

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The Trouble with Tribades: Struggles of Sex and Class in French Revolutionary Performance

Revolutionary discourse. Tribadism—a turning away from an established and authorized desire for the opposite sex, is often cast as the marker of a false identity, a position somewhere between male and female that lacks a stable currency of its own. Yet the charges of tribadism leveled against the nobility are typically leveled by bourgeois Revolutionaries, whose identities are likewise based on unstable currencies. Could it be that these charges of tribadism reflect a certain cultural displacement of anxiety over identity—a displacement of the instability of class onto instability of sexuality? It is important to note here that, while accusations of sexual deviancy were clearly performing powerful cultural work during the Revolution, I am not certain a singular focus on anxiety will cover all manifestations of tribadism in the literature and performance of the day. In fact, the cultural landscape appears more complicated than this exclusive focus will allow, for tribadism is not always cast solely as the marker of an illegitimate or unstable identity. In Le Branle des Capucins, for instance, Artois and Polignac appear as equals, and each seem desired in equal measure by Antoinette herself. So, is the desire of Marie for women merely an illegitimate copy of her desire for men, or is this a legitimate desire that exists independently of a desire for men? The text seems to suggest the latter, and indeed other texts from the Revolutionary period likewise portray this desire as the marker of an independent, alternative form of sexual identity. Moreover, in such texts tribadism is at times associated not with the degenerate nobility but with the militant Revolutionary; in these cases tribades exhibit particular characteristics—the urge to organization, the identification of a common enemy, and the insistence on equality of sisters—that bear a marked resemblance to militant political impulses. While these texts (including Le Branle des Capucins) remain thoroughly satiric in nature, the fact that Revolutionary discourses link the tribade both to the nobility and to the Revolutionary suggests that she does more than displace class anxiety into the arena of sexuality; she seems, in fact, to displace an excess of class zeal into this arena as well. Possible examples of this second variety of displacement are found within the stories that circulated around Mademoiselle Raucourt, a Parisian actress who won both fame and notoriety in the final decades of the eighteenth century. Born in 1756, Françoise Marie Antoinette Josephe Saucerotte took the name Raucourt for her 1772 debut at the Comèdie Française as the mythical queen Dido. Rumors of her tribadism arose almost immediately, quite likely fueled by the favors bestowed upon her by Marie Antoinette. Historian Jeffrey Merrick reports that Raucourt “had been introduced to the queen, then the dauphine, when she performed at

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Versailles not long after her debut.”7 Forced to flee the country to escape her debts, Raucourt returned to the Comèdie Française in 1779 after the queen intervened in her behalf, and Merrick observes that “Marie Antoinette’s ongoing interest in Raucourt later earned her a place in the catalogue of the queens female lovers [. . .] .”8 Like her royal patron, Raucourt figures prominently in a number of scandal sheets published both before and during the Revolution, many featuring the actress as the leader of a secret society of tribades; a brief look at one such pamphlet will demonstrate how Raucourt is credited as the organizing force behind a band of fiercely independent tribadic subjects. Raucourt makes a brief but spectacular appearance in a 1778 installment of L’espion Anglais, a series of scandalous tales published anonymously but likely spearheaded by journalist and pamphleteer Mathieu-Françios Pidansat de Mairobert. This particular installment, entitled Confessions of a Young Girl, is the fictional narrative of a homeless waif adopted by an affluent tribade, given the new name Sappho, and initiated into the mysteries of the tribadic Anandrine sect. The president of this sect is of course Raucourt herself, who during the initiation delivers an address detailing the history, functions, and operations of this secret society. Raucourt begins by establishing the pedigree of the sect itself, which was, she claims, originally established by Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth: The origin of the Anandrine sect is as old as the world. “One cannot doubt its nobility, since a goddess was its founder, and what a goddess! The most chaste, whose symbol is the element that purifies all others.”9 Raucourt next outlines the goals of the sect, the most important of which is the struggle against male domination, or as Raucourt describes it, “the energetic and open war, perpetual war on the enemies of our cult, on that fickle, deceptive, and perfidious sex leagued against us, working incessantly to destroy our institution either openly or secretly, and whose efforts and tricks can be repulsed only by the most intrepid bravery and the most tireless vigilance.”10 Before concluding her address, Raucourt emphasizes the equality of all members: “May there be nothing in us but sisters, or rather may they admire in us a large family, in which there is no hierarchy other than that established by nature itself for its preservation and necessary to its administration.”11 In a final radical move, Raucourt insists that such equality is effected only through the total dissolution of class boundaries; members enjoy the “complete community of property, so no one distinguishes poor from rich. May the latter, on the contrary, take pleasure in making the former forget that she was ever impoverished.”12

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The Trouble with Tribades: Struggles of Sex and Class in French Revolutionary Performance

The Confessions of a Young Girl, especially when placed beside Le Branle des Capucins, reveals several fundamental ambiguities regarding the status of the tribade, ambiguities that raise multiple questions regarding the nature of identity in the Revolutionary period. Is the tribadic desire for women an illegitimate copy of the desire for men, one that renders the tribadic identity itself an illegitimate copy of traditionally authorized sexual subjects? Or is this desire evidence of an alternate sexual identity that can claim a certain legitimacy of its own? How is the unstable identity of the tribade linked to unstable identities of both the nobility and the Revolutionary? And, finally, why are all of these linkages so readily forged in the field of theatrical performance? This last question is perhaps the easiest to address, for theatre has long been a site for troubling the truth or falsity of identity. Taken together, in fact, the two figures Antoinette and Raucourt amply illustrate the ways in which theatrical activity can render identities uncertain. While she possessed the title Queen of France, Antoinette engaged in a number of practices—playacting the role of peasant on the Versailles grounds, for instance—that for many of her subjects tended to rob the title of its dignity. Raucourt, meanwhile, often played a monarch upon the stage, but she allegedly ruled as one over a secret tribadic society as well. The fact that theatre calls identity into question therefore renders it an ideal arena for charging both Antoinette and Raucourt with tribadism—a charge that automatically implies the instability of their identities. The final text that I want to examine at this juncture takes the theatre as a literal locus of tribadic activity, and, fortuitously for my purposes, also invokes the dual anxieties over both tribadic sexuality and tribadic class affiliation. The telling, if unwieldy, title of this 1791 text is Liberty, or Mademoiselle Raucourt to the Whole Anandrine Sect, Assembled in the Entry Hall of the Comèdie Française. Like Confessions of a Young Girl, it casts Raucourt as the leader of a band of tribades. Yet the sexual and political satire of the Liberty pamphlet is perhaps even more complex than that of the antecedent Confessions. Indeed, at every moment the text turns its assertions back upon themselves: the pamphlet at once upholds and undermines tribadic sexual identity, while simultaneously aligning the tribade with two opposing sides in the class struggle. In the remainder of this essay, I will try to unravel a few threads of this text to demonstrate how it weaves all these topics together into quite a complicated tribadic tapestry. The bulk of the Liberty pamphlet is composed of an address delivered by Raucourt to the assembled tribades, all of whom, she observes, are performers like herself employed at various theatrical venues around

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Paris; the tribades are “actresses, dancers, figurants, galley rowers of the Opera, the Comèdie Française, the Italians, etc.”13 Raucourt also insists that the tribades have renounced their former sideline work as prostitutes to avoid childbirth and thereby preserve their figures; the tribades have all “taken an oath to make use of pricks and balls no longer, so as not to have the trouble of seeing our bellies get big and our waists become heavy and bulky […].”14 Such an assembly of former prostitutes would seem likely to support the Revolution, especially since they no longer seek out the sexual patronage of the nobility. Curiously, however, Raucourt begins her speech with a condemnation of Revolutionary excess: “A host of extraordinary events have followed each other without break since the beginning of the Revolution,” Raucourt claims. “The love of liberty— dominating passion of the human species, inexhaustible source of the most heroic actions when well managed, altered in thousands of ways in the current circumstances by self interest—produces results that are as disastrous as they are numerous throughout the entire kingdom every day.”15 Moreover, when Raucourt explains her reasons for calling all the tribades together, she critiques the Revolutionary leaders for implementing yet another of their numerous and disastrous reforms. The newly convened “Committee on Fuckery” has ordered all “buggers and bardashes to decorate their hats with a prick trimmed with hair in the form of a plume, as a stigmatizing sign by which they might be recognized without difficulty and mocked.”16 Thus far, then, Raucourt seems inimical to the Revolution and its reforms. Yet when she calls for the tribades to aid the buggers and bardashes by joining them in their appeal of the new decree, her reasoning mimics those of the Revolutionary leaders. Raucourt cannily realizes that any threat to the buggers is a threat to the tribades as well, especially since she believes that the Committee issued its order only after its members had been seduced by the whores of Paris—a group ranged against buggers and tribades alike. The whores are at once afraid that the buggers will steal their clients and jealous that the tribades have forsworn prostitution; Raucourt therefore recommends swift and concerted action against the whores and their minions on the Committee. “Let’s combine interests with the Children of Sodom,” Raucourt exclaims. “May our strength united with that of the sodomites fuck up the plans of the nasty sluts, those damned strumpets, whom temporary success won by underhanded methods have puffed up with pride.”17 By urging joint action between buggers and tribades, Raucourt demonstrates not only that she is eager to enter the new political field of Revolution, but also that she plans to do so through the same sort of militant political actions—the convocation of an

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The Trouble with Tribades: Struggles of Sex and Class in French Revolutionary Performance

assembly, the formation of a coalition, the registration of a political protest—that initiated the Revolution in the first place.18 In short, the Liberty text renders the class affiliation of the tribade indeterminate, and I believe that it endows the sexual status of the tribade with a similar indeterminacy. On the one hand, Raucourt addresses the tribades as a discrete and legitimate identity group—an assembly of individuals who share specific desires and sexual practices. On the other hand, Raucourt defines the tribade in terms of a turning away from traditionally legitimized desires and sexual practices. Recall that the tribades have abandoned sex with men in order to protect their figures; they are performers, after all, and must maintain the beauty of their appearance. Yet this very concern with appearance serves a reminder of the particular anxieties that theatre can generate: Is the appearance of the performer true or false, and does it reveal or conceal the identity of the individual underneath? Given the uncertain status of both her sexual and her political identities, it seems small wonder that the tribade so often makes her appearance within the theatrical arena. Especially during the era of the Revolution, when identities of so many sorts were under contest, the theatre seemed to burgeon with newly destabilized class and gender positions, many of which found their intersections in the tribade. Further research into the theatre of the Revolution—a and indeed into the theatre of other eras—would doubtless bring many such intersections to light, and I hope that future scholars will take up the challenge of exploring these theatrical links between class and sexual politics.

PART II: PERFORMANCE AND CULTURAL EXCHANGE

THE MASTER AND THE MADEMOISELLE: GENDER SECRETS IN PLAIN SIGHT IN NONTEXT BASED ANTEBELLUM PERFORMANCE SHAUNA VEY

It was February 25, 1860 and the New York Clipper ran a piece about Ella Zoyara the famous circus performer: He was unfortunate enough to lose her balance while performing his bare back act, and before she could recover himself, down she went, sustaining an injury to one of his feet, which incapacitated her from performing for a short time. He is again on hand, however, or at least, on foot, astonishing the spectators by her wonderful command over the horse.1

The bemused writer was alluding to the fact that the star performer— although costumed and billed as a female—was, in fact, a male. Male, or not, Mlle Zoyara was a success. Her reputation abroad had become unequivocally solid. The crowned heads of Europe were stunned by both the daring horsemanship of the performance and the graceful beauty of the performer.2 Zoyara became a phenomenon in America, as well, but in addition to praise, Zoyara engendered anger and resentment, accusations of deception and, in one review, even veiled threats. Why? To answer that query, this essay will explore the contemporaneous performances of female impersonators in two of the most popular, nontext based antebellum entertainments: the circus and the minstrel show. I focus my attention on the relationships between the simultaneous circus performances associated with the Zoyara phenomenon and the blackface minstrelsy performances of female impersonators, most prominent among them Master Eugene. Through this examination, I suggest that the resentment Zoyara engendered, above, had two sources, the first deriving from the specific conventions of performance genre, and the second stemming from a violation of an ideal that was ultimately more intangible and flexible: the ideal of womanhood.

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Fig. 2-1 “‘Zoara’ [Zoyara] in white dress holding whip.” Melbourne and Sydney Photo, Inc. Courtesy of La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria

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The Master and the Mademoiselle: Gender Secrets in Plain Sight in Non-Text Based Antebellum Performance

Zoyara’s American debut with Cooke’s Circus at Niblo’s Garden was widely heralded and greatly anticipated, and the performances did not disappoint. 3 Zoyara’s success was demonstrated by one of the surest signs of flattery: imitation. Within a very few weeks George Christy’s minstrel company introduced a new featured performer, “Mr. Zoyara, the African Giant.”4 Mr. Zoyara was in direct competition with Mlle Zoyara. He was clearly male; “She” was covertly male. The maleness of the former attraction was emphasized by his billing (and presumed stature) as a giant, the “African” label, likely suggesting wildness and virility to contemporary audiences. “She,” on the other hand, was graceful and beautiful. In short, Mr. Zoyara was constructed as the polar opposite of the feminine Mademoiselle—different in ever way except for the shared surname. Simultaneously, in Philadelphia, other minstrel companies got into the act. As one newspaper observed, “Ella Zoyara’s [sic] are multiplying with great rapidity.” Dan Rice’s company introduced its own Mlle Zoyara, coyly claiming “that there is no other female entitled to the name.” Critics noted both appearance and skill in their reviews: “Altogether the Philadelphia institution is well made up, and goes through many surprising feats of horsemanship with marvelous intrepidity and daring.”5 Competition between the Zoyaras quickly became fierce, with each manager going to great lengths to keep his star’s name before the public. As one writer observed: Dan Rice's Zoyara, at the show in Philadelphia, has proved equal to all emergencies, and has in no single instance permitted the New York Zoyara to eclipse him. At Niblo's in New York, Zoyara was thrown from the flying steed; the Philadelphia performer suffered likewise; the New Yorker sprained an ankle; so did the Philadelphia chap; […] In fact, if the New York Zoyara should undertake to break a leg, the Philadelphia wonder would not hesitate to snap off the pair […]. The effort has been to attract crowded houses, and the fame of Dan Rice has been increased by the introduction of this hermaphrodite of the human species.6

The terms “hermaphrodite” and “chap” indicate that this performer was probably a male in drag—a precise copy of the New York star. Before long, a fourth impresario, also in Philadelphia, brought forth a Zoyara. Frank Rivers claimed he alone was presenting the original Zoyara, and that all the others were imposters. Rivers’ ad boasted: The actual presence in flesh and blood, of the original Mlle. ELLA ZOYARA BOYZENARIUS [sic], the Oriental myth; Whose being has entranced the senses of the Old World, and whose fame has so addled the

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brains of rival managers as to make each of them fancy that they had separately created and were alone able to show this wonderful personage.7

As the above advertisement suggests, in order to sell this story, Rivers needed to take charge of the Zoyara legend and make a number of substantial changes, differentiating his attraction from its competition. The ad continued: The management of the Melodeon now announce that Mlle. ELLA BOYZENARIUS [sic] is not an Equestrienne, but a Danseuse, and has never appeared in this country, but will APPEAR AT THE MELODEON [sic] Every night this week, it being her first and only engagement in the Western Hemisphere. An epitome of the thrilling and romantic history of this young lady will be found in the bills of the day.8

While maintaining the name Zoyara, then, Rivers had altered every other aspect of the original sensation: the origin (now “Oriental”), the talent (now dance), the biography, the surname, and perhaps most significantly, the sex of the performer: River’s performer, unlike that of the previous Zaroya’s, was female. A close investigation of the Zoyara phenomenon reveals that these four simultaneous competing attractions may be most helpfully analyzed through the following five components: sex, gender, ethnicity, talent, and billing. (“sex” denoting the biological trait and gender referring to the performed identity.) [See table 2.1]

Sex Gender Ethnicity Talent Billing

Cooke’s Zoyara Male Female (Creole) horse Mlle Ella Zoyara

Rice’s Zoyara Male Female (White) horse Mlle Ella Zoyara

Table 2-1. The Competing Zoyaras

Christy’s Zoyara Male Male African ? Mr. Zoyara

Rivers’ Zoyara Female Female “Oriental” dance Mlle Ella Zoyara Boyzenarius

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The Master and the Mademoiselle: Gender Secrets in Plain Sight in Non-Text Based Antebellum Performance

Fig. 2-2. “Eugene” [in suit]. Scholl. Courtesy of Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

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Each Zoyara was competing for fame, carving out a identity though occupying contrasting positions as “other.” All the variations were problematized around gender. By March of 1860, the Zoyara sensation had become a veritable clone-fest brimming with fascinating performative elements. In order to come to an understanding of just how this phenomenon developed into such striking scale, it is necessary to turn our attention to the individual who first ignited it. His name was Omar Kingsley. A story pieced together from the obituary columns of the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times and the New York Clipper suggests that Kingsley was born about 1840 in St. Louis (where his mother and sister still lived forty years later). Kingsley joined the circus at age six. Whether he ran away, was formally apprenticed, or was “rented out” (as was fairly common at the time), remains unclear. One report labels him as “Creole,” and whether this classification played a role in his leave-taking is unknown. In any event, the child Omar Kingsley came under the control of Spenser Q. Stokes, a twenty-seven-year old circus professional who had been working with horses since early in his own childhood. Stokes knew his business. By the end of his long career, Stokes would serve as manager or equestrienne director of most of the great circuses of the era. He specialized in training trick riders and even invented a machine for that purpose. Three of Stokes’s own daughters would become stars of the circus ring (his fourth became an actress). Kingsley, however, was perhaps Stokes’s first protégé, and he would train and manage Kingsley for over fifteen years.9 When and why Kingsley began cross-dressing is unclear. One unlikely story suggests that it was deliberate training—that Kingsley was “always” dressed as a girl and, by design, put to play only in the company of young girls so he would unconsciously imitate their “graces and manners.” Most sources agree that his “beautiful boyish face, profusion of black curly hair, and his slender form assisted the impersonation.” Certainly, Kingsley performed as “Ella Zoyara” for several years before making a sensation in Europe as a teenager.10 While his beauty attracted many male admirers there, apparently none ever got close enough to question his gender. All that changed after the New York debut, when a leaked rumor led to Kingsley’s unmasking: While the question was yet in doubt, some one suggested that a committee of strong minded women be selected to wait upon Zoyara, and examine into the facts of the case; but the boy repudiated the matrons, and before another committee could be enlisted, the whole thing was out, the whole secret exposed, and the strong minded committee exploded.11

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The Master and the Mademoiselle: Gender Secrets in Plain Sight in Non-Text Based Antebellum Performance

The “secret” inspired several reactions, an onslaught of imitators from one quarter, furious indignation from another, but all the while, Zoyara’s popularity was never in doubt, and bookings continued. Two months after the New York debut in January, the show opened in March at the Boston Theatre “to one of the largest audiences ever seen in those walls.”12 In May, the Brooklyn Eagle exclaimed: .

Crowds continue to throng this beautiful exhibition, afternoon and evening […]. There has never been anything in the Circus way seen under a canvas that can in any way compare in talent and originality[…].13

Yet the draw now seemed to derive from the notoriety as much as the quality of the performance. A New York Times headline queried: “Zoyara A Woman?” A correspondent in Boston observed that the question had “taken hold of Young America here in the most remarkable manner. Old gentlemen who haven’t thought of girls for twenty years discuss it over their Courier.”14 The box office apparently confirmed the old adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but brisk ticket sales for Zaroya’s performances were accompanied by complaints. The New York Clipper was outraged by the deception: The people of this city were ever ready to encourage talent, in any and every line, from any an every clime; but when it is discovered that their patronage and favor have been enlisted by deceit and fraud, they are equally ready to resent the insult.15

And again a week later, more ominously: If the imposition is not soon stopped, we fear there will be a public manifestation and examination not set down in the program.16

Was this merely critics’ resentment at being duped or did these complaints signal some greater violation in nineteenth-century American society and culture on the part of Zaroya and her producers? A look at the late antebellum attitude toward impersonation may illuminate two crucial factors at stake in the situation. In the remainder of the essay, I turn to one of the most famous female impersonator of all, Master Eugene, in order to tease out the intersections of audience expectations, impersonation, minstrelsy, class, and the blurring of racial and gender categories. The concept of impersonation in the antebellum era has been examined primarily through the lens of blackface minstrelsy, in which white men impersonated both black men and black women. Scholars such as Eric Lott and Robert Toll, for instance, have contributed much discussion on

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the practice.17 The argument can be summed up as follows: From the white male’s firmly entrenched subject position in these cases, all other identities were constructed. The white male assumed blackness—not as a disguise, but as a performance—and was celebrated for the skill that he brought to the task. To many of the working-class white men that made up its audience, blackface minstrelsy offered an “authentic” peek at an exotic culture. They were fascinated. Via men just like themselves, they could enjoy and admire the “Negro.” The white maleness, or “normalcy” of the performer created a safe arena for, in Robert Toll’s words, “an insecure people who were uncertain about their own status and identity because of the fundamental social flux in the antebellum North.” 18 These audiences, unsettled by their own state of social flux, Toll continues, “welcomed the stability and certainty provided by an inferior caste.”19 The Know-Nothing Party, once the hope of nativists, had floundered in the 1856 election, carrying just one state. As Toll declares, “By the mid-1850s everything Northerners were committed to–national destiny, social order, their own status, […] and the Union itself–seemed at stake.”20 In an anxious time, audiences needed reassurance. The identity of the minstrel performer was key to this reassurance. Audiences were kept aware that the performer was white. Ads and sheet music covers even emphasized that the performer and performance remained distinct, showing the performers both in blackface and in their natural state. This distinction especially applied to a specialty minstrel performer: the female impersonator. While most of the characters portrayed in minstrel shows were male, almost every troupe also featured female characters: “wenches” or “yaller girls.” This practice dates from the very beginning of minstrelsy in the 1840s and was popularized by George Christy, one of the most famous minstrels of all time and the founder of the Christy Minstrels.21 In the winter of 1859-60, Christy’s troupe was featuring a prominent wench performer, Master Eugene. Eugene d’Amilie (1836-1907) was always billed as “Master Eugene” in the manner of young boys. He headlined with Christy’s for six years and then, after a dispute, with Hooley and Campbell’s, before joining with a partner to tour England with Rumsey and Newcombe’s. In each company, Eugene was a major draw, featured in every ad, mentioned in every review. On tour in Louisville, Nashville, and California, he was repeatedly singled out in the press. In New York, the Clipper declared, “We have always referred to Master Eugene as a phenomenon in his line of business, and such he really is.”22

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The Master and the Mademoiselle: Gender Secrets in Plain Sight in Non-Text Based Antebellum Performance

Fig. 2-3. “Eugene. [Dressed as woman].” Houseworth’s Celebrities. Courtesy of Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

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Eugene’s “line of business” was femininity. His characters were sentimental, rather than comic. As with wench characters developed by Christy, Rollin Howard, and Francis Leon, Master Eugene portrayed a woman who was graceful, flirtatious, and elegant. He was, in the words of one ad, “The Nonpareil Vocalist, Danseuse, and Impersonator of Female Characters.”23 Clearly, Master Eugene was a master of his art. The quality of Eugene’s performance can be glimpsed in the following exerpt from a review printed in the New Orleans Picayune of February 3, 1859: Master Eugene gave his truly wonderful imitations of the prime donne [sic] in selections from the “Ernani” and the “Norma,” in admirable style. The cadenzas and fiorituri in the “Ernani involami” were executed with marvelous precision, considering that it was a male voice that sang, and the sostenuto passages, in the highest part of the register, were astonishingly well given.24

Master Eugene was performing in New York the month that Omar Kinglsey, as Zoyara, made his New York debut. But, while Kingsley’s cross-gendered performances solicited a mixture of lauds and complaints, the reviews of Eugene’s “wench,” as indicated above, were most often favorable, if not glowing. There are a number of parallels and connections to be drawn between the two men, as well as some significant differences. Just a few years apart in age, each achieved fame in women’s clothing. Each was presented by a paternalistic and successful manager from whom he eventually broke away. Eugene’s break occurred just at the moment of Zoyara’s debut and may have indirectly set off the first Zoyara clone.25 Eugene moved from one minstrel troupe to another. Each of the three Zoyara imitators also performed in minstrel troupes. It is important to note, however, that the original Zoyara performed in the circus. Was this variation in venue a factor in the differing response to the female impersonation practiced by Master Eugene and Mademoiselle Zoyara? The connections between the antebellum circus and the blackface minstrel show of the same period may not be immediately obvious to theatre historians who tend to classify by genre. Yet the fact that three minstrel companies chose to ape a circus performer demonstrates some affinity between the two performance venues. The performers and managers of each venue were acutely aware of their colleagues in the other line of work. Newspaper writers, too, seamlessly linked circus to minstrel show when they compared the Philadelphia and New York Zoyaras. Both circus and minstrel show were popular entertainments, and it was not uncommon for cross-over among performers. Many minstrels performers began their careers in the circus.26

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The Master and the Mademoiselle: Gender Secrets in Plain Sight in Non-Text Based Antebellum Performance

Fig. 2-4 “‘Ella Zoyara, Equestrian.” New York Clipper. 26 July 1879. Courtesy of Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.

There was, however, a qualitative difference. At its heart, minstrelsy was a magic trick. Audiences came expecting to see a transformation. Something “normal” would become something exotic—temporarily. Then, like the woman sawed in half, all would be restored: Master Eugene took off the dress. A circus trick, however, is a transparent demonstration emphasizing the skill of the athlete.27 No subterfuge is expected. Essentially, then, Zoyara’s transgression was one of genre—performing minstrelsy in the circus. It was the wrong trick. This might seem a probable explanation for the resentment of the impersonation, but the public was not actually duped. Within ten days of Zoyara’s New York debut, two newspapers had published the fact that

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Omar Kinglsey was male. The enterprising producer reprinted these revelatory articles in his own advertisement in The New York Tribune of January 28, 1860, thus admitting, and in a sense, nullifying the charges of fraud. Zoyara’s gender impersonation became a secret in plain sight, very much akin to that of the minstrels. The public knew they were seeing a man, performing as a woman. Hence, the many compliments in the press of Zoyara’s grace and beauty. These were tributes to his skill as an impersonator, just as were the compliments heaped upon Master Eugene. Zoyara’s transgression, in the end, was not pretending to be a woman, but pretending to be a strong woman. Again, the case of Master Eugene may be instructive. Laurence Senelick has written that “[g]ender roles performed by ‘performers’ never merely replicate those in every day life; they are more sharply defined and more emphatically presented, the inherent iconicity offering both an ideal and a critique.”28 Master Eugene portrayed an icon of femininity. He was a perfect female, in that not only was his impersonation of the female gender flawless, but the female he impersonated was flawless as well. Toll tells us that the female minstrel characters were “Worthy of the best romantic heroines in contemporary women’s fiction who often had to choose between duty and happiness.”29 The idealized woman of the impersonator was more acutely female than the biological one. Gender, like blackface, is a performance, recognized through its outward signs. The character portrayed by Master Eugene was everything a woman should be. Femininity, too, was the quality most stressed by manager Frank Rivers in the ads for his Zoyara. Omar Kinglsey, the original Mlle Zoyara, however, portrayed an atypical female. Although beautiful and graceful, Zoyara performed manlike actions, “astonishing and daring efforts.”30 As a writer observed of his Boston audience: Venerable dames […] sit and look in utter horror and complete consternation as ‘that gal rides bare-backed’ and when the riding is over, wiping their moistened spectacles, agree that no female could dare to be so bare-faced.31

Zoyara betrayed the cult of true womanhood. Kingsley’s “woman” was not lady-like in behavior. This was unsettling in a way that contrasted with Master Eugene’s anxiety-soothing wench performances. Lott has argued that “Minstrelsy’s role as a mediator of Northern class, racial, and ethnic conflict [was] all largely grounded in a problematic of masculinity.”32 Master Eugene presented a woman with whom his threatened male audience could be comfortable, a woman who was weak and defenseless.

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Minstrel females often died tragically in sketches; they never fought. Zoyara, in contrast, presented a woman who transgressed upon the male traits of strength and daring. Zoyara represents the other branch of the dual function Senelick attributes to the performance of gender, not the ideal but the critique. Zoyara’s feats of daring criticized the limited role allotted to antebellum women. Kingsley’s impersonation was troubling to an audience “[d]eeply concerned about the survival of the family and other basic social institutions that seemed imperiled by urbanization and modernization,” an audience who came to minstrelsy for the comfort of “the idealized model of loving, secure families” that it afforded to the tune of Stephen Foster’s “drippingly romantic” ballads.33 Zoyara transgressed the limits of audience expectations by violating the perceived conventions of both genre and femininity—conventions themselves heavily produced and policed by contemporary alignments of gender, class, and race . So, although Zoyara’s performances sold tickets, Kingsley and his imitators were never accorded the adulation of the– primarily male—press. Master Eugene remained the master.

“PEOPLE WHO WENT TO RIDICULE REMAINED TO ADMIRE”: IRA ALDRIDGE, STEPHEN PRICE, AND THE 1828 COBURG THEATRE LAWSUIT KATE ROARK

On July 30, 1828, The Drury Lane Theatre in London won a lawsuit against the Coburg Theatre and its manager George Bolwell Davidge. The Coburg Theatre was found guilty of performing two serious dramas, Douglas and King Richard III. The judge found this to be a violation of the Licensing Act of 1737, which granted a monopoly on the production of serious dramas in London to the two patent theatres–The Drury Lane Theatre and the Covent Garden Theatre. The judge instructed the jury to find Mr. Davidge and the Coburg Theatre guilty, which they promptly did.1 The Drury Lane, under the management of the American Stephen Price, won damages of ǧ100. Despite the speedy rendering of a guilty verdict, the prosecution of the Coburg Theatre was problematic for numerous reasons. First, the plays mentioned in the lawsuit were melodramatic adaptations of serious dramas, not the originals that the Licensing Act supposedly protected. Secondly, the Coburg Theatre had used a child actor in the leading roles of these adaptations of serious drama, and as the defense solicitor argued, child acting was not generally considered “serious” acting. Lastly, other minor theatres in London were doing the same things–producing adaptations of serious dramas with child actors in the leading role–but were not prosecuted. Davidge himself was one of the first to call the verdict into question. Four years after the Coburg case, in his testimony to the Select Committee on Dramatic Literature–a parliamentary committee investigating the state of London theatre and the viability of the Licensing Act—Davidge argued there was not a significant financial advantage to be gained by performing serious or legitimate drama. He held that the right to perform legitimate drama “is a matter more caviled at than is warranted by any real advantage that might be derived from it.”2 If the monopoly on serious drama did not protect a financial advantage—if legitimate drama did not attract more paying customers than other forms of drama—why

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“People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire”: Ira Aldridge, Stephen Price, and the 1828 Coburg Theatre Lawsuit

was it protected? The prosecution for the Drury Lane argued that the Licensing Act protected the serious English drama from degraded productions (i.e., those having lesser/cheaper production values).3 But this argument again raises the question, why was it important for the serious drama to be kept pristine? What did the serious drama represent or symbolize that it needed legislative protection? It would seem that this lawsuit wasn’t really about a simple violation of the Licensing Act after all, but something much more complex. This essay, then, takes a closer look at the case in order to examine what it was really about. The question becomes, what and whom was the Licensing Act supposed to protect–and how had the Coburg Theatre endangered it or them? I argue that one way that the Coburg theatre might have been perceived as having degraded the English serious drama was by employing Ira Aldridge, the Black American actor. Aldridge had been successfully performing serious drama in English provincial theatres since 1825, but he had gotten his English debut at Davidge’s Coburg Theatre in October of 1825. Davidge’s managerial support of Aldridge’s career was likely a contributing factor in the decision by Price and the Drury Lane Theatre to single out Davidge and the Coburg Theatre for prosecution in 1828. Furthermore, this lawsuit serves as a particularly important case study demonstrating the changing connotations of serious English drama in the 1820s. London saw an explosion of minor theatres in the 1820s, and the 1828 lawsuit against George Davidge and the Coburg Theatre was a panicked attempt on the part of the monopolies to establish control those new venues, and reassert the primacy of their patents. An examination of the 1828 lawsuit against the Coburg in the context of Aldridge’s career demonstrates how the serious English drama was integral to both English and American cultural identities, and how the performance of this serious drama by a Black American actor created a crisis in both cultures over the racial boundaries of those national identities. A central issue to the 1828 lawsuit is how the serious drama, particularly that of Shakespeare, was a primary pillar of English national identity. “Serious drama” (the term used in the 1828 Coburg Theatre lawsuit, but also commonly referred to as “regular drama” and “legitimate drama” during this time) was loosely defined as having five-act structure, and, since the Restoration, all new plays in this category had been licensed by the Lord Chamberlain for performance at one of the patent theatres. Bardolotry was firmly entrenched in English culture by the 1820s, and Shakespeare and the celebrated English playwrights who followed him

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were often cited as proof of Anglo-Saxon cultural achievement—and often superiority to other cultures. Americans also, despite fighting two wars with England by the 1820s, claimed the English serious drama, again Shakespeare in particular, as a pillar of their own cultural identity. Stephen Price’s management of the Park Theatre in New York, from 1808 to his death in 1840, is emblematic of the importance of English serious drama to American culture. Price engaged a steady stream of popular English actors to perform leading roles in Shakespearean plays and other serious English dramas every season at the Park Theatre. William Dunlap further demonstrates how critical English serious drama was to American cultural identity in his 1833 History of American Drama: “The plays of Shakspeare [sic], and Jonson, and Ford, and Marlowe, of Beaumont and Fletcher, of Wycherly […],are ours, as much ours, being the descendants of Englishmen, as if our fathers had never left the country in which they were written.”4 Dunlap wanted to legitimate American cultural ownership of Shakespeare so much that he cautioned against Americans developing their own distinct dramatic form, despite the fact that he himself was an American playwright. Both Dunlap and Price, in these examples, show a desire not to sever cultural ties with England, but rather to claim English culture–especially Shakespeare and the serious drama–as legitimately American. With the vital importance of the serious English drama to national identity firmly established on both sides of the Atlantic, Aldridge’s successful performances of that drama as both an American and a black actor created a crisis over racial boundaries to both national identities. Recent studies have pointed to the difficulty Aldridge had initially in gaining access to the more prominent London venues. Hazel Waters has persuasively argued that London’s strong pro-slavery business interests were likely responsible for keeping Aldridge from performing in London for most of his career, despite his consistently glowing reviews at provincial theatres.5 The possibility, however, that another of the obstacles Aldridge faced in London was put in place by American forces has not been considered. It is interesting to note that Price, the American theatre manager, managed the Drury Lane Theatre between 1826 and 1830. During Price’s tenure at the Drury Lane, Aldridge made only one London area engagement at the Sadler’s Well’s Theatre in 1828 (after the lawsuit against the Coburg) after which Aldridge did not appear in London again until his 1833 debut at the Covent Garden Theatre. It is therefore possible to suggest that Price was a primary agent working to exclude Aldridge from London through his management of the Drury Lane Theatre.6

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“People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire”: Ira Aldridge, Stephen Price, and the 1828 Coburg Theatre Lawsuit

To understand why Price may have used his management of the Drury Lane to keep Aldridge from performing in London, and how this campaign was related to the 1828 lawsuit against the Coburg Theatre, we first must examine Price’s history with both Aldridge and the African Theatre in New York City where Aldridge began his theatrical career.7 Price and the Park Theatre are linked to numerous harassments of the African Theatre in New York City, and all the recent histories of the African Theatre concede Price’s key role in the theatre’s harassment and ultimate demise.8 These harassments included at least two police raids stopping performances, a property-destroying riot, and, most heinously, the abduction and life-threatening beatings of both Ira Aldridge and the theatre’s manager William Brown. On July 19, 1822, Aldridge was kidnapped and beaten by a circus rider named James Belmont. The indictment papers read that James Belmont “did imprison and detain […] for the space of four hours […] did then and there beat, bruise, wound and ill treat [Ira Aldridge] so that his life was greatly despaired of.”9 Roughly a month later, a group of ten men, including James Belmont, started a riot at Brown’s theatre, which at this time was billing itself as the “American Theatre.”10 The same day as the riot, the African theatre manager Brown was also attacked, kidnapped and tortured by George Belmont, the brother of James Belmont who allegedly attacked Aldridge.11 Evidence that the Park Theatre managers (Stephen Price and Edmond Simpson) were connected to these harassments of the African Theatre begins with the accusations made by both William Brown and Ira Aldridge. Following one police raid on The African Theatre in 1821, a playbill announced that “Mr. Brown, the Manager of the Minor Theatre, respectfully informs the public, that in consequence of the breaking up of his theatrical establishment, there will be no performance this week. Mr. B. believes it is through the influence of his brother Managers of the Park Theatre, that the police interfered.”12 The particular raid referred to in Brown’s announcement occurred while the African Theatre was located in the Hampton Hotel, next-door to the Park Theatre. More than one newspaper commented on the audacity of the African Theatre on its choice of venue, which was interpreted as an invitation to compare their performances with those at the Park Theatre.13 The Sheriff of New York City at this time, it must be noted, was Mordecai Noah. Noah was also an American playwright,and Price and the Park Theatre had honored him just one week before the raid on the African Theatre with a testimonial dinner and “two splendid silver pitchers.”14 In addition, Noah was the editor of the New York Commercial Advertiser newspaper, in which he explained that the African Theatre had

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been notified before the raid “by the Police that they must announce their last performance; but they, defying the public authority, went on and acted nightly.” Noah continues with an account, in comical tone, of how all the actors were taken to the station, and only released after they “promised never to act Shakespeare again.”15 Despite the jocular rhetoric of Noah’s article, this detail of promising to never act Shakespeare again suggests that the problem the authorities (that is to say, his own Police department and his friend Price at the Park Theatre) had with the African Theatre was their daring to perform the Bard’s work. While Noah’s article explained that the raid was necessary because “the audiences were generally of a riotous character,” the conclusion suggests the real problem was not the audience, but the performance of Shakespeare by this particular company. Aldridge goes further than Brown’s playbill in specifically naming Price as the Park Theatre manager behind the demise of the African Theatre. Aldridge’s Memoirs claim that, Price, a manager of some repute, became actually jealous of the success of the ‘real Ethiopian’ [Brown] and emissaries were employed to put them down. They [the African Company] attracted considerable notice; and people who went to ridicule remained to admire […]. Riots ensued, and destruction fell upon the little theatre.16

Aldridge connects Price with the second phase of harassments: the employment of “emissaries,” or thugs, to assault Aldridge and Brown and to start the riot which caused so much property damage that it effectively closed the African Theatre. Theatre historian Samuel Hay argues that Price and the Park Theatre had a financial justification for the harassments, that the profits at the Park Theatre were so sufficiently diminished by the popularity of the African Theatre, that Price was motivated to drive the African Company out of business. While it is true that the Park Theatre managers attempted to drive all their competitors out of business, Price’s tactics were far less brutal against his Anglo-American competition and these differences suggest that Price’s actions were racially motivated as well as economically.17 Marvin McAllister’s History of the African Theatre, White People Do Not Know How To Behave At Entertainments Designed for Ladies and Gentlemen of Colour, argues that “Brown’s aesthetically ‘African’ garden and theatres were the most ‘American’ institutions in Manhattan’s nascent theatrical landscape.” McAllister further asserts that this collation of American identity with blackness “undermined previously unquestioned assumptions of white supremacy. The ‘colored’ company negated Euro-America’s self-image as the primary claimant on national definition, thus causing certain

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“People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire”: Ira Aldridge, Stephen Price, and the 1828 Coburg Theatre Lawsuit

displeased and powerful white citizens to attack its productions and hasten Brown’s managerial demise.”18 One important reason why Brown’s African Theatre would have been interpreted as undermining white supremacy was that the institution was formed in the transitional years of New York’s gradual emancipation period leading up to New York becoming a free state in 1827. Did a similar questioning of the racial boundaries to nationalism arise in England with Aldridge’s performances? Both yes and no, probably. For though many reviewers in England remarked their surprise at his talent, Aldridge did not claim English identity in a way parallel to Brown’s African Theatre’s claim of American identity. Yet, while Aldridge did not call himself English, performing serious English drama and calling himself the “African Roscius” were actions loaded with English nationalist connotations. Aldridge’s success in London performing serious English drama was also a profound event in American culture, as Aldridge was the first American actor to successfully perform in a London theatre. After the closing of the African Theatre in 1823, Aldridge shifted his focus away from a career in America and moved to England, debuting in London at Davidge’s Coburg Theatre in October, 1825. An early Coburg playbill describes Aldridge as “Tragedian of Colour, from the African Theatre, New York.” By 1827 Aldridge was commonly billed as both “The Celebrated African Tragedian,” and “The Celebrated African Roscius.”19 “Roscius” was an allusion to the famous ancient Roman actor, but was first applied in England by David Garrick, who began calling himself the “Modern” or “English Roscius” in the mid-eighteenth century. By the 1820s, the tragic actor Edmond Kean had inherited the title of English Roscius, however, the term Roscius had also become clichéd, primarily because precocious child actors were frequently advertised as “Infant Roscius” or “Child Roscius.” This practice began with the “Infant Roscius” Master Betty, who caused a popular sensation in London in 1804-05. After Betty, London was introduced to a steady stream of Infant Rosciuses throughout the nineteenth century, and one Master Burke was enjoying this designation in 1828.20 During his two-month debut engagement at the Coburg Theatre, Aldridge only performed adaptations of serious drama, as the Licensing Act required. He debuted in the role of Oroonoko in The Revolt of Surinam or a Slave’s Revenge, an adaptation of Thomas Southern’s serious drama, Oroonoko. A few weeks later, he played in another adaptation, The Ethiopian, or the Quadroon of the Mango Grove, which derived from Thomas Morton’s The Slave.21 After the Coburg engagement, Aldridge next appeared at the Theatre Royal Brighton, where

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he again played Oroonoko, but now, as the provincial theatres were allowed by reforms to the 1737 Act to perform serious drama, Aldridge was free to play Southern’s original version of the play. A review of Aldridge’s performance in the Brighton Gazette on December 15, 1825 notes how the advertisement of Aldridge as “The African Roscius” led audiences to expect that they would see a burlesque of serious drama. The reviewer noted, “We repaired to the house in full expectation of beholding a mere burlesque of tragedy, and were therefore not a little surprised to find in the ‘Roscius’ an actor of real and undoubted talent.”22 This review suggests that English audiences reacted to Aldridge much as American audiences had--that they “came to ridicule, but remained to admire.” The following week, Aldridge played Othello for the first time, and for the next several years, he would tour provincial English theatres and continue to star in serious dramas including Othello, Oroonoko, The Slave and The Revenge.23 Meanwhile, Stephen Price had become manager of the London Drury Lane Theatre in 1826. Approximately a year-and-a-half after assuming this new position, Price’s Drury Lane sued the Coburg Theatre for its performance of serious drama, to which we now return. A synopsis of the trail appeared in The Times, London on July 31, 1828 The lawsuit named the serious dramas in question, Douglas, and Richard III, staged by the Coberg Theatre on November 8 and 9, 1827, respectively. The solicitor for Price and the Drury Lane, Mr. Gurney, began by arguing why the Licensing Act was necessary. Gurney argued, “With a view of upholding the dignity of the drama it had been thought expedient to restrict its performance to two patent theatres,” citing the large expense of procuring the best actors and scenery as evidence for why the dignity of English serious drama might be compromised by minor theatres. Gurney next produced two witnesses. First, a clerk from the Lord Chamberlain’s office testified to the obvious fact that the Coburg Theatre was not licensed for serious drama. Next appeared a Mr. Thomas, who testified he saw the productions of Douglas and Richard III at the Coburg Theatre. Thomas claimed that they were “nearly the same in words and action as the performance at the patent house.”24 However, when Thomas was cross-examined by the defense’s solicitor, Mr. Adolphus, Thomas admitted that the performances of Douglas and Richard III he had witnessed were “materially altered from the original plays, as written by Shakespeare and Home.”25 In fact, the play advertised in the Coburg playbill was King Richard III; or, The Battle of Bosworth Field, which Nicoll lists as a musical drama or burletta of Richard III, first performed at the Royalty in 1812 and again at the Surrey in 1813.26 Likewise, Home’s serious drama Douglas had been adapted

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“People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire”: Ira Aldridge, Stephen Price, and the 1828 Coburg Theatre Lawsuit

into a musical drama titled Douglas; or the Noble Shepherd at the Regency Theatre in 1818, and this was likely the same version performed at the Coburg.27 The patent theatres’ monopoly on serious drama should not have even applied to these musical adaptations. Davidge, however, had made the mistake of advertising these plays as serious dramas. The prosecution of Davidge, then was following the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Mr. Adolphus then opened his defense with the assertion that Davidge was the real victim in this lawsuit, and that the Drury Lane Theatre was being unnecessarily “harsh” and unfair in this prosecution. Adolphus began by questioning Mr. Gurney’s defense of the patent system and the Licensing Act of 1737, pointing out that the population of London was half its current size in 1737, and that perhaps two theatres were no longer sufficient to cater to the demand for serious dramas. Moving on to his major arguments, Adolphus next pointed out that the Coburg Theatre had used a boy actor, a Master Smith, as the lead actor in both of the allegedly serious dramas named in this case. Adolphus ridiculed the idea that child actors could be considered seriously, asking the jury the ironic question whether it “was to secure a monopoly of such practices [i.e. child acting] that these precious patents were to be enforced.” Adolphus further argued that Mr. Davidge had a right to complain of the hard and harsh manner in which he had been selected from all others for prosecution; for it could not be denied or disguised that all the minor theatres had been in the constant habit of offending in the same manner [using child actors] for these 20 years past.28

As the previously mentioned review of Aldridge at the Birmingham theatre pointed out, the billing of anyone as a “Roscius” by the 1820s implied burlesque–not serious drama. The employment of a child star, or “Young Roscius,” should have supported the categorization of these plays as burlesques and not serious dramas, especially considering Thomas’s testimony that the Coburg productions were “materially altered” from the original texts by Shakespeare and Home. The Judge, Lord Tenterden instructed the jury to ignore Adolphus’s argument about “the partial manner in which the defendant had been selected.” Tenterden reasoned that whether it was so, they could not tell; and even if it were, they had nothing to do with it. The act of Parliament was their guide, and if that were wrong, it must be left for the legislature to correct it. The evidence left no doubt

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but that the penalties had been incurred […]. They must therefore find for the plaintiff.29

Lord Tenterden’s instructions to the jury name the playbills as the damning evidence, and the jury complied with the Judge’s instructions, promptly returning a guilty verdict. Despite Lord Tenterden’s instructions to the jury, there can be no doubt that the Coburg was unfairly singled out. The Surrey Theatre, another minor London theatre, advertised on October 27, 1827 that they were performing Douglas with the child actor Master Burke—at roughly the same time as the Coburg’s production of Douglas—but they were never sued. Though the Surrey and the Coburg were in the same general area of London, and were each other’s primary competition, the Surrey happened to lie just outside the area designated in the Licensing Act as subject to licensing by the Lord Chamberlain. In fact, the Surrey Theatre (then under the management of Elliston, who was the manager of the Drury Lane just previous to Price) seemed to flaunt its exempt status from the Licensing Act and control by the Lord Chamberlain during and after the Coburg lawsuit. The Surrey Theatre advertised a performance of “The Fourth Act of Douglas” with the leading role played again by Master Burke, on August 11, 1828, just a two weeks after the Coburg trial. Master Burke also played Romeo on August 20, 1828 at the Surrey Theatre. Though Davidge and the Coburg theatre were held accountable to the Licensing Act, the Surrey theatre demonstrated how outmoded this legislation had become over nearly the full century since it was first enacted. The Surrey and Coburg theatres’ choices of performing quasi-serious dramas with child actors not only drew attention to the inappropriateness of the Licensing Act. They further raised questions about the meaning of serious drama, of serious acting, and the questionable popularity of both— ostensibly the reasons that spawned the 1828 lawsuit. But if the lawsuit against the Coburg was not about a child actor or “Young Roscius” performing some version of the serious drama, could it have really been about Ira Aldridge—the American African Roscius—who did not perform burlesques, but rather serious drama in earnest? Though the lawsuit makes no direct mention of Aldridge, there are many reasons to believe that Aldridge was a factor in Price’s decision to sue Davidge and the Coburg Theatre. First, Price’s case against the Coburg makes little sense when judged on its own merits. Even if the Coburg did technically violate the Licensing Act, there can be no doubt that the Coburg was unfairly singled out for prosecution from other minor theatres who regularly made similar violations. Furthermore, the lawsuit did not dissuade other theatres from

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“People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire”: Ira Aldridge, Stephen Price, and the 1828 Coburg Theatre Lawsuit

the same practices, but rather demonstrated how some theatres, the Surrey theatre in particular, were not controllable. The Coburg’s manager, George Bolwell Davidge, was different from the other minor London theatre managers in 1828 because of his support of Ira Aldridge’s career. Furthermore, Price’s history with the African Theatre in New York establishes a pattern of his especially virulent harassments of African American theatre artists. It follows, then, that Price would have continued these practices when he became manager of the Drury Lane in London. Such intersections are key in unpacking the manner in which anxious white authorities, on both sides of the Atlantic, responded in both the legal and illicit realms to a perceived threat to the stability of their aesthetic, national, and racial identities. What, on the face of it, is a simple lawsuit over a hundred-year-old law, becomes much more insidious under scrutiny. Under the guise of legality, legitimacy, and the protection of financial interest, Price and other authority figures conducted, in all actuality, brutal violence and racially-driven acts of intolerance in an attempt to quell those individuals who threatened their claim on national legacies, aesthetics and culture.

PROXIMITY AND THE DEMARCATION OF THE OTHER: THREE “CHINESE” PRODUCTIONS ON THE EARLYTWENTIETH-CENTURY LONDON STAGE DONGSHIN CHANG

In the late seventeenth century, the London stage began to see theatrical works that utilized ethnographic resources on China, ranging from missionary writings to imported goods.1 At the turn of the twentieth century, after more than two hundred years’ evolution in both the AngloChinese contacts and British (Western) theatre practices, the London stage featured three distinct theatrical works that, while dramatizing the same subject of China, demarcated China as different through markedly different themes and stagings. A Chinese Honeymoon (1901–1904), a musical comedy by George Dance (1857?–1932) and Howard Talbot (1865–1928),2 depicting a group of British tourists visiting a fictional Chinese land and engaging in interracial romantic frolicking, emphasized the difference of China in its customs and manners. Mr. Wu, a dark melodrama by Harry Vernon (1880?–1942) and Henry Owen (1872– 1930)3 set in the British colony Hong Kong, and portraying a feud between an Oxford-educated Chinese merchant and his British competitor, marked the Chinese as different in his cunning manipulation of Western knowledge and education. The Yellow Jacket, a fable co-authored by George Cochrane Hazelton (1868–1921) and Joseph Henry Benrimo (1871–1942, a.k.a. J. Harry Benrimo, or simply Benrimo)4 about the life journey of a legitimate Chinese prince who eventually wins back the throne, took inspiration from the staging conventions of Chinese theatre that were very different from those of Western traditions. Studied as a group, these three plays show the proximity and the consequent close interactions between China and the West (in the example of Britain and the U.S.) that had been heretofore unseen. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Anglo-Chinese trade was firmly established, Hong Kong had been Britain’s colony for more than half a century, and Chinese

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Proximity and the Demarcation of the Other: Three “Chinese” Productions on the Early-Twentieth-Century London Stage

students pursued advanced study in Britain and the U.S., where Chinese diasporic communities had been gradually forming. This proximity enabled Western theatre practitioners to elaborate upon the stage depictions of the Chinese, in their dress, mannerisms, and characters with firsthand material and examples. More importantly, the proximity appears to have prompted the British, as exemplified in their reviews of the productions, to contemplate the possible ways in which China, as an Other, might have been used to reflect the integrity of Britain’s own social and cultural practices—and the extent to which China might have impacted on Britain’s power, identity and artistic pursuits. In studying the depictions of the Other (China) in these three plays, I argue that it is necessary to look at the ways in which the Other was demarcated, the possible rationale behind the demarcations, and the receptions of the demarcations. Rather than regarding these works as merely vehicles of racialization at the expense of the Chinese,5 a closer study reveals that they were responses to increasing intercultural contacts. The critical receptions of these pieces, especially, reveal the British’s fantasy, doubt, hope and inspiration—a wide range of responses—toward the increasing proximity of the Other and the possible consequences of that proximity. A Chinese Honeymoon (Fig. 2-5), a successful musical comedy, had a run of more than 1,000 consecutive performances at the Strand Theatre between 1901 and 1904, making it the longest running West End show of the Victorian and Edwardian eras.6 The comedy depicts an imbroglio of entangled love pursuits—the old, flirtatious Mr. Pineapple and his young, jealous wife get caught in the Chinese emperor’s search for a bride, while another love affair develops between Mr. Pineapple’s nephew, Tom, and the emperor’s niece, Princess Soo Soo.7 Its setting in an Asian foreign land and the theme of interracial romantic pursuits were not uncommon among the contemporary, so-called escapist musicals set in distant Asian locales,8 among which The Geisha was one of the most popular.9 The setting of an imaginary Chinese land and the characterization of the Chinese emperor as prone to odd laws and punishments quickly call to mind the fictional Japanese town and the Japanese emperor Mikado in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado.10 In addition, the Chinese ladies, with their “pretty little faces” and “dainty little feet,” indulge themselves daily in handling “tea and scandal.”11 The Chinese and China, in other words, are depicted as exotic and possessed of peculiar manners and customs. If in the play the Chinese are portrayed as attractively strange, if not altogether silly, the British are depicted as laughable, in a way no less silly than the Chinese. Tom and Mr. Pineapple, for example, are hopelessly

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Fig. 2-5 Bassano. “Scenes from ‘A Chinese Honeymoon’ at the Strand Theatre [Act I—The Gardens of the Hotel at Ylang Ylang]” The Sketch, Vol. 35, October 16, 1901, p. 503. General Research Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

romantic, dallying their time away by flirting with the Chinese women. Among the other British tourists is Mrs. Brown, a shrew and a devoted churchgoer who is mocked for her rigid daily routine scheduled around the church.12 The setting of an “Other” locale, in other words, enables the British to weave comic, romantic fantasies that not only make fun of the Other (either the Chinese or the Japanese) but also laugh at the British themselves. The “Other” locale, in other words, serves for the British as realm of projected fantasy, escape, and ridicule. Compared with the lighthearted and silly A Chinese Honeymoon, Mr. Wu (Fig. 2-6), presented at the Strand in the 1913–1914 season,13 is a gruesome melodrama that dramatizes the revenge of Mr. Wu, a powerful and wealthy Chinese merchant, on the English businessman Mr. Gregory. Enraged and humiliated by the secret love affair between his daughter and Mr. Gregory’s son, Mr. Wu ends his daughter’s life and resolves to ruin the Gregory family. He kidnaps Mr. Gregory’s son, creates incidents to bring down Mr. Gregory’s business, and almost succeeds in raping Mrs. Gregory. At the critical moment, Mr. Wu is killed by mistakenly drinking poisoned tea intended for Mrs. Gregory to preserve her honor.14 Mr. Wu, as an example of the Chinese Other in this case, is mightily cunning and devilish in destructing the British, who appear defenseless and indeed eventually escape only by pure chance of luck.

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Proximity and the Demarcation of the Other: Three “Chinese” Productions on the Early-Twentieth-Century London Stage

Fig. 2-6 “Miss Lilian Braithwaite and Mr. Matheson Lang in ‘Mr. Wu’.” The Play Pictorial. Vol. 23, no. 140. 1914. Cover. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

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The depiction of Mr. Wu’s ability to outwit the British is derived from his education at Oxford, and therefore his experience and familiarity with Western society, manners, and culture. To avenge, as he tells Mrs. Gregory, he simply follows the Western practice of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, an approach that shows “the advantage of an European education.”15 That Mr. Wu is an anglicized Chinese villain who makes perverse use of his Western education against the British exemplifies what Heidi Holder calls the most paranoiac of melodramatic fantasies. It emerged in the development of melodrama during the early years of British imperial decline in the early twentieth century. In this fantasy, the fearful villain is a native subject who threatens the well-being of the British Empire by receiving British education and acquiring Western knowledge and, consequently, power.16 In other words, the proximity and interactions between Britain and its Others provoked in the British a sense of danger and anxiety that Britain’s Others might learn and grow to their disadvantage and harm. The Yellow Jacket (Fig. 2-7), a rarity on the London stage and an imported production from New York, had a brief round at the Duke of York’s Theatre in 1913.17 Set in an unspecific place in China, The Yellow Jacket tells a pilgrimage-like fable that begins with Chee Moo, first wife of a mandarin, escaping the murder schemed by her husband and his second wife’s father. Her son, Wu Hoo Git, rescued and raised by her maid and her maid’s husband, grows to be a brave youth who overcomes a series of life challenges as well as schemes contrived by Wu Fah Din (Daffodil), his effeminate half brother, and eventually wins back the throne and the Yellow Jacket, the symbol of utmost power and honor.18 The two playwrights, George Hazelton and Joseph Benrimo, state that they intended to “carr[y] a boy from the cradle to the grave in a fashion plausible to the Occidental mind, and yet developed the tale in an Oriental atmosphere.”19 In other words, Hazelton and Benrimo aimed to portray a universal story while transporting the setting to China. In conceiving and staging a Chinese play, Hazelton and Benrimo made the best of their personal knowledge about China and benefited from the proximity to and consultancies given by the local Chinese community in New York. In the Benrimo Papers kept at the New York Public Library, for example, there is a piece of paper on which the characters’ names, written in English, are shown to correspond with Chinese in Cantonese dialect. Among Hazelton’s drafts of the script is a business card from a Chinese printing company attached to several pieces of paper on which some of the characters’ names were translated into Chinese.20

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Proximity and the Demarcation of the Other: Three “Chinese” Productions on the Early-Twentieth-Century London Stage

Fig. 2-7 “In the Chinese Manner: ‘The Yellow Jacket,’ at the Duke of York’s.” The Sketch (Supplement). Vol. 82 April 9, 1913, p. 4. General Research Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

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Presumably with the help of the Chinese in New York, Hazelton and Benrimo were able to designate character names with Chinese soundings and literal meanings; they also modeled the costumes, scenery, props and acting styles after Chinese theatre conventions. Chairs and tables, for example, are used symbolically to construct various scenes such as mountains, a love boat, and tombs. The characters describe themselves to the audience when they first enter the stage. Musicians are seen on the stage, as is the Property Man, a silent figure who takes care of changing the scenes and props. According to Benrimo, the authors believed that the narrative style as they saw it in Chinese theatre was better than the realistic approach commonly seen in Western theatre.21 The proximity to the diasporic Chinese community in New York apparently enabled Hazelton and Benrimo to explore a unique theatre form of the Other (China) to expand the possible ways of creating innovative Western theatre works. It is in the reception of these works, however, where the demarcation of the Other is further reinscribed for the British at the turn of the century. Among the three plays, A Chinese Honeymoon received comparatively more positive and favorable reviews. Most contemporary theatre critics used “Gilbertian” or “semi-Gilbertian” to describe the play’s resemblance in plot, music and character to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan.22 Scenery was noted as lavish and picturesque, costumes as handsome and sumptuous. The proportion of various theatrical elements in the play— romantic plot, music-hall comedy routines and hummable tunes, etc.—was appropriate.23 As for the representations of China and the Chinese, critics were aware of the unrealistic and whimsical depictions, but nevertheless justified them on the grounds that the play was merely a musical comedy. “No one goes to a musical comedy in the hope of seeing men and matters portrayed to the life,” the critic of the Times declared. “A Chinese Honeymoon sets out with the object of amusing, and, since it does so, it justifies its existence.”24 In other words, being a musical comedy grants A Chinese Honeymoon the license to disregard truthful portrayals of the real China and to fabricate a wholly imaginative “China” on the stage. Taking this argument further, the setting and characters of the Other (China) offer extra time and space for the British to project and weave fantasies which do not necessarily correspond to the realities of the Other. The “Chinese” in the play are therefore more of a British imaginative and fantastic conception than of a serious endeavor to authentically depict the real Chinese. Mr. Wu, although commercially successful, triggered diverse and extreme comments. At the best, Mr. Wu was praised for its powerful

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Proximity and the Demarcation of the Other: Three “Chinese” Productions on the Early-Twentieth-Century London Stage

portrayal of a confrontation between a suppressing power and the suppressed—which presumably referred to Mr. Wu and the British, respectively—and for its double handling of the problem of color and sex—the courtship between Mr. Gregory’s son and Mr.’s Wu’s daughter and Mr. Wu’s intended rape of Mrs. Gregory.25 The revenge, feud, and interracial conflict depicted in the play recalled Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello.26 However, most critics found that Mr. Wu’s death from drinking the poisoned tea resulted in an abrupt and unsatisfactory ending. As one reviewer put it, “[…] when it comes to the pinch, the authors funk their theme, and are rather like little boys who ring and run away.”27 The swift finish was interpreted as the authors’ incapability to unknot the complicated plot they had conceived, and the criticism signaled not only a flaw in dramatic structure but an impracticable and unrealistic resolution in the perceived analogy to lived British-Chinese experience. In other words, the complexity of issues caused by the inevitable proximity between Britain and its Other (China) will not be disentangled simply by exterminating the Other while overlooking the issues involved. The Yellow Jacket, lastly, caused reviewers much puzzlement and surprise due to its very novelty. The production was, first of all, difficult to categorize according to conventional British theatrical genres. It was called “an odd mixture of the comic and the tragic, the ridiculous and the sublime,” “[a] curious medley of melodrama, farce, pantomime, and Miracle Play,” “a curio,” and a “quaint and picturesque entertainment.”28 “Quaint” and “novel” were the most common expressions. What drew the most diverse responses was its staging and acting in the “Chinese manner.” Its one-scene setting was likened to that of Elizabethan drama, and the make-believe, symbolic acting was interpreted as naïve and primitive, not unlike children’s games.29 Some critics appreciated this novel approach to theatre, for they saw that it broke away from the conventional stage illusions, demanded the audience to actively engage their imagination, and showed how needless realism in theatre is.30 However, some critics found that make-believe was “a pretty but tiring game” and that the unconvincing acting of the performers reduced them to “mechanical dolls.” Worse than the slapstick of Punch and Judy, some suggested, The Yellow Jacket might be able to find more success as a puppet show.31 As seen in the examples above, the Chinese staging conventions, perceived as a game of make-believe, induced both high compliments and sharp criticisms. Despite disagreement on whether the production was authentically Chinese, the play was certainly accepted as “Chinese,” something completely different from Western theatre works.

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Taken together, the mixed reviews above exhibit a wide spectrum of attitudes, from openness to skepticism, which presumably emerge whenever one culture first encounters the unfamiliar practices of another. At the turn of the twentieth century, as exemplified in A Chinese Honeymoon, Mr. Wu and The Yellow Jacket, the proximity between the West (in the example of Britain and the U.S.) and China (the Other) inspired theatrical works. Western theatre practitioners plumbed the space of proximity for dramatic material, finding in their encounter with the Other’s culture a multiplicity of occasions, scenarios, and inspirations they could utilize for theatrical effect. Since the turn of the century, contemporary Western theatrical works have developed such artistic pursuits and creations further, with the emphasis gradually shifting toward the potential of exchanging performing concepts and skills among distinct cultures. The examples discussed above are significant in that they show how the process of demarcating the Other had occurred and diversified at this particular moment. The closeness of the worlds of the West and China prompted British and U.S. theatre practitioners to respond with works that not only reflected the proximity, but imagined the possible interactions and consequences of that proximity. Furthermore, each shows how this demarcation led the West to reflect, question,or enhance its own cultural and artistic practices. From a broader perspective, the early twentieth century becomes a crucial moment in theatre history in which we may examine the staged acts of demarcation of the Other—and the critical reception and reinscription of that demarcation.

THE PADUANOS AND THE THEATRICAL CONSTRUCTION OF CALIFORNIA’S MEXICAN PAST ANDREW GIBB

In his 1948 book North from Mexico, social commentator Carey McWilliams coined the term “fantasy heritage” to decry the popular construction of California’s Mexican past as a lost arcadia of missions and ranchos.1 Most striking about McWilliams’ critique—at least for the theatre scholar—are the examples the author proceeds to use to illustrate his term. Despite articulating the presence of the fantasy heritage in a number of different media—histories, novels, paintings, architecture, to name but a few—McWilliams reserves a particular scorn for popular performances: Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta, the Los Angeles Fiesta and Olviera Street tourist attraction, and the plays performed at the Padua Institute. Why that apparent antitheatrical bias? I would argue that the reason theatre draws more attention and commentary in such critiques lies in the form’s unique ability to simultaneously manipulate time, space, and the human body, an ability that makes theatre ideally suited to projects aimed at regulating those elements. The fantasy heritage, as an attempt to mold history, geography, and ethnicity, is just such a project. McWilliams holds that the purpose of the fantasy heritage is “to maintain the subordination of Mexican immigrants in the general scheme of things.”2 No doubt there is a great deal of truth to that assertion. Certainly it is no coincidence that Mexican immigration boomed in the ’teens and twenties, and all of the performances cited in North from Mexico are products of the twenties and early thirties. But, whereas every expression of the fantasy heritage is undoubtedly a statement about power and ethnicity, McWilliams fails to recognize the differences in formulation and effect between individual expressions of that heritage. The Padua Institute is a case in point. The latest founded of his exemplars, the Institute borrowed much from earlier performances. But the uniqueness of the site’s layout, its staff, and its function ensured that the Padua version of the heritage would be extraordinary. The performance created there had

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a lasting effect on the staging of the fantasy heritage elsewhere, and even inspired developments outside the genre. Located in Claremont, California, the Padua Institute (known as the Padua Hills Theatre prior to 1935) stood out among its contemporaries in a number of ways. It was a private organization that operated year-round, not a civic festival of limited duration, as was the norm for fantasy heritage performances up to that time. It was also a dinner theater, which meant that all of the actors were employees, not volunteers as at other sites. The company, named “The Mexican Players” by the Institute’s Anglo management, was composed almost entirely of Mexican-American performers (the performers generally preferred to call themselves “paduanos”). Most other fantasy heritage presentations were performed by a mixed company of Mexican-Americans and Anglos, and occasionally by Anglos alone.3 The plays, although often performed in Spanish, were for the most part scripted by the management, and were always set in either pre-conquest California or México. The actors were paid only for their work in the kitchen and dining room, yet they were required to sing, dance, and interact with guests both before and after the stage shows. For those reasons and others, historians of Chicano theatre have largely chosen to ignore the Mexican Players. Recent attempts to recover the paduanos’ experience for a larger Chicano cultural history have acknowledged the unequal power relations between management and employees, as well as the disparity between stage representations and the lived experience of the actors.4 Such questions undoubtedly strike at the heart of the Padua Hills experience, and I offer no radical reinterpretation of the paduanos’ agency, nor do I dismiss their influence. Rather, my examination in this essay works along the edges of those questions in order to show that, through a combination of intent and accident, the Mexican Players significantly altered the way the fantasy heritage was performed. Perhaps the most singular aspect of the fantasy heritage performance at Padua Hills was its setting. The Padua Institute was a complex of several buildings constructed in a uniform Mission Revival style, situated among a grove of shielding olive trees in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. The main structure housed the theater and dining room. Those main spaces were connected by a lobby, which acted as a stage for preshow entertainment and also opened onto an olive-planted patio where outdoor afterpieces were staged. No other fantasy heritage performance site matched Padua Hills’ blend of flexibility and enclosure; a blend that combined the maximum in staging possibilities with the greatest possible detachment from the outside world.

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The site provided both opportunities and challenges to the traditional staging of the fantasy heritage. The principal advantage was that the theatre grounds could act as the perfect atmosphere for the stage plays. Guests could enter into the compound and be effectively sealed off from the outside world. Surrounded by architecture that suggested a Mexican period rancho, they could imagine themselves removed from the bustle of modern life. The theater grounds thus supported one of the fundamental implications of the fantasy heritage, that Mexican influence in California was strictly a historical phenomenon. But that implication was also challenged by the space: the illusion was not a perfect one. The buildings, though whitewashed and partially tileroofed, were constructed not of adobe but of poured concrete. Discreet (yet perceptible) doorways opened into modern restroom facilities. And the olive grove, though providing some protection, could not completely mask the city lights of Claremont in the valley below. But the truly insurmountable obstacle to a fully historicized performance of the fantasy heritage at Padua Hills was the fact that the facility was a dinner theater. Unlike at other heritage performances, Padua Hills audiences were in full contact with the virtual californios for an entire evening, throughout which the latter could be encountered both in and out of character.5 Other fantasy heritage performances were able to maintain the historicized status of their actors by restricting them in space, as was the case with stage plays, or limiting them in time, as with parades. Neither control technique could work at Padua Hills. It is unlikely audience members could forget that the californiana onstage was the waitress who had just served them moments before. But the management was in a bind, and would need to forego the sustained illusion found at other heritage events if they wanted to fully exploit such a wonderful performance space and such cheap labor. Given, then, the relatively uncontrollable nature of space and time at Padua Hills performances, the performers’ bodies would have to take on the burden of historicization. Disciplining those bodies became necessary, and was carried out in a number of ways. Actors were required to be in costume whenever in the presence of guests: before, during, and after performances. One paduana, Casilda Amador Thoreson, recalled in an interview that artistic director Bess Garner even insisted actors wear their costumes when they went to see movies in the community.6 Encasing the actors in historicized and/or exoticized clothing provided a buffer of sorts between the audience member and the actor’s real, living, contemporary body. Management also expected performers to control their facial expressions at all times to convey an image of hospitality. The result was a friendly rictus that actor Michelle Martínez labeled “that Padua Hills

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smile.”7 On occasion, performers were even required to layer a Mexican accent onto their English.8 The combination of the site’s architecture and the actors’ highly controlled bodies gave rise to a kind of environmental theatre previously unknown to the fantasy heritage performance. In its level of intensity, it nearly anticipated the modern living history museum. But although it was an avowed goal of the Padua Institute to keep the traditions of Mexican California alive, its primary role was never history education. No attempt was made to achieve the continuous, improvisatory performance of present-day “first-person interpreters” at living history museums. Throughout the existence of the Mexican Players, the primary focus was entertainment. In that sense, the development most anticipated by Padua Hills was that of the modern theme park. In fact, several sources report that Walt Disney himself was a regular visitor to the Padua Hills Theatre, and that, prior to developing Disneyland, he approached the Padua Institute about the possibility of building a theme park on their site.9 Such avid interest displayed by one of the twentieth century’s most innovative and notorious purveyors of fantasy was a testament to both the power and pitfalls of the Mexican Players’ innovation. Their development of a fullyintegrated fantasy with claims to authentic reality was unprecedented, but it would be all too easily appropriated for such projects as Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. Another factor that separated the Institute from its contemporaries was the fact that fantasy heritage performances were only a small part of their repertory. In a typical season of eight or nine plays, usually only one or two were set in nineteenth-century California.10 The other shows were representations of “modern” México. Although program notes indicated a contemporary time period, the Padua Hills performances almost always staged a simple, rural, unchanging México, peopled by traditionallydressed peasants. Those performances were not limited to the auditorium, but spilled out onto the courtyard in full-length afterpieces. Called jamaícas, after a tropical punch served to guests, those afterpieces consisted of full programs of song and dance. In a sense, it is possible to view the jamaícas as the purest form of Padua Hills performance, as many of the stage plays (including the fantasy heritage pieces) were little more than thin plots stringing together a succession of dance numbers. The jamaícas dispensed with the plot, framing the show as a display of folk dances performed by the inhabitants of a small Mexican town for the entertainment of visiting Anglo tourists. That conceit was reinforced through the transformation of the patio area into the plaza of a virtual village during festival time. The script for a

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jamaíca presented in 1936 demonstrates the centrality of dance to those performances. Five pages of dialogue serve to introduce ten separate dances, as well as five songs. At the top of the piece, an emcee of sorts informs the audience that the villagers “are going to do some songs and dances for you, and they will wear costumes like they wear in the states the songs and dances come from.”11 That explanation matches Chicano Studies scholar Rafaela Castro’s description of current grupos folklóricos, who “perform traditional Mexican regional dances […]. An important characteristic of the dance performances is the elaborate beautiful costumes, very full and colorful dresses, that are the traditional dress from the various states of Mexico.”12 At first, the dances performed by the paduanos were those they had learned from their families and friends. But with the theatre’s success, it became possible to invite professional Mexican dancers to Padua Hills to instruct the actors in traditional dances from throughout México. Specific costumes corresponding to those dances were copied from instructors’ costumes, taken from the closet or the memory of a parent or grandparent, and in some cases purchased by Bess Garner during her frequent visits to México.13 The practice of casting Mexican-American actors to play Mexican peasants cuts to the heart of the debate about representation in the Padua Hills performances. While it is true that the costumes and settings of the fantasy heritage plays historicized the bodies of the paduanos, their open transformation from wait staff to californios and back suggested the historically continuous presence of Mexican-descended peoples in California. It legitimated, in a sense, the paduanos as citizens of California, and in so doing undermined the tenet of the fantasy heritage that California’s Mexican heritage was a thing of the past. But, the Padua Hills Mexican plays identified the paduanos with foreign Mexicans, thus denying them a legitimate place in California’s present or past. The paduanos were understandably ambivalent about their role in the process, and that ambivalence took on many forms. In some cases, they may have resisted their Mexicanization with acts of covert dramaturgical sabotage.14 But they also responded by embracing the costumes and dances as proofs of the value of their Mexican heritage. As Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett observes in her discussion of folklore performance, “Having a past, a history, a ‘folklore’ of your own […] is fundamental to the politics of culture: the possession of a national folklore […] is cited as a mark of being civilized.”15 In the case of the paduanos, the folklore was not claimed by a nation, but by an ethnic group. Great efforts were made by the dancers, as well as the Mexican-American seamstresses, to achieve

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high levels of accuracy and craftsmanship. In taking up the dances as expressions of ethnic pride, the paduanos anticipated the cultural program of the Chicano Movement, which embraced folklórico dance for the same reason.16 The Mexican Players’ dancing exhibitions were wildly popular, and soon became a standard component of almost all other fantasy heritage performances. It is indeed possible to suggest that the incorporation of such dance is the primary reason for the survival of fantasy heritage performance in post-1960s California, as its celebration of Mexican heritage has been instrumental in securing the support of Chicanos for those performances. But the “Disnification” of the performances has also been a continuous development, with increasing expenditures on scenery and costumes. Weighing together the positive and negative effects of the Padua Hills performances, one might come to the conclusion that not much has changed since McWilliams’ wrote. However, the case of the paduanos reveals, if nothing else, that the fantasy heritage was—and is—a continuously negotiated account of California’s ethnic past. Perhaps it is no coincidence that “dancing” is a common metaphor for negotiation. The author wishes to thank Bruce Guter, Library Systems Manager, for graciously allowing full access to the Padua Theater/Mexican Players Collection in the Special Collections of the Pomona Public Library; also Ginger Elliott, Executive Director of Claremont Heritage, for a generous, thorough, and enlightening tour of the Padua Hills Theatre complex.

HAUNTED LANDSCAPES: PING CHONG'S EAST/WEST PRODUCTIONS KAY MARTINOVICH

The stage is dark except for a single pool of light downstage left. On the back wall are projected images of Japanese-American internment camps, 1942. A young Asian woman in a red coat enters and stands motionless in the isolated light. Then she begins to speak. Her story recounts the moment before she and her mother have to vacate their home, forced to move to the camps for the duration of World War II. A man has come to the house–he wants to buy the 12-piece dinner set of blue and white porcelain. Her mother does not want to sell for such a paltry sum. Negotiations ensue. Then cease. Finally, her mother wordlessly and defiantly smashes each dish, plate and cup, one by one, “tears streaming down her cheeks.”1 The woman’s defiance of the bounty hunter and her realization that the only way she can irrefutably prove their mutual knowledge of the value of these precious objects—and assert her right to them–is to destroy them. At stake for the woman’s mother is the valuable dinner set that had been in the family for generations, brought over with them from Japan. At stake for director Ping Chong is the value of the re-telling of an-Other history. The lone woman in the red coat is compelled to remember in order to record the other history. The re-telling of her mother’s destruction of an historical representation of ancestry signifies the devastation wrought by broken, abandoned, and forgotten histories. What truths of history are kept in the dark because the narrative of the dominant culture shines much more brightly? Enter Ping Chong to resurrect sorrowful stories, pleasurable memories, and conflicting narratives of bygone days. “Whose history is this anyway?”2 Deshima (1990), from which the above scene is taken, and Chinoiserie (1995) are the first two installments of Ping Chong’s The East/West Quartet. The sumptuous worlds of these two plays are made evocative to their audiences by Chong’s historiographic approach, through which he articulates the essential questions of history: who writes it, who tells it,

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who decides? Which histories get archived and re-vived, mis-remembered and dis-remembered? Chong’s stage is haunted not only by these questions but also by history itself, the distant and not so distant past, the victorious and the vanquished. This essay will examine Chong’s productions of Deshima and Chinoiserie through the framework of a hauntology–Jacques Derrida’s neologism for the contradictory nature of ghosts, that is, neither alive nor dead–a combination of the words ‘haunting’ and ‘ontology’. The labeling by the press of director Ping Chong as Chinese/American–a label he reluctantly accepts–identifies a key component that influences this work: a continual negotiation between the cultures of East and West. In Deshima and Chinoiserie, he persists in working through that process. Chong’s stage is haunted because of the ghostly re-appearance of historical figures and events and by way of memory and remembrance. His staging strategies of disturbance, comprising racialized bodies, visual images of the dead, and disembodied voices, also contribute to the idea of a haunted landscape. Since a haunted space is one inhabited by ghosts– absent presences–I will discuss Derrida’s concepts of “undecideability” and the “trace” in order to expose the spectral tropes that are both veiled and visible in these productions. Through Chong’s negotiation and renegotiation of cultures, a haunted space is “performed” and enacted upon and in the textual, staged, and embodied space. I submit that Chong creates these haunted intercultural spaces to lament the loss of “other” narratives and to contend with the embedded hostilities and contentious relationships that constitute “race” in Japan and America, China and Britain, East and West. “Deshima” is named after the island near Nagasaki where early Dutch missionaries and traders were confined by the Japanese. For over 200 years (from 1641-1859), Deshima served as the site of this Dutch trading post. Chong’s Deshima, devised as a ‘poetic documentary’, was commissioned by the Mickery Theater in the Netherlands to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of the Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh. Van Gogh’s appearance, mid-way through the production, serves to illustrate the intersection of Dutch and Japanese “trade” relations that began in the seventeenth century and continued through and beyond the 1987 purchase of Van Gogh’s painting Sunflowers by a Japanese insurance company for a record-setting eighty three million dollars. Through imaged and textual projections, dance and movement sequences, and a vivid sound design, Deshima is an “associative” and nonlinear re-telling of the (often) polemical-historical encounters between Japan and the West.

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“Chinoiserie,” from the nineteenth-century French “chinois”, meaning Chinese, refers to “the use of Chinese motifs and techniques in Western art, furniture and architecture” and “objects or decorations in this style.”3 Yet it also pertains to the labeling of an Orientalist consumerism from the nineteenth century to the present. The production of Chinoiserie is one of Chong’s most personal works, not only because he is physically a part of the production–himself taking the podium as tutor, translator, and transcriber–but also because he confronts what it means to be a ChineseAmerican living in the United States. Through his personal remembrances of race and racism, Chong is both witness and participant. In Chinoiserie, two dominant narratives are revealed in a more linear structure than Deshima. The catalyst for the first narrative is the historic meeting in 1793 between the Chinese Emperor Qianlong and Britain’s Lord George Macartney to determine China’s willingness to open its doors to British trade. The second narrative is a running critique on race relations in America, illustrated most horrifically by the 1982 murder of Vincent Chin, a young Chinese-American man beaten to death with baseball bats for being “Japanese” by two “all-American” white men. In both Deshima and Chinoiserie identities shift and relationships rupture, just as ghosts and histories are hard to pin down. Deshima and Chinoiserie are plays about the past and the present, memory and forgetfulness, the political and the personal, marginalization and inclusion, power and powerlessness. Onstage, the synthesis of these binary opposites generates a liminal space, a place both with and without boundaries. In both productions the utilization of a (mostly) bare playing space, with actors moving inside and outside the rectangular-shaped platform, aptly suggests this liminality as nowhere and everywhere and, as a result, is the perfect traipsing ground for ghosts. Instead of a visual materialization, there is an experience of the absent presence of the ghost. These haunting presences cause a disruption in the productions because of the “undecidable” nature of the ghost. If something is undecidable, it cannot be categorized as a binary opposite and thus the whole system of binary oppositions is over-turned. The ghost, as an undecidable–both absent and present–upsets stability and certainty. Derrida’s concept of “trace” correlates with ghosting in several ways. First, a trace is an impression that indicates the “existence or passing of something” and a ghost is definable as “a faint trace”.4 Second, a ‘trace’ and a ‘ghost’ both leave something behind in order to come forward. Third, a Derridean concept of trace signifies impermanence or inconstancy to the meaning of words and of language. In Chong’s work, a word, a phrase, a text, a dance, a fact hides a hint or a trace of an-other meaning(s)

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thus underscoring impermanence and inconstancy in his use of memory and remembrance. The trace, however, does not indicate a subordinate imprint, but instead implies that there is no original source of definition. As Derrida asserts, “The trace is in effect the absolute origin of meaning in general. This is a way of saying, once again, that there is no absolute origin of meaning in general. The trace is différance, which opens up appearance and meaning.”5 In his book The Haunted Stage, Marvin Carlson maintains that every play is a memory play. Chong complicates this thesis by raising the question: Whose memory? In the course of history, what is remembered, mis-remembered and/or dis-remembered is capable of distorting or perverting events. Teasing out the terms, to mis-remember is to call to mind only those truths that agree with one’s perception of the world, and/or to modify memory in order to properly fit one’s view of self and reality. To dis-remember is to block out those truths that disagree with one’s perception of the world and/or to consciously or unconsciously delete from memory those events that create cognitive dissonance. Traces of memory are present in both mis-remembrance and dis-remembrance. In the second scene of Deshima, for instance, Chong helps us to remember the Christian proselytizing mission in the late sixteenth-century in Asia. Western culture has dis-remembered the religious domination through coerced conversions in many Eastern nations during this time. While not colonizing for land, per se, the Christian missionaries who established churches and missions, as well as converting hundreds of thousands of Phillipinos, Koreans and Japanese, did “spiritually” colonize the East6, since many were converted by force. In Deshima, one Christian missionary tells ‘his’ truth: PRIEST: Their resolution is admirable. For they know so little of God’s work and will. We had to convert them quickly. Sometimes hundreds in a day. Sometimes even by force. But we are in the business of saving souls, not men.7

Questions asked by the newly converted reflect the spiritual colonizing nature of the missionaries. They inquire: “Why do you destroy Shinto and Buddhist temples, and persecute the monks, instead of living in peace with them?” “Why do the Portuguese buy so many Japanese and export them as slaves?” “Padre, is it true that we should obey the Holy Church above our Shogun?”8 The Asian converts are demanded to suffer torture, persecution, and finally death for Christ—as on June 26, 1632 when, as Chong reports in his play, three thousand Christians were martyred. Herbert Blau reminds us that the theater can be a site for remembering and

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that the Ghost facilitates this process: “But if there’s a point to the theater it’s to not let ourselves forget: What did it all mean? The Ghost, reified, wants to be remembered, with almost no boundary on thought.”9 The “reappearance” of these Asian converts on Chong’s stage is a ghostly conceit. Through the re-telling of the evangelizing/colonizing project, their martyred ghosts are brought back to life in the re-telling/writing of their history. In Chinoiserie, historical events shift back and forth in time until the final moments of the play when Lord Macartney and Emperor Qianlong at last meet. Chong’s historical re-telling of these events imply a kind of British “economic” colonization of China through its illegal opium export. Chong tells us that in 1839, Commissioner Lin of China orders 20,000 chests of opium to be dumped into the sea. The British version describes the event as the destruction of private property. The Chinese narrative views the event as the interdiction of illicit drugs, thereby protecting Chinese society from the destructive influences of addiction. As Chong asks, “Was this a patriotic act or an act of terrorism?”10 To a certain degree, both nations are participating in an act of mis-remembrance: they subtly change the narrative of events to more favorably satisfy their political self-image. Facts are not deceptive, but the analyses and perceptions surrounding historical events are illusory, like the ghost. In their book Ghosts: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, History, Peter Buse and Andrew Stott elaborate on this concept by citing the ghost’s historiographic influences: “a notion of the spectre enables us to concentrate on reading history as a series of iterations and recontextualizations, traces and returns that constitutes our experience of it.”11 The cultural identities of these countries get revised by way of Chong’s haunted stage. As a director, Chong utilizes several hauntological staging strategies in Deshima and Chinoiserie. Overall, the structure of both plays suggests the disruptive and reiterative nature of the ghost in their disjunctive settings of time and place. In both plays, the idea of Derrida’s trace is most visible in Chong’s use of textual and imaged projections that dissolve in and out of view, leaving a trace or ghosting when the text and image disappears. Specifically, Chong’s stage causes a disturbance by its use of racialized bodies, and dis-embodied voices and images. For example, in Scene 3 of Deshima, the audience is transported to a radio show dance contest at “The Top of the World, U.S.A., 1941.” The scene is upbeat and swinging–with dance contestants exhibiting their jitterbug moves, smiling and having a good time. During the dance sequences, projections of the Japanese flag and the American flag fade in

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and out on the back wall. Then, the African American radio show host lists top-ten singles like “We’re Going to Wipe Those Japs off the Maps,” and “Dykes on the Battlefield,” and, the number one hit, “To Be Specific, it’s Our Pacific.”12 Chong invents these titles to intentionally perturb. He also disturbs views of race relations through his positioning in the scene of Asian-American dancers and an African-American radio host in a racist dance hall. Not until the final moments of the scene is the audience made aware of the exact locale: WKKK in Little Rock, Arkansas. While the scene begins with a certain familiarity, like Freud’s concept of the Uncanny it sneaks up and shocks. In this literal and performative method, Chong makes sure that the “familiar and secure is always haunted by the strange and unfamiliar” and that the “unfamiliar often has a troubling familiarity about it.”13 Like a ghost perturbs one’s sense of reality, so does Chong in his usage of the racialized body to challenge the orthodoxy of race. In a similar manner to the above example, his Deshima casting of an actor of African descent as Dutch-born Van Gogh and in his Chinoiserie casting of an actress of African descent as Mrs. Chin trouble racial constructs and preconceived notions about race relations and history. Both plays deliver a message of cultural politics, the “aim of which is to disrupt the current hegemonic relationship between “dominant” and “minority” positions”14 in both an historical context and a contemporary setting. Dis-embodied voices and images also play a spectral part as a staging technique in both plays. In Chinoiserie, Mrs. Chin wants to adopt a child from China, and as she sings about her desire for a little boy, projected images of a baby’s eye, ear, and mouth appear on the back wall. This fragmentation of the boy foreshadows–like the ghost–the racially motivated death of Vincent Chin later in the play. Mrs. Chin’s song of longing has been mutilated by racism into a soulful lamentation. Thus, Vincent Chin’s ghost most resoundingly hovers over Chinoiserie. A “mournful reference point”, the phrase used to signify “the effect of “relocation” on the Japanese American community”15 during World War II is also a signifier for the death of Vincent Chin. The mourning expressed by both Mrs. Chin and the young woman in the red coat gives rise to the racial mourning of forgotten and dis-remembered personal histories within the context of larger political ones. And yet the mourners survive to re-remember these archives of loss. Chinoiserie and Deshima are a blending of East and West cultures, conflicts and racial perceptions and are grounded in the historical and contemporary complexities of these associations. Memory and remembrance play a significant part in piecing together the fragmented

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narratives in these relationships. Michel Foucault states that, “memory is a very important factor in struggle. If one controls people’s memory, one controls their dynamism. It is vital to have possession of this memory, to control it, administer it, tell it what it must contain.”16 It is not through the facts of history but rather through the interpretation of history—and the omissions and mis-remembrance—that cultural perceptions and misperceptions of society are formed. Chong challenges the misperceptions via his disruptive ghostly traipse through history. These two liminal landscapes are haunted environs not only by their content(s), in which the re-writing of East/West cultural and political histories are played out, but also via Chong’s methodological intercultural process–his persistent dis-orientation through performance of raced bodies and dis-embodiment of voices and images. Deshima and Chinoiserie are populated with phantoms of political and personal histories. In Chinoiserie, in view of the fact that the victors write history, Chong’s prevailing question becomes a haunting and haunted mantra throughout– whose history is this anyway? In her book, The Melancholy of Race, Anne Anlin Cheng identifies a common spectral phenomenon for contemporary Asian-Americans. “Within the national imagination,” she believes, “Asian-Americans in particular suffer a “phantom illness”: because they occupy an unstable position in the ethnic-racial spectrum, their projected place in America is ghostly.”17 If true, Chong as an Asian-American can offer his spectral perspective in the re-imagining of broken, marginalized and incomplete histories. Anne Cheng asks, “How does one go on to record fragmented history?”18 Through his haunted stage and historiographic approach, Chong urges the questions and examines the effects of these ghostly and fragmentary histories of East and West and offers Deshima and Chinoiserie as a means of re-writing and re-visioning the past. While the ghosts of history will not be put to rest—for, as Derrida says, “the specter is the future, it is always to come,”19—the haunted stage can continue to be a site where the spirits of the past can be both visualized and encountered.

PART III: IMAGINED COMMUNITIES AND THE PERFORMANCE OF CULTURAL IDENTITY

FROM CAMILLE TO LULU BELLE: CONSTRUCTING THE BLACK COURTESAN IN THE AMERICAN BROTHEL DRAMA KATIE N. JOHNSON

“The theme of Lulu Belle is just as tried and true. La Dame aux Camélias goes on and on in one variation or another.” David Carb, Vogue Magazine, 19261

At the turn of the twentieth century, plays about prostitutes and fallen women flourished across the stages in America. Harkening back at least to Camille (1852), the hooker-with-a-heart-of gold character appeared again and again in what became known as a genre unto itself: the brothel drama. Brothel dramas could be found in both lowbrow popular entertainments (such as Queen of the White Slaves and Escaped From the Harem) and highbrow social problem plays (like “Anna Christie”, The Easiest Way, and Mrs Warren’s Profession). While brothel plays suffered disparate fates (some were censored, others had obscure regional runs, and still others were the toast of the season), their cumulative presence, in scores of productions across America, demonstrates that they constituted a central aspect of Progressive Era culture. The plots of brothel dramas varied, but the majority of these plays adhered to prevailing Progressive Era white slave discourse (itself a reiteration of Indian captivity tales), featuring white women being abducted and enslaved in houses of prostitution (usually by “dark-looking” men). In spite of the fact that many prostitutes in turn-of-the-century cities were immigrants and women of color, a striking feature of brothel dramas was the portrayal of their heroines as white. That is, until 1926. More than seventy years after Camille first appeared, and after countless other prostitute plays had packed theatres across the nation, a drama featuring an African American courtesan—Lulu Belle—finally took

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Broadway by storm. While Camille had been reinvented for a variety of actresses and accents, curiously no courtesan character of color had yet appeared on a mainstream American stage. What prompted this new invention? Why retell this “old fable,” as David Carb of Vogue Magazine put it in 1926, and place it in Harlem?2 In this essay, I look at David Belasco’s 1926 landmark production of Lulu Belle, a story of a black cabaret singer who toys with men for both sport and money, only to meet a tragic end. Lulu Belle is astonishing not only because it featured a black courtesan—a figure that, with the exception of Goat Alley, was missing altogether in American mainstream drama of the day—but also because Lulu Belle featured a large cast of over one hundred black actors and played successfully in mainstream theatres, running for 461 performances (Goat Alley lasted just a week in 1921). In reexaming its performance history, I seek to explicate the significance of Lulu Belle within the context of early twentieth-century American drama, particularly within the popular subgenre of “brothel drama”. Moreover, I hope to highlight the stakes of white playwrights and producers mounting this “Negro drama,” as it was sometimes called, and to consider the semiotics of blackface performance on the one hand, and blacks performing for white audiences without blackface on the other. In so doing, I hope to outline some of the crucial contexts for interpreting such a complicated text as Lulu Belle by referencing the Harlem Renaissance, the rise of realism, and how notions of racial “authenticity” were deployed both on and off stage—all with a critical eye toward what E. Patrick Johnson and other theorists have called “racial performance.”3 Indeed, interrogating what constitutes black drama, as Harry Elam points out, raises “old questions of historical import and past weight.”4 Given that a recent issue of Theatre Journal was devoted to these very questions, it is perhaps useful to consider the historical debates that framed the emergence of black theatre eighty years ago. Hailed by Time Magazine in 1926 as a “most important” play,5 Lulu Belle was directed by David Belasco, and was co-written by seasoned playwright Edward Sheldon and then newcomer Charles MacArthur.6 Sheldon had already made a name for himself as a playwright committed to portraying the gritty reality of urban life with Salvation Nell in 1908, and had made earlier stabs at representing racism and miscegenation with the unfortunately named The Nigger in 1909. Running for over a year, Lulu Belle was, according to Gerald Bordman, “the last time David Belasco would have a hit of such magnitude.”7 Belasco had made a career of staging hyperrealistic (in Baudrillard’s sense) productions that portrayed, with meticulous and often voyeuristic detail, the lives of the working poor, the sexual underworld, and working class entertainers (for

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example, Zaza [1898] The Easiest Way [1909], and Ladies of the Evening [1924]). Indeed, Belasco—known as the Bishop of Broadway—had profited greatly from what became known as his trademark realism. And Lulu Belle was no exception; in fact, he told a public hearing on immoral plays that “he had made a fortune out of Lulu Belle.”8 So while much of American realism’s roots can be found in tenements, bordellos, and drinking holes (as I have argued elsewhere), Lulu Belle offered Harlem as the newest terrain in the landscape of modernist drama.9 Much in the tradition of In Abraham’s Bosom (1926), Lulu Belle was a mainstream play that was written and produced by prominent white men. Despite the one-hundred-plus black performers in the cast, white actors played the leads in blackface, including Lenore Ulric in the title role and her leading man, Henry Hull.10 As Eric Lott, Errol Hill, James Hatch, and David Krasner, among others, have shown, the minstrel mask is one that resonates problematically throughout American performance, and indeed does so for my reading of this production. Ever the Belascean production, the deployment of blackface turned upon the doomed project of obtaining “authenticity”—through a white lens. Supposedly, this worked—at least for white audiences. MacArthur recounted how Ulric dazzled him with her process of blacking up: “There were a dozen jars of make-up on the dressing table […]. [One] contained a kind of dark grease-paint, which she used on her face, neck and arms. In what seemed like a twinkling of the eye, she was no longer Lenore Ulric, but Lulu Belle. It was really astounding.”11 MacArthur’s comment is noteworthy because even though the practice of blackface was an accepted theatrical convention, it was rarely discussed in the mainstream white press; his is the only article about Lulu Belle by a white author, to my knowledge, that does mention it. And even though it would have been perhaps obvious to audiences—both black and white—that Ulric was white (as Dubois notes below), it is nonetheless remarkable that in 1926 the semiotics of blackface performance still remained unmarked, if not uncontested. It was not only the blacking up that signified blackness to audiences. One review from the Bookman claimed that Ulric “has acquired a darktown accent, speaks French like a Parisian, shoots craps like the original Big Boy, sings passable Blues, and dances a wicked Charleston.”12 Race was signified, in other words, not only by the presence (and in this case, artificial presence) of “color,” but also by performing racial codes—or, more accurately, by performing iterations of racial discourse, which itself was shorn up by racist ideology. Black and white critics alike subscribed to the now-bankrupt notion of racial authenticity. Critical race theorist E. Patrick Johnson alerts us to

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how “authenticity is another trope manipulated for cultural capital.”13 And to be sure, Belasco was a principal benefactor here, as were Sheldon and MacArthur. Nonetheless, the flawed pursuit of authenticity was a foundational principle of realist theatre like Lulu Belle. James Weldon Johnson noted that Ulric played the “with great realism” and that Lulu’s lover, George, “was finely played by Henry Hull, a white actor, whose make-up and dialect were beyond detection.”14 Leading black intellectual W.E.B. Dubois noted in the Crisis (the publication for the NAACP, of which he was then president), “I knew, of course, that Miss Ulric was white. The exaggerated dialect fixes the racial status of the doctor. I was in doubt as to the prizefighter and the lover absolutely deceived me. I was sure he was colored.”15 Dubois’ comments reveal much about the ambiguity of signifying race on stages throughout the 1920s. Given her star status, Ulric was widely known as a white actor; passing was not the goal (a point to which I will return shortly). Dubois’ remark about “exaggerated dialect” in the script gets more to the core of how “racial status” became “fixed,” as he put it. In fact, many of the black characters in Lulu Belle were written with hyperbolic “Negro” dialects like Dr. Walker. When he meets Lulu Belle, for instance, Walker says “Yo’ sho’ got a cozy li’l place heah, Miss Woolwo’th.”16 Like blacking up, such dialogue conjures up notions of racial performance, a set of markings that are anything but fixed. These speech acts are indeed performative not only in how they enact cultural work, but also in how they quote a host of other discourses. For as Judith Butler notes, “performativity must be understood not as a singular or deliberate ‘act,’ but, rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names.”17 Sheldon and MacArthur’s script, in other words, belongs to a matrix of other discourses that circulated within the racist ideology of their day. Thus, while the script seeks to render supposedly authentic black speech (much like O’Neill’s Emperor Jones or Connelly’s In Abraham’s Bosom), the text also reveals its undeniable racism (for example, in using pejoratively referring to characters as “darkies,” “young bucks,” or as “undulating in real nigger style”).18 While Dubois had outlined various ways in which racial performativity was wielded in Lulu Belle (from the use of blackface to exaggerated dialect), one critic from Variety chose to flatten the complexity of Dubois’ remarks and interpret them as strictly positive: “This tribute coming from Dr. Dubois as to Hull’s characterization is without a precedent among white theatricals.”19 As can be seen from the above quote, Dubois did observe that Hull was convincing with his blackface performance. But his statement also revealed a much more complex analysis of racial

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performance on stage than the periodical credits. Dubois’ critique of how the “exaggerated dialect” indelibly marks the doctor’s race was effaced, and so the practice of blackface became naturalized, if not lauded. Much of the prevailing scholarship on blackface, as Eric Lott has written, echoes Frederick Douglass’s argument that white blackface performers were “the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied to them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens.”20 Certainly Douglass’s critique can be applied to early twentieth-century blackface practice as found in Lulu Belle. But what are we to make of the over onehundred-strong ensemble of black actors on stage in this Belascean extravaganza, who performed not in blackface, but as residents of Harlem? Can we find instances of double consciousness and parody, as David Krasner argues often subverted the otherwise racist practice of blackface performance? Are there “a range of responses” to Lulu Belle “which points to an instability or contradiction” in the play, as Eric Lott writes is true of some minstrelsy?21 At first glance, it seems unlikely. The evidence suggests that the black actors in Lulu Belle were used as backdrops, literally constituting an anthropomorphized set of local “color.” When the New York Times reported bluntly, “David Belasco’s drama [was] set against a background of the Negro section of Harlem” the set described was as much composed by living bodies as it was by brick and mortar.22 Brooks Atkinson, the drama critic from the New York Times, derided Belasco’s privileging of spectacle over plot, and charged that his use of “a huge mob of colored actors,”23 like Belasco’s intense devotion to scenery, overshadowed the story.24 One critic from the Bookman noted rather disparagingly that the play was constituted by “an enormous cast which must have depopulated several cotton growing states, not to speak of emptying Harlem’s black belt nightly.”25 And while some of these actors had lines, most African American characters were “extras,” performing caricatured “business” of what Belasco, Sheldon, and MacArthur thought Harlem residents would do. We see them shooting crap, dancing in night clubs, fighting outside bars, attending weddings, and shouting at their neighbors. Black actors functioned, in other words, two-dimensionally as scenery—like dramaturgical specimens in an ethnographic exhibit. Black critic Hubert H. Harrison agreed: “‘Lulu Belle’ is a slice of the surface,” he wrote. “It has the hard glitter of that surface, but lacks the rich color of the depths. The dialogue, for instance, is the most brilliant and nimble that I have heard for some time. But no attempt is made to catch, or even hint at, any valid emotional experience beneath the surface appearance.”26

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Superficial artistic treatments of Harlem were hardly novel. Interest by whites in blacks as authenticators of folkloric experience (in spite of the cavils of some of Lulu Belle’s critics to the contrary) was not uncommon to the 1920s. Irving Berlin’s lyrics to “Puttin on the Ritz” chronicled the popular practice of whites heading uptown to Harlem for entertainment. Recorded by Judy Garland, part of the song goes like this: If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to, Why don’t you go where Harlem sits Puttin’ on the Ritz! Spangled gowns Upon the bevy of high browns from down the levee, all misfits— Puttin’ on the Ritz! That’s where each and every Lulu Belle goes, Ev’ry Thursday evening with her swell beaus— Rubbin’ elbows. Come with me and we’ll attend their jubilee And see them spend their last two bits— Puttin’ on the Ritz!

In rubbin’ elbows with this flashy crowd, the singer tells us, we might very well run into “each and every Lulu Belle”—a term that, as Stanley Appelbaum has written, eventually came to stand in for any “Harlem floozy.”27 This kind of “slumming” was of course not new to American drama of the early twentieth century, nor certainly to the practice of visiting Harlem for a bit of “high brown” glitz. Indeed, as Langston Hughes noted, “It was a period when every season there was at least one hit play on Broadway acted by a Negro cast […]. It was a period when white writers wrote about Negroes more successfully (commercially speaking) than Negroes did about themselves […]. It was the period when the Negro was in vogue.”28 In fact, all of Harlem was in vogue, as folks like Carl Van Vechten made slumming excursions their own kind of “heavens.”29 As James Hatch has argued, this was a distinctly white perspective. He writes, The 1920s had christened itself variously as the New Negro, the Negro Renaissance, the Negro Awakening, and the Jazz Age. None of the titles served, for the Negro was not ‘new,’ although opportunity was. They had not ‘awakened,’ but white America had awakened to them. The so-called Harlem Renaissance was not Harlem’s.30

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In fact, as David Lewis has observed, Lulu Belle was both a product and producer of the Harlem vogue. “Lulu Belle,” he writes, “sent whites to Harlem in unprecedented numbers.”31 If the show sent whites uptown, it also sent them midtown to the theatre. David Carb of Vogue Magazine reported that, “Great throngs are bidding and fighting to get into the Belasco Theatre to see Lulu Belle.”32 And Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times concurred, writing that audiences were “crowding Forty-fourth Street to experience the titillations of the dusky ‘Lulu Belle.’”33 Such “slumming expeditions” to Harlem, as the Bookman called them, were uncannily mirrored in the plot of Lulu Belle itself, which portrays an entire act where “white ‘slummers,’” to use Brooks Atkinson’s words, “come to thrill at a Negro cabaret.”34 This self-reflexive scene points ironically, if not parodically, to the very slumming practice that the play in part inspired. As thrilling as “Puttin’ on the Ritz” was for whites, such slumming was not viewed favorably by all. Langston Hughes recalled, “ordinary Negroes [didn’t] like the growing influx of whites toward Harlem after sundown, flooding the little cabarets and bars where formerly only colored people laughed and sang, and where now the strangers were given the best ringside tables to sit and stare at the Negro customers—like amusing animals in a zoo.”35 In spite of such protestations, the white press, like playwrights Sheldon and MacArthur and the impresario director Belasco, believed Lulu Belle brought integrity to the portrayal of “real” life on to the stage. The New York Times, for instance, wrote that Lenore Ulric “glorify[ed] the harlem girl.”36 The mainstream (that is, white) press repeatedly referred to Lulu as “the Harlem Carmen,” surely a reference not only to the quintessential sexual siren, but also to a classical work of art.37 But some black critics saw the matter differently. Writing in the Amsterdam News, Ruth Dennis worried about the implications that such a portrait would have for black womanhood. Challenging the assumption that “‘Lulu Belle’ seems typical of the average Negro girl,” Dennis heavily critiqued “the Lulu Belles of the race” for the “passionate discontent that urges them to resort to all sorts of reprehensible follies,” including parading “with shameless audacity their wanton finery before their envious and less successful friends.”38 Reminiscent of True Womanhood discourse from the nineteenth century, Dennis asserted that black women were the upholders of virtue, having been tapped as the “god-fearing teachers of truth and righteousness.” She concluded by asserting: “The anti-Lulu Belles are the hope of the race.”39 While for some white critics, a black Carmen invoked a kind of glorified context, for

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black critics like Dennis, it conjured up lingering notions about black women’s unruly sexuality as dangerous, in need of containment and regulation. Just as most critics of the day avoided a discussion of Lenore Ulric playing the title role in blackface, so too very little was said about the extent to which Lulu Belle recycled “tragic mulatto” iconography. Although Sheldon and MacArthur never explicitly state in the script that Lulu Belle is mixed race, other characters do allude to her as such. For instance, Ruby, Lulu Belle’s primary nemesis in the play, calls her a “musta’d-colored snake-charmer,” and a “punkin’-colo’ed cooky.”40 Later in the script, Lulu Belle is referred to as “the high brown.”41 So, too, critics like Brooks Atkinson of the New York Times and David Carb of Vogue both described Lulu Belle as a “mulatto courtesan.”42 Why do Sheldon and MacArthur resurrect the tragic mulatto—a very old figure from literature, theatre, and popular culture—and map it onto the Camille story? If this was truly a “Harlem Carmen” and this play truly a “Negro drama,” why make the title character mixed race? As many scholars have noted, mulatto women posed a problem for white supremacist patriarchal culture, particularly those whose sexuality exceeded the boundaries of presumed decorum. Hence, tragedy—usually death—often befell mixed race women in dramas and novels of the day. In spite of these literary and dramatic precedents, I would add another point that no other critic of the day—or subsequently—has noted: the violent death of Lulu Belle is thoroughly outdated and unusually violent. In the wake of Camille, prostitute characters ceased coughing their way to death each night and instead began to live. Hence, when Mrs Warren’s Profession had its one-day opening in New York in 1905, audiences saw a strong Kitty Warren, in spite of having been abandoned by her daughter. So, too, in The Easiest Way (1909), although Laura Murdock slides from actress to courtesan, she is still alive when the curtain comes down. And in most of the subsequent brothel dramas from 1913 (The Lure, The Fight, Ourselves) women are rescued—and in some cases—rescue themselves, and others, out of the brothel. O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” (1921) may perhaps be the most astonishing example of survival, given Anna’s recuperation and bonding with her father and soon-to-be husband. In short, early twentieth-century courtesan characters usually survive and, in some cases, become stronger at the end of the play. By contrast, Lulu Belle is brutally killed by her jilted lover, George, who pursues her to Paris, seeking reconciliation. Throughout the drama Lulu Belle appears to be the quintessential femme fatale, and while she does decimate George’s life, it is she who is ultimately killed. Moreover,

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her murder is particularly vicious and protracted. Not once, but twice George makes an attempt on her life, first by shooting at her (and missing) and then by strangling her in an Othello-esque final moment on the bed. Her violent demise stands out, in fact, against the fates other courtesan characters in the drama of the day (when Anna Christie’s lover threatens to kill her, for instance, she takes out a gun in self defense). Constrained by the tragic mulatto trope, Lulu Belle is destined to death, and yet this regressive return to fatality—in such a vicious way—is one of the most upsetting aspects of Lulu Belle. Quite simply, white courtesans fare better than their black sisters in sin. (Unfortunately, Lulu Belle’s tragic appeal would resonate throughout black theatre. In fact, Wallace Thurman was urged to change the plot of his play Harlem to mimic Lulu Belle’s violent ending, which he declined to do).43 In the hands of white authors Sheldon and MacArthur, however, a sexually licentious black female was perceived to be too dangerous to remain alive. Precisely at the time when white New Yorkers were transgressing prescribed boundaries—and, indeed, geographies—of race, class, and sexuality, killing off Lulu Belle was one way to assuage ensuing anxieties about miscegenation. Her death provided more than denouement to the play—it functioned as closure for larger cultural strife surrounding the mixing of the races. In spite of such efforts to locate Lulu Belle in legitimate contexts— either as a so-called threshold breaking play that portrayed black urban life, in bringing Harlem to uptown theatres, or in recasting Carmen as African American—we must consider the ideological consequences of white dramatists and white actors creating a “Negro drama” of such magnitude. Brooks Atkinson sized up the problem succinctly in 1929: “In fact, ‘Lulu Belle,’” he wrote, “which was the product of white dramatists and white actors in the principal roles, still remains for the Harlem Negro a libel upon native life in that quarter.”44 Wallace Thurman, the co-author of the popular play, Harlem, agreed. He wrote: “the American Negro feels that he has been misinterpreted and caricatured so long by insincere artists” that he is unable to “distinguish the difference, in conception and execution, between a Lulu Belle, with its cheap gaudiness and blatant ensemble, and an All God’s Chillun Got Wings by a sympathetic, groping Eugene O’Neill.”45 W.E.B. Dubois noted in 1926 that blacks “are still handicapped” by representations in plays such as “Lulu Belle.”46 And as David Krasner has shown, black drama critic Theophilus Lewis “condemned white dramatists for presenting ‘bogus’ and hokum’ productions [such as lulu belle] that ‘pretend to be plays of Negro life.’”47 Is there anything to be recuperated from “bogus” productions like Lulu Belle? Perhaps. As Steven Watson observes in his study of the Harlem

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Renaissance, although white-authored plays like Lulu Belle, and Connelly’s Green Pastures portrayed “the Negro in attitudes that veered from lurid melodrama to childlike sentimentality, Harlem residents generally applauded the shows, in part because their large casts brought money into the community.”48 Laban Carrick Hill notes that while “many black intellectuals were disappointed by these productions […], nevertheless, Harlem residents came to accept these shows at least for economic reasons. The plays featured large casts, which offered job opportunities much more rewarding than the usual labor jobs.”49 And James Weldon Johnson concluded: “Because of the manner in which it set on the stages scenes from New York life that were wholly Negro, and because of the large number of coloured performers in a mixed cast playing important roles, Lulu Belle was extremely significant in the history of the Negro in the theatre in New York.”50 There seems to be a gap, in other words, between black intellectuals’ responses and those of other Harlem residents to the reception of Lulu Belle. Given the complexity of Lulu Belle’s performance history, it would be reductive to conclude that the play signified only negatively. Hubert Harrison’s article in the black journal Opportunity sheds light on how Lulu Belle, though fraught with many problems, also broke new ground. It is true that the two chief characters are white; but the dominant atmosphere of the play is furnished by the overwhelming mass of Negro actors on the stage, many of whom are visibly whiter than the two chief characters themselves. Indeed, the mixed company is so inextricably blent that, except for the French vicomte and his slumming party, one would take the entire cast to be colored. By this double device Mr. Belasco hamstrings in advance any possible protest of the basis of race-prejudice, beguiles Broadway into seeing double, and makes it easier for the next step—an all-Negro cast in a serious presentation of some other and more significant slice of Negro life.51

Invoking Dubois’ notion of double consciousness, Harrison suggests that having a “blent” cast allowed Broadway audiences to see beyond traditional color codes. To be sure, the cast is “blent” in more way than one; first and importantly, it designates that black and white actors shared the stage—a significant achievement for the predominately segregated theatre of the day. But more importantly, as Harrison demonstrates beautifully, the fact that color failed to signify race in any stable manner (i.e that some of the “Negro actors” were indeed whiter than the white leads) demonstrates that prevailing racial signifies were being desconstructed through this performance. That instability, that doubleness—created by a spectrum of mixed black and white cast, and

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even, perhaps, by blackface performance itself—undermined rigid parameters of race and concomitant segregationist ideology. The performance of Lulu Belle therefore opened up a space to imagine not only a yet-to be realized all-black theatre, but also, perhaps, the possibility for conceptualizing racial identity as performative. Indeed, as the Bookman noted, Lulu Belle opened up possibilities for multiple racial performances: “For those who like slumming expeditions to cafés where quadroons get away with being white and whites with being quadroons, we recommend Lulu Belle.”52 What is of interest for my argument is how Lulu Belle literally embodied racial liminality as well as instances of conscious racial performance. While the concept of passing has a long history throughout American literature and drama, what is interesting about this comment is how performativity is highlighted as a strategy to destabilize perceived notions about fixed racial identity. Seen in this light, we can view some of these racial performances as pressuring prevailing racial ideologies. As E. Patrick Johnson writes,“some sites of cross-cultural appropriation,” can “provide fertile ground on which to formulate new epistemologies of self and Other.”53 And while I do not wish to ignore the other problematic aspects of this text, it is worth pointing out this destabilizing element. The most interesting appropriation of Lulu Belle was its adoption within the gay subculture. In fact, Lulu Belle became such a beloved glam figure for gay men (much like Cher is today), that a drag club was named after her in New York City; it was a place where “black and white gay men and lesbians congregated nightly” for drag balls.54 A queer reading of the play, as James Wilson has shown, demonstrates that “Lulu Belle became a symbol of defiance against the repressive middle-class ideals of the era, and as evidenced in the public discourse surrounding the play, she epitomized the transgressive sexual spirit that the Jazz Age represented.”55 Her feisty rejection of heterosexual marriage and her ability to challenge white authority (like the policeman with whom she flirts) gave Lulu Belle a kind of power that many gay men never could hope to marshal. Sadly the club, like Lulu Belle herself, was subject to regulation and metaphorical strangulation. After residents complained about the “notorious dive,” Lulu Belle’s was raided on more than one occasion and shut down in 1928.56 As can be seen throughout this essay, Lulu Belle signified ambiguously for diverse audiences, having caught the attention of everyone from Dubois to Berlin. As I evaluate these conflicting signs, it is important to remember that Belasco, Sheldon and MacArthur were the real profiteers here. It seems equally important to remember Lulu Belle for its materialist

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contributions, for employing black actors who might not have otherwise gotten jobs, and for using a mixed-race cast. It is also exciting to consider how the play became embraced by gay subculture and ultimately how it challenged the heteronormative order. While it is in part true that Lulu Belle was a kind of libel for Harlem residents, as Atkinson put it, it is also true that this play opened up spaces for imagining racial performances beyond prescribed categories and for realizing new black theatre. And so, the next time we listen to Judy Garland belt out her tune, we should keep in mind the dissonances of this character and her lasting impressions on American theatre.

THE MORAL TETRALOGY: AMERICAN SOCIAL/POLITICAL/CULTURAL COMMENTARY IN THE LATER WRITINGS OF STEVE TESICH MICHAEL A. ROTHMAYER

Steve Tesich’s writing career spanned nearly thirty years. In that time, he saw eleven of his plays and two of his musicals produced on and offBroadway, six of his screenplays were made into feature films, and he wrote two full-length novels. In 1973, His play, Baba Goya, later titled Nourish the Beast, earned him a Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright. In 1979, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Breaking Away. His last novel, Karoo, published posthumously in 1998, made The New York Times’ list as one of the Notable Books of the Year. Tesich’s work may be divided chronologically into three periods. The early works (1969-1980) include his first seven plays and both musicals. The middle works (1979-1985), predominantly for film, include all six of his produced screenplays. In his later works (1989-1996), Tesich resumed writing for the stage. These four plays, The Speed of Darkness (1989), Square One (1990), On the Open Road (1992) and Arts and Leisure (1996) I have dubbed “The Moral Tetralogy,” because they represent more than just a shift in writing discipline. They demonstrate an ideological change in the playwright himself. As Tesich himself said in a 1991 interview, “I was tired of the way I was writing for the theatre. Until I could feel I could approach it differently I didn’t want to continue. Now the only thing I will write for the theatre is something that involves a moral issue. Nothing else interests me.”1 Why the sudden concern for morality? Why return to the theatre after a lucrative career in Hollywood? To understand his motives one must first understand that Steve Tesich was a man deeply in love with America. It was a love that began for him before he ever came to the country. Steve Tesich was born Stojan Tesich on September 29, 1942 in Užice, today a small resort city in Serbia and Montenegro. His initial love of America came though movies—in particular, John Wayne westerns. For

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Tesich, however, actually immigrating to America proved to be less than picture perfect. Instead of the idyllic landscape and frontier mythos he expected to find, he met the reality of East Chicago, Indiana, a sprawling industrial city. Compounding this initial shock was the difficulty of adjusting to a wholly different culture and language. Tesich came to America in 1957 knowing only one English phrase: “thank you.” Despite these initial hardships, however, the love Tesich had for the country did not diminish. Rather, what began as a kind of schoolboy crush on an ideal America, developed into a genuine admiration for the real America. In his own words: I started looking at the incredible variety of American life, the nationalities, the people who would never be living next door to each other in any other nation, and somehow they were getting along. It was such a unique feeling to see that kind of flexibility in an enormous country, and to watch it function. It got to me, and made me love the place very much.2

The optimism and unabashed sentimentality in those words became hallmarks of his early writing for theatre and film. Tesich was still optimistic when he talked about the premiere of Division Street in 1980. The play tells the story of a former 60s radical who rediscovers his idealism. “But that kind of idealism is ingrained into this country” Tesich said. “A lot of people say it’s dead, but I can feel it coming back.”3 By the mid-80s, however, it became increasingly apparent to Tesich that the idealism he once predicted would return to the rest of the country never materialized. By then end of the decade, his relationship with America changed again. The admiration he felt as a young man matured into profound concerns for the social, political and cultural course of the nation. On the social front, Tesich felt too little progress had been made to rectify race, gender, and class inequities in the country. On the political front, he adamantly opposed the New World Order doctrine outlined by President George H.W. Bush at the end of the Cold War.4 He believed America had no right to intervene politically or militarily in the affairs of sovereign nations. The breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 90s left Tesich particularly divided. He felt the U.S. government and the media demonized Bosnian Serbs in order to justify military action in the Balkans. On the cultural front, Tesich believed the Arts and entertainment in America were devolving and becoming homogenized. He used the term, “uniculture” to describe the trend, “where you’re involved in making another kind of cheeseburger because everybody likes a cheeseburger.”5 Yet, the most insidious and disheartening problem he perceived in America was the apathy of the average American citizen toward all of

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these other problems. Steve Tesich returned to writing for the theatre in 1989 to publicly voice his concerns. I felt the need as a citizen to go on a journey based on a feeling I have that the country presently, and for quite a long time, seems to have no moral base […]. It’s not that I feel this country has become immoral or amoral, it’s just that it seems to have forgotten something grand about itself.6

He chose the theatre, specifically, because he believed the stage was the medium best suited for expressing ideas. In the first play of the Tetralogy, The Speed of Darkness, Joe, a pillar of his community in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, harbors a secret. Years ago, after returning home from combat in Vietnam, he took a job illegally dumping toxic waste on a nearby mesa. Now a developer is planning to build homes on that mesa and Joe faces a moral dilemma. Should he keep his secret, preserve his standing in the community and put others at risk, or should he face up to his past, save the town, and suffer the consequences? For Joe, the choice is agonizing. As Tesich himself put it, “Joe has to go back and break himself in half, rebreak the part that mended crooked.”7 Joe makes the correct moral choice, reveals his secret and confronts both his past at home and in Vietnam. Though he and his family are ostracized by the community, Joe is finally able to mend properly and move forward.8 In The Speed of Darkness, Joe is more than one man in Sioux Falls. He is Everyman, or, in this case, EveryAmerican. The moral choice Joe makes to face the truth about his past and rebreak himself was the same painful choice Tesich urged the nation to make about its own collective past. His decision to use the Vietnam War as a backdrop for this play was not accidental. In an interview coinciding with the premiere of the play in 1989, Tesich traced the origin of the moral decay he perceived in America to the Vietnam era. After it ended, no one wanted to accept that we lost. If we’d admitted it to ourselves, if we’d asked what went wrong, then we would have been able to go from there. Instead, the great spiritual coverup began. “Americans don’t lose things.” A kind of drift began to the point that nobody had a memory of what this country was before the war, as if no one ever had some honest, grand ideals about this country.9

Tesich believed that America, like Joe, had “mended crooked” after Vietnam and he offered the Persian Gulf War as one example. “I think that had we handled Vietnam and what happened there as a mature nation, the

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war in the Gulf never would have occurred. I think we’ve been looking for a war to win ever since Vietnam.”10 Where The Speed of Darkness urged America to take a brutally honest look at the past for the sake of the present, in the second play of the Tetralogy, Square One, Tesich turned the tables and asked the audience to consider a frightening potential future. Square One is set in a time of Reconstruction after a revolution. Adam is an entertainer, a “State ArtistThird Class,” who appears regularly on the most popular show on television, “The Patriotic Variety Hour.” He meets Dianne and the two agree to a live-in marriage; love is no longer a consideration. Their marriage is doomed to fail, however, because Dianne cannot let go of the way life used to be. As Tesich put it: “She clings to all the mess and the contradictions and the turmoil that is inherent in human existence.”11 Adam, on the other hand, is all too happy to forget the turmoil of the past and embrace a decidedly Orwellian present where order and control reign supreme. “The old ones tend to scream,” Adam tells us, “They probably remember the bad old days before Reconstruction. Once they’re gone, once that generation is gone, there’ll be no more screaming. I believe in progress.”12 By the end of the play, Adam has made progress. He receives a promotion to “State Artist-Second Class.” Dianne sits alone on a park bench. Reconstruction has ended and a parade is approaching celebrating “semi-annual National Victory Day.” We do not see the parade, only the sound of drums growing louder, yet we are left with the distinct impression that the parade is not so much going to go by Dianne, as run her over. Through Adam and Dianne in Square One, Tesich foreshadowed an America of mind-numbing, soul-destroying uniformity. In doing so, he posed a question and a challenge to the audience. Are you, like Adam, truly content with the world around you? If not, what are you really doing to change it? “The level of social anarchy that’s acceptable now is amazing,” Tesich said in 1990, “Walk the streets. Look at the people sleeping all over the place. Read how many kids get killed. There’s a kind of feeling that if you’re informed, you’ve done your job. Being informed is considered the hallmark of activism. People sing their arias of outrage. Then they move on.”13 Tesich refused to move on. In the third play of the Tetralogy, On the Open Road, he again chose a post-apocalyptic setting. The future in On the Open Road, however, is a world of chaos. The play follows the journey of Al and Angel, two men trying to make their way through a countryside wracked by perpetual civil war. Their goal is to reach a territory known as “The Land of the Free.”14 Along the way, they collect priceless works of art from the ruins of

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museums, hoping to use the art to bargain their way into this promised land. When they arrive at the border of “The Land of the Free,” however, they discover their bargaining chips are useless. The art is confiscated and the two men imprisoned. To prove their worth to the State they must first perform a service. The service is killing Jesus Christ, who has recently returned to Earth. At the decisive moment, Al and Angel cannot bring themselves to kill Christ. They are, however, willing to take credit for the crime when another character, a monk, murders Christ instead. They return to “The Land of the Free,” with the body, only to discover political power has changed hands yet again and with it, the definition of moral behavior. Instead of the State rewarding them for their service, they are crucified on stage at the end of the play. “The question is what is freedom,” Tesich said about the play, “what you think it will bring you and what you’ll do to get it.”15 Al and Angel want desperately to prove their worthiness to live in “The Land of the Free.” It is the land, with no definitive sense of morality, that proves unworthy of their devotion. On the Open Road is the most pessimistic and controversial of all of Tesich’s plays. In it, he openly questions the ideology of American government and society as well as organized religion. He also challenges the audience again to examine their social apathy. In scene 4 of the play, Angel worries that he no longer feels connected to the world around him. Al explains the cause of the problem. People bleed before our eyes but in the midst of their agonies we get it. The problem is not that we’re blind to their agonies or deaf to their cries, the problem is that we get it and move on. Wars break out. We get it. Peace comes. We get it. Wars break out again. Once again we get it. We’re always a step ahead of the game. There’s only one god left. The I get it god.16

By the time On the Open Road premiered, Tesich’s concerns about America grew to frustration. He still loved the country, in spite of the continuing problems he perceived. His frustration came with a growing sense that societal apathy was being supplanted by a conscious choice to marginalize and even censor critical points of view. He vented his frustration in a 1992 interview. You want to live in a place. You don’t want to think of yourself at odds with things. That’s not pleasant. Maybe it’s kind of pleasant when you’re very young–but I don’t want to be at odds with the culture, with the country, now. But when so many things occur that are repugnant and so many people are taking part in them, it’s just a horrible feeling to be in this tiny, dwindling minority.

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I don’t let things go anymore. Everyone knows what’s wrong, and there is this kind of agreement–let’s not talk about it, let’s not deal with it. The essential problem has been sealed off as an embarrassment. When you bring up moral issues, as I tend to do, people just look at you as if your fly is open.17

Tesich, indeed, did not let things go. He went back to work. In the final play of the Tetralogy, Arts and Leisure, he continued the theme of social responsibility. The protagonist of the play is Alex Chaney, a syndicated drama critic in the midst of an unemotional crisis. Alex can no longer distinguish between drama on stage and dramatic events that are actually happening in the world, or in his own life for that matter. His father is dying of a painful wasting disease. His mother is bereft and in need of his support. His ex-wife is slowly going insane and his daughter is a recovering drug-addict who has had multiple miscarriages and who commits suicide by the end of the play. Yet, Alex reviews each of these circumstances and people with the same detached objectivity he uses to review any other tragedy on stage. Tesich raises the theme of social responsibility to a new, and deeply personal, level by making Alex speak directly to the audience. In monologues and asides throughout the play, Alex takes us in and, in doing so, indicts us all as co-conspirators, guilty of the crime of detachment. He first levels this charge in the opening monologue of the play The dramatic events we follow from around our country or from around the world, produced by earthquakes or wars or personal misfortune, have now become theater. Good theater. Bad theater. But theater. Our response to those events is shaped by the same principals of dramatic criticism I use when reviewing a play.18

At the end of the play, all of the people in Alex’s life have left him in one way or another. He is alone on stage, grappling with the shell of a person he has become. Intellectually, he understands that he should feel. He even wishes that he could feel. Emotionally, he remains dispassionate. In his final monologue, he likens his life to being a passenger on a luxurious train, looking out the window at a landscape of human tragedy. Somewhere along the way I feel a need to get off this train where I have almost everything I could ever want but almost nothing I need. I feel like getting off not for any altruistic reasons. Not necessarily to lend a hand to all those unfortunate souls but out of a growing awareness that my own life is out there and that I should get off this train and live it. I must jump off this train. I must start living my life.19

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Alex never gets off the train and we, as co-conspirators, are left to consider whether we have, or will. With Arts and Leisure, Tesich made his last, best attempt to persuade America to rediscover its moral base and its sense of idealism. As with each of these plays, he continued to plead his case off stage as well. [P]art of my ongoing love relationship with this country is to hold it accountable not to ideals which I want to impose on it, but ideals the country says it has. And those ideals are only lived up to at a cost. It’s not sainthood that I’m talking about. I’m not suggesting you give up everything and run around helping the poor. You simply participate actively in the life around you.20

Tesich practiced what he preached. He continued to hold America accountable to itself and with the plays of The Moral Tetralogy, he participated actively in the life around him in the best way he knew how, through his writing. For Tesich, the stage was the place for ideas. Yet, there were some ideas too personal, too raw, to be couched in theatrical language. In the last years of his life, Tesich leveled his harshest and most direct criticism of American society, politics and culture in a series of editorial letters to The New York Times. These letters exist today on an Internet site titled “srpska-mreza” (Serbian Network). They were never published by The Times. Their authenticity, however, is verified by Tesich’s sister, Nadja, who worked with her brother writing them. It is fitting to conclude the essay with an excerpt from the most provocative of these editorials. In it, Tesich rails against American xenophobia, equating it to governmentsanctioned bigotry. The letter is titled: “Niggerization: Everything, Not Just Charity, Begins At Home.” Watching the videos of Bosnian Serbs being bombed I am reminded of the video of Rodney King being pummeled by clubs while lying on the ground, tied up, helpless to defend himself, enraging his attackers even more by trying, like a human being, to get back up to his feet and stand up like a man. This upright position tends to enrage those who think that niggers should either be lying down like dogs or kneeling in front of their superiors. It is neither the Balkanization nor the tribalism of the world which is the real problem confronting mankind today. The real problem, instead, is the American sponsored niggerization of the whole globe into two camps: nice white people like us with our nice McValues and them, those who don’t want to be just like us, the niggers of the world. The principle and the practice of niggerization is very simple. It works

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like this. You brand a human being or millions of human beings like him as being nonhuman. When we’re injured by “them”, even by nothing more than their presence on this earth, it is a crime. When we kill them, or circumscribe their lives with wretchedness and ruin it is not only not a crime, it is not even an event.21

The letter, written in 1995, goes on to warn that, without a fundamental change in American foreign policy, the United States is destined to relive the struggle for racial equality begun in the 60s, on a new, world-wide scale. The galvanizing and inflammatory language of this editorial is a testament to the level of frustration, even anger, Tesich felt with America at the end of his life. The fact that he felt such emotion, and acted on those feelings is equally a testament to how much he loved and cared for this country, not as an immigrant but as one of its citizens. Steve Tesich died of a heart attack on July 1, 1996 at the age of 53.

ACTS OF TRANSFER: THE 1975 AND 1976 PRODUCTIONS OF RAVEN AND BODY INDIAN BY RED EARTH PERFORMING ARTS COMPANY JULIE PEARSON-LITTLE THUNDER

Native traditional stories and cultural explanations are frequently prefaced by the phrase, “The way I heard it was […].”1 This qualifier points to a Native ethos, or value system, that readily acknowledges the possibility of alternative viewpoints or explanations.2 However, this phrase has another function as well. It invokes live presence as authorizing the information about to be related. It draws attention to the fact the person telling this story was once a listener, physically absorbing and storing the information she is about to share. Authorization of knowledge by means of live presence is yet another feature of “the repertoire”—Diana Taylor’s term for embodied practices.3 These practices, which include spoken language, ceremony, sports, ritual and games—to name only a few—have long been ignored by the West as a source of potential historical knowledge.4 According to Taylor, this neglect arises, in part, from western scholars’ fondness for the archive, the “supposedly enduring materials” of letters, buildings, artwork, archeological remains, and the like.5 Yet the repertoire can also make historical claims because of its capacity for re-iterating orality, movement, gesture, dance, etc. As a living link between past and present, the repertoire is a fluid and mobile means of storing and transmitting collective knowledges and histories, values and memories.6 Because the repertoire occupies a central place in U.S. tribal cultures, it played a pivotal role in the development of twentieth-century Native theater. From the sixties through the mid-eighties, Indian theater companies wishing to commit to a season of productions, faced a task akin to following the Trickster Rabbit to his home. No e-mails requesting scripts by Indian playwrights could be exchanged with playwrights or play development organizations. No anthologies of Indian-authored plays could be pulled from the bookshelf. This shortage of written scripts obliged Native theater companies to create their own scripts, or to convert

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materials written by non-Indians into theater pieces. In both instances, Native theater workers turned to the repertoire—song, dance, gesture and Native habitus—as well as to enactment, to transform textual representations into Indian theatrical space.7 Of course, theatrical performance is also part of the repertoire, a means of presenting certain kinds of content while displaying the performers’ skills for a live audience. But as Taylor emphasizes, performance may also function as an “act of transfer” conveying “social knowledge, memory and a sense of identity,” from one group of individuals to another and one generation to the next.8 In the context of theater historiography, understanding performance as an act of transfer may yield new and deeper understandings of indigenous and other alternative theater practices. The term “act of transfer” is particularly intriguing with regard to Native theater, where it invites application as a theoretical lens in its own right. As Taylor observes, the archive and the repertoire often “work in tandem,” to transmit history in different but usually complementary ways.”9 In the following essay, I read the archive of two early Native theater productions through the repertoire and acts of transfer to analyze the Indian theatrical space of Raven and Body Indian. These plays, presented in 1975 and 1976 respectively, by Red Earth Performing Arts Company, differed radically in style, content and authorship. But both drew extensively upon the repertoire and acts of transfer in all aspects of their production—from rehearsal and staging, to performance and audience reception. In 1974, the newness of Native theater as genre inspired such excitement, that the appearance of a Native play in one part of the country tended to generate other companies or productions in a ripple effect. Thus Red Earth, known as REPAC, might be considered an act of transfer of Native theater to the Seattle Indian community by the Native American Theater Ensemble, or NATE. NATE arrived at the University of Washington campus in 1974, armed with Foghorn, a politically-charged, agitprop by the group’s director, Hanay Geoigamah.10 John Kauffman (Nez Perce), Phyllis Brisson (Assinoboine), and Terry Tafoya (Isleta/Warm Springs)—attended the production. All three had been performing Indian poems and stories in local venues, but Foghorn was their first encounter with an Indian-authored play.11 After the show, the Seattle actors and the touring company struck up a friendship which would eventually become a sustained artistic exchange of personnel, texts, and tribal repertoires. 12 Donald Matt, an Indian counselor at the school who helped book the performance, was also in the audience. Matt, who had no previous theater experience, was so excited by Foghorn, he quit his job to

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tour with NATE for the next three months.13 When he returned to Seattle, he joined Kauffman, Brisson and Tafoya in founding Red Earth Performing Arts Company. Aided by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, REPAC became a company in residence at Seattle University in the fall of ’75. Their first show was Raven, described in the company’s program as “an original play from the Indian legends of the Pacific Northwest Coast.” 14 Written by Nik Di Martino, a non-Indian friend of John Kauffman, its regional subject matter and strong production values made Raven an immediate success. However, its viability as Indian theatrical space was due more to its use of the repertoire, and multiple acts of transfer, than to the play text itself. Frieda Kirk describes the play as a “conglomerate of stories from the Northwest Coast and Canadian tribes.”15 The plot follows Raven’s search for his brother, Nighthawk, murdered by their Uncle Bear, “through four dangerous worlds, beyond death itself.”16 Donald Matt relates that at least part of the play’s action involved Raven’s pursuit of Bear to avenge his brother’s death.17 However, as Kirk implies in her use of the word, “conglomerate” this mixture of stories from differing tribes and diverse social contexts had a tenuous connection, at best, to tribal oral traditions. Within Native circles, storytelling as a daily act of transfer of values, social identity, and ways of being. Traditional storytelling is a highly physical act, drawing upon gesture, song, dance, and the use of props, and alternating between third person narration and enactment. In traditional or ceremonial venues, as Lucy Tapahanso explains, storytelling becomes a “multi-media” production in its own right.18 Listeners mentally process the images and sounds of the story in combination with the sensory effects of the story’s delivery in an indoor dwelling or outdoor environment.19 Cultural restrictions such as age, clan membership, gender, season, and the like often accompany the act of transfer of traditional or mythic stories, thus increasing an audience’s sense of investment in the story. The oral tradition is a “collective creation,” not simply by virtue of its genesis, but also because the storyteller is not alone in learning and storing his/her material. By virtue of repetition, audiences similarly learn a repertoire of stories whose twists and turns they know in advance. 20 Red Earth members were keenly aware of the communal nature of Raven’s subject matter, and somewhat anxious about how it might be received by their Indian audience members. The dependence of the play upon secondary materials from the archive was not as crucial as it might seem, for REPAC actors often worked from secondary materials. More problematic was the mixing of tribal social and cultural contexts

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mentioned above, and Di Martino’s goal in adapting this material for the stage. Despite his admiration for Northwest Coast cultures, and his desire to transfer to the audience a sense of Native social relations which Di Martino believed to be important, his purpose in writing Raven was to deliver a theatrically exciting, Indian-themed play, not to convey Northwest Coast collective knowledges, histories, memories or emotions to Seattle University audiences. REPAC’s use of the repertoire, Native habitus, and tribal spatial practice helped the play’s symbolic representations into Indian theatrical space. Much of the credit for this conversion goes to Bruce Gerald Miller, the first NATE actor to join Red Earth when he moved back to Washington. Miller, who was Skokomish and Yakima, had grown up with his tribal practices.21 His first act of transfer was to teach his fellow actors the iconic Yakima dances and the singing style so often associated with all Northwest Coast cultures. Kauffman, who was directing the show, built much of his staging around this tribal repertoire, and arranged for Miller’s input into other production aspects as well. It is important to note that practices like Western dance choreography and song, or stage blocking, are also part of the repertoire. As such, they clearly contain their own “trajectories, influences, and histories.”22 Nonetheless, I would argue that Miller’s acts of transfer, in this case, differed to such a degree as to be a distinction almost of kind. Western stage blocking aims primarily at the transfer of technical skills and technical knowledge confined to theatrical production. In Miller’s acts of transfer, technical skills could not be separated from other kinds of cultural content. In the Native approach to teaching, cultural content and technique are imbricated. The function of performance as an episteme, or way of knowing, is obvious.23 While instructing the group in a series of dance steps, Yakima language words or vocables, Miller would have emphasized the importance of the social relations embodied in the dances and songs. Working by accretion over a series of rehearsals, he would have used Native language words, when possible, explaining the history and function of the dances, and the dancers’ clothing and masks. A western theater practitioner might also offer a similar contextualization of a court dance like the gavotte, for example.24 But the practitioner would verbally establish only as much context as she deemed necessary to the effective execution of the dance: her focus would be on facilitating the theater work. Miller knew that he was sharing a living practice that would be scrutinized as such by Native audience members. After this act of transfer, wherever the intertribal cast traveled—whether to Indian homes in the

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area, longhouse ceremonies or Northwest Coast exhibition dances, the information they carried in their bodies would be recontextualized, added to, expanded upon. It would have a life outside of, and beyond the theater. This does not mean that Miller, or Kauffman, as the director of the play, neglected theatrical considerations when rehearsing and staging these acts of transfer. Selecting which repertoire elements are emphasized, mediated, and or eliminated is a crucial step in adapting traditional singing and dancing for western performance formats. Again, the distinction to be made is the connection between performance as an act of transfer, and performance’s use of the repertoire to connect past and present. Making decisions that honor the extra-theatrical aspects of the repertoire without dishonoring these same live practices in other tribal socio-ceremonial contexts, is the key to creating Indian space on stage. Moreover, Miller’s acts of transfer from the repertoire did not end with physical or vocal work.25 He also guided Bill Wilkins, the show’s non-Indian set designer, in creating a multi-purpose Longhouse with Northwest Coast Indian motifs. The show’s costumes were based upon Miller’s knowledge of Northwest Coast tribal clothing and masks. The actors’ embodiment also helped connect Raven more strongly to tribal spatial practice. Because performance is “constitutive” in Edward Bruner’s words, the potential of embodiment for subverting, inverting and deconstructing dialogue is well known.26 Indeed, embodiment by Indian actors may have provided its own ironic commentary on the text which many of the actors perceived as somewhat naïve compared to such Indiangenerated adaptations of the oral tradition as Coon Cons Coyote or Changer.27 These two scripts, written by Geoigamah and Miller respectively, possessed an abundance of scatological and sexual references and a polyvalent sexuality, reflecting what Gerald Vizenor calls, “the erotic shimmer” of the oral tradition.28 While Red Earth’s signature style had yet to be developed, the presence of Miller in the show suggests that some stylistic elements of the troupe’s work, might have been present in an early form in Raven.29 These elements, described in later productions, included a broad physical approach to comedy, described by Kirk as “over the top,” and a large degree of freedom to improvise lines and blocking.30 In addition to directing the show, Kauffman played the lead role of Raven, but most of the other actors played multiple characters. Some were personifications of the elements or seasons like Fog Man and Winter Girl. Others were animals—Loon Woman, Goggle Fish, Otter Boy and Grandmother Robin, to name just a few.

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In addition to their playing style, REPAC actors brought with them a physical habitus that reflected the actors’ tribal identities and their intertribal experiences as friendships. As John and Jean Camaroff point out, the definition of habitus as a culturally determined field of behavior, must be expanded to include physical ways of gesturing, speaking, and moving along with mental habits of thought and perception.31 Although this behavior must be largely unconscious to qualify as habitus, the frame of theatricality foregrounds these subconscious, mechanical and/or barely conscious physical behaviors. Along with the tribal repertoire of Yakima singing and dancing, this habitus helped win over Native spectators, wary of the playwright’s cultural outsidership, and the script’s symbolic representations.32 The play’s title virtually ensured a strong Indian turnout by signaling its cultural content.33 Spectators of Alaskan and Northwest Coast heritage felt particularly proprietary about the material, but even the intertribal Seattle Indian community sought to assess how Raven stories were being represented in the spirit of representational visibility.34 As Peggy Phalen explains, representational visibility has two functions: to increase the pride of those within the community, and 2) to inform those outside of the strength of the community.”35 REPAC actors felt these pressures, not only as they sought to add to the play’s Indian spaces in rehearsal through the repertoire and Native habitus, but also during performance. The number and quality of the acts of transfer in Raven affected its reception by Native spectators. While it did not transmit collective knowledges or histories except in a relatively superficial way, it did convey a palpable sense of excitement about the storytelling possibilities of Native theater. For a number of Native audience members, Raven inaugurated a habit of theatergoing and a growing acquaintance with theater practice that enriched Seattle’s urban Indian spaces. Thanks to REPAC, Native theater became a place for Indians to come together in the city, just as they did at other kinds of Indian doings. For non-Indians, the presence of the repertoire worked in different ways, generating different acts of transfer. Like Native spectators, nonIndians welcomed the play’s singing and dancing as evidence of Indian space. But many of them could not distinguish between the symbolic representations of the text and tribally generated material, nor could they appreciate the careful valencing of cultural and theatrical elements in the play. Assuming that reviewers do indeed, capture the pulse of their audiences, it is interesting to read the newspaper reviews that accompanied Raven. Both Donald Grat, writing for Northwest Arts and Pamela Jennings, writing for the Seattle Times, praise the show’s

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production values, but only Jennings seems to suggest the problematic nature of the script from a tribal cultural viewpoint. Her reference to the Raven’s “assortment of characters” and “myriad of phantasmagoric places,” may be her tacit way of acknowledging the script’s hodge-podge of sources. But aside from noting that “dances, created by the company, graphically relate great portions of the story,” Jennings fails to identify the presence of tribal repertoires as the key to Raven’s production values.36 Both reviewers are struck by the actors’ animal characterizations, but Grat sets up his discussion of these characterizations by drawing attention to the actors’ theater training. Noting the return of Donald Matt from a “summer of intensive training” at the American Conservatory Theater, he praises Matt’s “great dexterity in handling a number of roles.” Grat then goes on to explain, “Actors rarely have such a direct application of training building blocks such as animal characterization, and it is intriguing to watch the diversity and range of abilities in this style.”37 While Grat’s idiosyncratic phrasing makes it difficult to interpret his meaning at times, he seems overly anxious to credit the actors’ characterizations to [western] acting techniques. I believe tribal repertoires and Native habitus deserve much of the credit for the actors’ bird, fish and other biotic characterizations. The political, ethnic and experimental theaters of this decade, described as “theaters of ‘transformation’” did indeed turn to animal movement and vocalization in its desire to challenge realism.38 However, these explorations were usually focused on developing human characters as their end product. By contrast, tribal repertoires are rich in stylized and mimetic bases for animal characterization. Ceremonial and pow-wow dances often pay tribute to animals in stylized ways, and REPAC actors incorporated some of these stylized elements in their movement and costumes. Additionally, Indian actors in the seventies tended to maintain contact with rural homeland or reservation environments, even if they did not live in these environments year ‘round. This background probably facilitated additional observation-based approaches to characterizations in Raven. Reviewers of the play do foreground the way the actors’ embodiment illuminates its message of respect for different life forms, and their basic interdependence. The notion of the basic equality of humans, plants, animals and natural forces on a spiritual and cosmic plane informs much of Native spatial practice.39 It is expressed in ceremony; in oral traditions concerning the intermarriage or exchange of knowledge between people, elements and animals; in clan taboos and myriad other ways. The actors’ ability to communicate these social relations, not simply through action

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and dialogue but in spite of them, comes through clearly in Grat’s review. “One must divorce himself from traditional theater elements to appreciate the show […]. Raven is surrounded by and on a parity with Otter Boy, Fog Man, Eagle Boy and other animals of the action. This natural logic is so clearly understood by Raven that that the “the fascination of [Raven] lies in our deciphering the various elements of [its] world, so foreign to our perceptions.”40 Jennings also summarizes the play’s transfer of a sense of Native social relations in the words she chooses to end her review. Praising Kauffman’s “energy, skill in dance and faith to the character of Raven,” Matt’s “hilarious Fog Man and Elegant Eagle Boy,” and Miller’s “lapping, scratching, crapping Dog Husband,” among others, she writes, despite noting some glitches in the production, “there is human and other than human spirit in “Raven.” Praise it.”41 Red Earth’s second production, Body Indian, produced the following spring, could not have been more different from Raven in tone and content. Written by Geoigamah, (Kiowa-Delaware) and set in present-day western Oklahoma, the play combines realistic and expressionistic elements in its portrayal of a group of Kiowa characters, over two days of binge drinking. It is significant that the text, published in 1980, offers not only the conventional description of the set by the playwright, but an author’s note in which Geoigamah explicitly addresses habitus. Calling for an “‘Indian frame of mind’ [to] be established in the performances from the very start of the play,” the playwright adds, “this is not something the actors will build but something they will sustain throughout.”42 Geoigamah the required vocal habitus for the play, explaining the grammar and speech patterns and the Comanche and Kiowa contained in the dialogue. He stresses the need for all the actors to deliver their lines in a clipped fashion, for women actors to “lengthen vowels inordinately, as in l—ots” and offers other vocal advice.43 Geoigamah addresses physical habitus as well: “Group effort will produce both the proper restraint and gusto for the requisite Indian style of drinking […] the drinking should be a controlled part of the entire performance […]. A certain degree of rollicking is permissible, but care should be taken not to overdo […] the Indian speech traits and the physical actions.”44 In 1976, Geoigamah conveyed these notes in person to Red Earth cast members who flew him in for the entire production process. Kauffman put the play on its feet, but when he landed a part in a movie about Chief Joseph, Geiogamah took over as a combination AD/stage manager.45 His coaching of the actors—none of whom hailed from Oklahoma—in the proper habitus was an important act of transfer during rehearsal. He was aided in this by Marie Antoinette Rogers and Miller, both of whom had

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Acts of Transfer: the 1975 and 1976 Productions of Raven and Body Indian by Red Earth Performing Arts Company

performed in NATE’s original production of Body Indian at Café La Mama in New York.46 Described by Geoigamah as his “toughest play” Body Indian addresses the personal and social costs of alcohol abuse from a Native perspective.47 Again, Geiogamah’s consciousness of the way the repertoire and embodiment need to work in the text, reaches beyond a western playwright’s usual attempts to imaginatively visualize and hear the script while it is still on the page. Only the proper acting approach will ensure the successful transfer of the play’s content: “It is important that the acting nowhere is conducive to the mistaken idea that this play is primarily a study of the problem of Indian alcoholism” (my italics).48 Clearly, Geoigamah is aware of the controversial nature of his subject matter but he is also visualizing “trajectories, histories and influences” being made manifest on stage.49 He is counting upon the repertoire and embodiment to challenge any anthropological/sociological stance of “objectivity” on the part of non-Indian audience members, and to transform their stereotyped expectations of contemporary Indian life into an experiential encounter through performance. Native embodiment and habitus in Body Indian are charged with communicating “in the here and now” five hundred years of what Eduardo Duran labels “the colonialist discourse of alcoholism.” Body Indian is ghosted by a historical consciousness of the political causes of alcoholism, made visible side by side with its socio-economic causes and effects. Duran demonstrates how Europeans used the discourse of alcoholism to reinforce binary notions of Indian identity as the Noble or Demonic savage.50 The white frontier practice of binge drinking was deliberately used during treaty making sessions as tool for land fraud. However, another deleterious effect of this discourse has been its internalization by Indian peoples, and particularly, a tendency to use binge drinking as a way of rebelling against what are perceived as white societal norms.51 Body Indian opens as the protagonist, Bobby Lee arrives at his apartment, already occupied by a number of friends and relatives, with two of his aunts. Lee wears an artificial leg from a previous alcoholrelated accident, and he carries sacks of groceries and wine, purchased with his lease payment.52 Lee wants to treat his relatives and friends to party, but he also announces his plans to keep back enough money to enter a treatment program for alcoholism. By the end of the play, his friends and family have either asked for, or stolen all his money, and when he finally passes out, take his artificial leg to pawn. As this plot suggests, the play is comprised of comic and serious threads, none of which can be separated from each other. The Body Indian

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is the Indian community, in which tribal values of generosity and reciprocal caretaking, have been twisted and perverted by the dynamics of addiction. The tide-like rhythms of the play’s drama replicate the experience of binge drinking, from high tide to low, as the characters sing, fight, joke, and make clumsy sexual advances while the alcohol spirit slowly takes over. Significantly, Geiogamah also relies upon the repertoire to help establish the atmosphere of the play. Whereas REPAC actors had to add dance and song to Raven’s script, Geoigamah calls for 49 songs and steps that comment ironically on the action. As a post-pow-wow party, 49s offer an occasion to socialize, sing and dance outside the strict parameters of the pow-wow.53 49 songs are full of humorous lyrics, combining the ironic interplay of a pow-wow singing style and English lyrics. Because of their contemporary association with drinking, their use by Geoigamah’s characters makes them a fertile source of comedy. Much of the laughter the play arouses comes from the kinds of mechanistic behaviors which characterize addiction. Each time the characters drink, they make the same assertions, resolutions and promises, and forswear them in exactly the same way. The end of the play, in which the host of the party finds himself broke and alone, is both a familiar story and foregone conclusion, just like the play’s beginning and middle.54 For the intertribal cast of REPAC, humor provided immediate access to the script, and became an important act of transfer between the actors in rehearsal. “From the inside we just enjoyed Body Indian,” says Brisson, “because we know the Native alcoholic can really come to all that.”55 If Brisson’s comment reflects her situatedness, it also points to the layered and complex attitudes towards alcoholism on the part of the Indian community. Indians are acutely conscious of the role played by colonialism in alcohol abuse. Tribal values of tolerance, an ethos of collective responsibility and the reality of extended families make it hard for Indian individuals to simply “banish” problem drinkers from their lives. Additionally, the face-to-face nature of many Indian communities ensures that daily or weekly encounters with the effects of alcohol on tribal members are not unusual. Dealing with such encounters requires both irony and humor to release emotion and worry and restore perspective. As Ellen W. Kaplan observes, there is an intimate connection in acting between the creative and recuperative processes.56 Although REPAC was dealing with an already scripted text, the play’s dialogue and situations hit close to home. As a result, actors were conscious of simultaneously being inside and outside the story. They brought their own memories and issues

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Acts of Transfer: the 1975 and 1976 Productions of Raven and Body Indian by Red Earth Performing Arts Company

to the play with alcoholism, and channeled them into the rehearsal process. Playing characters trapped in alcohol addiction empowered the actors, allowing them to mine the script for personal and group healing even as they exploited its comedy. In performance, Body Indian was a complex act of transfer, communicating differently to different segments of the Native audience. For many Native spectators, this contemporary portrait of the underbelly of Indian life created a strong visceral reaction. They identified with the irony of the characters’ lives and the disparity between their ideals, desires and behavior, and reacted strongly to the play’s portrayal of addiction. The response of the audience was so strong it sometimes moved people out of their seats. “When we did Body Indian in New York,” says Geoigamah, “it was very theatrical. But in Seattle, the play acquired […] immediacy, a more human aspect. Sometimes Indians in the audience would stand up, and it was like they were testifying. There was no fourth wall.”57 During one performance, this surreal aspect of Body Indian was reinforced by the presence of a drunk who wandered in from the street and took a seat in the front row. “He was laughing and joining in and partying,” says Kirk, “and when the play was over, he came backstage. He thought we were going to keep on partying.”58 Other audience members, however, felt uncomfortable with the play, without quite being able to say why.59 Some of their discomfort may have come with seeing this kind of material presented in a dominant-society venue which included non-Indians.60 Still others denounced the play as a disservice to the Indian community. They felt Body Indian merely perpetuated stereotypes and added to distorted representations of Indians within the dominant society. These reactions were a sobering reminder for the actors that despite their desire to present contemporary material, some segments of the Native audience would reject any depictions of the seamy side of Indian life. Body Indian also engendered complicated and layered reactions among non-Indians. Some of same the audience members who had embraced Raven complained to the actors they felt “misled” by REPAC’s second play. What they really meant, says Kirk, was “How dare you be Indians and put on a play that wasn’t something you can bring the kiddies to!”61 Still other non-Indian viewers were disturbed by the character depictions, and the play’s realistic treatment of the effects of binge drinking. Although Body Indian lacks overt physical violence, one local critic who watched the play, said he felt like he had been kicked in the stomach.”62 But non-Indian audiences also caught the humor of the play, laughing in unexpected places and at different times from Native audiences. The

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Jesuit faculty who taught at the University of Seattle had a habit of attending REPAC’s plays together as a group on the same night. When that night arrived, Brisson recalls, the house was so silent, the actors began running through the play like it was a rehearsal. “The [priests] didn’t make a sound, they didn’t react to anything. Then, about two thirds of the way through the play, they laughed. It was so startling, we thought, we’ve got an audience!”63 For these audience members, Body Indian’s act of transfer was a better understanding of one aspect of contemporary Indian political and socio-economic conditions. Like the Native spectators who rose to their feet while watching the play, these non-Indians embraced Native theater’s ability to deliver painful truths. To slightly revise one of Taylor’s pronouncements, the strength of performance as an act of transfer is that it functions by inculcation, not by inscription.64 “People learn […] through enactment, and they participate […] in the production and reproduction of knowledge by being part of the event.”65 While the importance of the repertoire has been somewhat recalibrated in Native theater today, Native theater continues to be characterized by a privileging of the repertoire and acts of transfer that connect the past and present. The ability of Native theater to transmit alternative traditions, histories and memories, and share different ways of knowing by means of performance, is one of its great strengths.66

CONSTRUCTING THE FRUITED PLAIN: THE “RED,” THE WHITE, AND THE IMBUED JODI VAN DER HORN-GIBSON

It is a waste of time hating a mirror or its reflection instead of stopping the hand that makes glass with distortions slight enough to pass unnoticed until one day you peer into your face under a merciless white light and the fault in a mirror slaps back becoming what you think is the shape of your error and if I am beside that self you destroy me or if you can see the mirror is lying you shatter the glass choosing another blindness and slashed helpless hands. Because at the same time down the street a glassmaker is grinning turning out new mirrors that lie selling us new clowns at cut rate. Audre Lorde Good Mirrors Are Not Cheap1

This volume called for essays that would illuminate constructions and contestations of difference in the history of theatre and performance, that would probe and challenge traditional notions of archive and text, and that would offer new modes of historiography that seek to give voice to the lived pasts of historically disenfranchised groups and individuals whose pasts have often gone unrecorded in academic spaces. The constructed difference of “Indian-ness” as cultural myth—that which was imposed by white Euro-Americans on Native American Indians during the expansion and domination of the “Frontier”—remains a contact and border zone of contestation as erroneous icons and images still run rampant throughout American pop culture (how is it possible, for instance, that we still have a football team named the “Redskins?”) One such “icon” wrapped in the

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protective shroud of “archetype” is the figure of the Indian in Peter Pan, one of American Theatre’s most popular traditions. Although the original story and dramatization by J.M. Barrie were British phenomena,2 Peter Pan’s influence on American culture can be seen in the countless theatre, film, and story adaptations produced and enjoyed by Americans. Peter Pan portrays an oppressed culture in extremely caricaturized fashion—the “redskins” in the play, in fact, are easily exchangeable with the wooden cigar Indian found at the next swap meet. Barrie’s story has been perennially popular throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century. While producers and writers have certainly taken liberties interpreting Peter Pan, each version still contains problematic, stereotypical images of “native.” In this essay, I look at the construction of American nationalism at the intersection of race and myth during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through an examination of Peter Pan. The particular concept of American national identity being forged at this time coincided in part with oppressive literary mythology—the fabrication and objectification of “Indian” as reinscribed through literature, music, early films, and theatre. This mythology was, in turn, enacted through brutal arrogance: the attempted “cleansing” of a people from their cultures. The “Indians” in Peter Pan display all of the regrettable stereotypes attributed by whites to Native Americans since the settlers first romanticized the “savages” and “heathens” occupying the countryside prior to their own occupation. The “savage-heathen” picture of the native had become firmly entrenched during America’s search for a nationalist identity, and novels by James Fennimore Cooper and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as well as the many war panoramas, pageants, and novellas further fanned the flame By the turn of the twentieth century, America’s fascination with “Indians” was at a peak. Native Americans were being paraded around like prizes won at a carnival. Through performances like Buffalo Bill’s Wild West and various traveling circus shows, the romanticized idea of the “Vanishing American” was being exploited. Part of the draw for Cody’s enormously successful western show was that patrons could watch Sitting Bull and the other Native Americans “perform.” Gretchen Bataille notes the transfer of the fascination with Native Americans overseas: The shows further spread the distorted image of Indians to Europe, and the images and storylines became the basis for the first films with Indian themes. The images of Native Americans that had been developing for nearly four hundred years were transferred to the screen in the early twentieth century, reaching an even wider audience than before.3

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Accounts in journals, diaries, and other documentation describe Native Americans who were taken to Europe for exhibition, and were “performing” in Portugal as early as 1501.4 Throughout the following centuries, the “Indian” was portrayed in art, literature, and drama, eventually becoming a stock character in western shows and film. Paul Rathbun, founder of The Intertribal Theatre Project states, Various popular images, images from the past virtually unchanged after two centuries of distribution, also continue to support mainstream understandings of American hegemony. Contemporary images maintain various representational strategies from the early treaty dialogues of the 18th century, to Noble Savages and Red Devils of 19th century fiction, to the benign children of nature of the early 20th century.5

Rathbun elucidates this masking when he breaks down Donald Grose’s examination and categorization of the seven “stock Indian characters” into the following classifications: noble savage, Indian Princess, red devil, drunken Indian, Indian squaw, Indian as victim, and Indian as child of nature.6 In Peter Pan, Barrie’s native characters fall solidly within the classifications above. These constructions were in heavy circulation at the turn of the century, and it was during this time, and within this specific cultural milieu, that Barrie was writing his tale about a little boy that never grew up. Edward Said’s theory of Orientalism is particularly helpful in analyzing the native stereotypes reinscribed by and perpetuated in the theatrical manifestations of the Peter Pan tradition.7 Consider, for instance, the Lost Boys, who dress as “savages,” the treatment of Tiger Lily, whose sacrifice in saving Pan is reminiscent of Pocahontas mythology, and the descriptions and characterizations of the “Picanniny” tribe. Each of these examples embodies Said’s theory: the representation of Native Americans in each case is that of a culturally and biologically inferior race, backward and savage. The original story is problematic enough. But stage adaptations have further exacerbated the sterotype through performance. For example, the 1993 version by John Caird and Trevor Nunn (originally produced in London in 1982) includes additional dialogue, different from the original book as well as from the 1956 acting version published by Charles Scribner’s Sons.8 This adaptation pushes the subjugation of Tiger Lily and the rest of the tribe to an even further extent: TIGER LILY. The Great White Father save me from pirates. Me his velly nice friend now; no let pirates hurt him. BRAVES. Ugh, ugh, wah! (Tiger Lily takes Peter aside.) TIGER LILY. We rub noses.

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PETER. Oh, all right. TIGER LILY. Tiger Lily want to be your Wendy. Peter Paleface come with me. Be Great Indian White Chief and this your squaw. PETER. Desert Wendy—never! TIGER LILY. Me scalp you if you no nice to me! PETER. I don’t care, Wendy is my only mother. TIGER LILY. Tiger Lily has spoken. PANTHER. Loola, loola! Great Big Little Panther has spoken! LONE WOLF. Lone Wolf has spoken! PETER. The Great White Father has spoken! And now shut up!9

The 2003 book published by Harper Festival, Peter Pan the Motion Picture Event: The Original Story, portrayed the “Piccanninies” in a more degrading manner, showing them as even more savage and even less than human. In Chapter 10, The Happy Home, it states: They called Peter the Great White Father, prostrating themselves before him; and he liked this tremendously […]. “The great white father,” he would say to them in a very lordly manner, as they groveled at his feet, “is glad to see the Piccanniny warriors protecting his wigwam from the pirates.” […]. Always when he said, “Peter Pan has spoken,” it meant that they must now shut up, and they accepted it humbly in that spirit.10

In Chapter 12, The Children Are Carried Off, Captain Hook has arranged a surprise attack on the “redskins” (usually “beyond the wit of the white man”11), and his unscrupulous behavior results in the massacre of the tribe despite the “savage scouts” who “wriggle, snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade.”12 Barrie’s narrative reads in the civilized, somewhat patronizing tonality of the ethnographer studying the natives and their traditions. The author looks at them through an idealized lens, objectifying them with eyes of both reverence and rejection: By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its lowest ebb […]. With the alertness of the sense which is at once the marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick.13

Here, Barrie displays the ostensibly at-odds perception of “Indians” that then permeated much of literature and popular culture. He at once writes the tribe as both victim and perpetrator. He writes how the tribe will no longer be able to perform the “tortures at the stake,” but he paints the “redskins” as if they have no choice: they have no consciousness apart

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from the savage nature of their hearts. The annihilation of the Piccanninies appears necessary as Hook expends of them easily to further his plan to capture Peter. Barrie mixes brutality and primitivism with the romanticized literary style of the nineteenth century. In many ways, his is a typical narrative of Indian/white interaction, although by this time in the literary world, “Indians” had come to be seen as a vanishing race of benign children of nature. I read this story as revealing of the mindset of manifest destiny, the nineteenth-century philosophy that undergirded the expansion of the “Frontier,” maintaining that whites had the divine mission to push America toward the west in the spreading of hard-won liberty and freedom. Clearly, there is irony to be found in this notion of “spreading liberty and freedom” while simultaneously annihilating and displacing Native American Indians off the land on which they had lived for thousands of years (not to mention annexing the southern states that were once part of Mexico). White European ancestry would seem to be the only requirement for “spreading the mission.” With their supposedly superior intellect and civilization, settlers believed that those incapable of selfgovernance and sufficiency (that is, all non-whites), were too primitive to survive on their own and would eventually die out. Barrie’s Captain Hook demonstrates the white European arrogance that regarded the geography of America and the bodies of its indigenous peoples as equally conquerable. He also creates a non-distinct “tribe” of faceless “redskins,” suggesting that Native American Indians can easily be lumped into one monolith—the wooden chief that displays the menu at Applebee’s could easily be Great Big Little Panther, could easily be Sitting Bull, could easily be Chief Seattle. And his tribe, named, oddly enough, with a derogatory and racist statement usually reserved for Black children, (a Picaninny being an unkempt, mostly naked, wild haired, impertinent Black child, often pictured about to be fed to and/or eaten by a crocodile) conflates with the monolithic red-skins. The idea being then, that all troublesome, irksome, non-distinct brown people can simply be fed to the crocs? Returning for a moment to the idea of objectifying through idealization, Philip J. Deloria details America’s fascination with “playing Indian,” and theorizes some of the ways and reasons white Americans have and continue to put on these bodies. He describes the love-hate, fascinating and disturbing appropriation and “wearing” of “Indianness.” He unpeels American history, revealing how, through a tug-of-war between hating and fearing the indigenous peoples of this continent, there existed an equally strong fascination and obsession with reenacting parts

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of their culture and lives. Barrie’s writing exemplifies Deloria’s point regarding the tangling of “ideological dilemmas” where real people, Native American Indians, were replaced in the minds of many whites with only the symbolic meaning attached to “Indian-ness” (the Noble Savage; Red Devil; Indian Princess; and so forth).14 Due to the lack of an American identity, Deloria theorizes “hobbying” at “playing Indian” offered a sense of national self that was absent in white America. Postcolonialist theorist Frantz Fanon speaks of this when, in Black Skins, White Mask, he poignantly asks, “Was my freedom not given to me then, in order to build the world of you?”15 The covert (and not-so-covert) but enduring racist stereotypes that are disregarded when mythologizing, oppressive traditions are maintained do not offer new perspectives and opportunity for inclusive dialogue appropriate to a pluralistic society. But how do we disregard the historical contributions and entrenched-ness of such “classics” in American culture? The imposed structures of cultural hierarchy based on a civilized/savage binary dominated early twentieth-century American performance literature, and I wonder how far removed from that we really are today? Classic canonized texts include such figures as Peter Pan’s “redskins,” the East Indian mystic Ram Dass of The Little Princess, the “Orientals” of The Emperor’s New Clothes, and in Little Black Sambo, Black Mumbo, Black Jumbo, and Little Black Sambo himself. In “Problematizing the Inclusion of Marginalized Cultures in Aurand Harris’ Yankee Doodle,” Jo Beth Gonzalez recognizes that even though the play was considered progressive for its time because of its inclusion of people of color, we should still unpack ideologies embedded in the text. She points to Harris’s characterization of Lewis, Clark, Sacagawea, and the “generic Indian Chief” the explorers encountered on their journey to the Pacific.16 The Chief and Sacagawea remain mute while depicted as “friendly, gentle, and willing to assist white men—in silence.”17 Gonzalez also details the “dialogue” of the Chief with the explorers. He raises his hand, saying “Hi up, hi up, hi up-ho.”18 A complex system of Native American language and culture is reduced here, as with Peter Pan, to grunts, and non-distinct “Indians.” In recent years, specifically those after 9/11, being patriotic, having a sense of nationalist pride, has been housed in a strict us/them binary of opposition. The “we” who are good and cultured are defined against the “them” who are bad and savage. Although we are well into the twentyfirst century, are we that far away from the nineteenth-century American fascination with “other” and “non-white” as inferior, savage, exotic, and

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full of mystique and wonder? In the July 2005 edition of American Theatre, Native playwright William S. Yellow Robe, Jr. said: We’re all [in this country] supposedly on a level playing field, and that’s perhaps the biggest misconception. Sure, we’re all on a playing field, but it’s never been level. I’d like to say everything’s fine and dandy. But, no […]. You know, I go into Provincetown and people come up to me and say, ‘Hey, you’re a real Indian.’ I don’t get mad. It just amazes me that in this day and age, it still goes on. You don’t see someone go up to a black man and say, ‘Hey, you’re a real black man.’19

Yellow Robe, Jr. illuminates the incongruity that in our country today, some racist stereotypes and statements are more acceptable than others. When those racist statements, characterizations, and perspectives are illuminated in our canonized, classical literature, they spotlight the deeplyrooted and imposed structure of the racial hierarchy of the red, the white, and the blue. The question persists, however, what do we do about it?

THE IMMIGRANT, THE EXILE, THE REFUGEE IN WERTENBAKER’S CREDIBLE WITNESS: A POETICS OF DIASPORA SARA FREEMAN

As a translator of classic theatrical texts, Timberlake Wertenbaker moves in cross-linguistic, translational frames. Her rewritings require journeys between languages and cultural contexts. Likewise, for her original plays, these cross-linguistic and translational frames provide tools to understand her characters, her dramatic themes, and her theatrical structures. Linked as they are by these frames, then, Wertenbaker’s translations point the way toward her concern with immigrants, exiles, and refugees in her original plays. In the introduction to a BBC broadcast of her translations of Sophocles’s Theban plays, Wertenbaker discusses how the job of a translator is to meet someone across the divide of time and of culture. As she does this, she must be attentive to repetitions of words in her source texts: Usually when I meet someone, I observe the repetition in their movements, in their gestures, it gives a clue to their character. In the same way, it is the repetition of words in a text that gives a clue to its meaning. I know when I write plays myself that certain words get threaded in because I’m working something through in a character or a group of characters. And just as the repeated gestures often break through the appearance someone wants to give, so the repeated word isn’t always at the forefront of the play, but it’s there, a signpost.1

Wertenbaker notes that in the Oedipus cycle, one of the most often repeated words is orge, a word having to do with anger, but then, in Oedipus at Colonus […] other words appear, repeat themselves. Oedipus is now a wanderer. The chorus refers to him as “planatas, planatas” […] wandering like a planet against the fixed stars. And a similar word superimposes itself: xenos, the exile, the foreigner.

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The Immigrant, the Exile, the Refugee in Wertenbaker’s Credible Witness: A Poetics of Diaspora

Wertenbaker notes that Oedipus at Colonus is “one of the richest and strangest” plays she’s translated. “I remember the difficulty of trying to cut through swathes of text and still keep the themes, its sense of magic,” she says. Part of that density of themes is the play’s concern with displacement, exile, wandering. Wertenbaker continues: There is an urban legend that a son of Sophocles wanted to prove his 89year-old father mad in order to become executor of his affairs and Sophocles wrote the play to show he wasn’t. It’s a good story. There is a whole life in the play: anger at getting old and powerless, acceptance, but always the sadness of exile, and finally the peace of finding a home, a new land. Oedipus, a refugee, carrying his long history behind him, frightening to others at first, but promising benefits to his new land.

Wertenbaker often turns to the Greeks when she thinks about the purpose of her theatre,2 so perhaps it is no surprise that immigrants, exiles, and refugees also populate Wertenbaker’s original plays and point toward a spatial and thematic concern with diaspora, that is, finding, or more so, making a home in a new land. This essay explores and articulates the manner in which this occurs especially in Wertenbaker’s 2001 play, Credible Witness, and, in so doing, unpacks the way the playwright uses immigrants, exiles, and refugees to re-imagine how theatre can present history, nation, and identity. Germane to my arguments, British scholar Gabrielle Griffin, in Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain, imports the terminology of diaspora into theatre criticism. Somewhat differently than the ways Loren Kruger (explicitly) and Una Chaudhuri (implicitly) have worked with concepts of diaspora regarding theatre,3 Griffin moves toward diaspora to challenge some of the critical vocabulary of postcolonial theory as used in theatre studies. Citing sociologist Avtar Brah, Griffin argues for a move away from the theoretical and critical vocabulary of “post-colonial” theatre, “world” theatre, and “intercultural” theatre. Instead, she seeks to forge a “critical and theoretical apparatus” for considering theatre with tools inspired by Brah’s conception of “diaspora space.” The critique of multicultural discourses Griffin develops centers on the backward-looking ethos and inevitable reification of colonialism implicit in such categories. Griffin thinks the concept of diaspora offers different possibilities. For Brah, Griffin writes, diaspora “signals ‘multi-locationality across geographical, cultural, and psychic boundaries’[194]”.4 Griffin embraces the concept of diaspora as more than simply mirroring the nostalgia for the lost homeland, an easy enough topos to trace in theatrical texts. Rather, diaspora, as Kruger also notes, radically

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refigures the idea of home5 and Griffin observes “‘offers a critique of discourses of fixed origins’ [180], a critique all the more necessary as British identities increasingly include people of mixed-race origin; migrants who have settled in the UK, sometimes after successive migrations that render any notion of a fixed origin untenable; and children of migrants who were born and brought up in Britain”.6 Most important for Griffin, Brah’s conceptualization of diaspora space argues that “migration impacts not only on those who migrate but also on the communities into which they migrate”.7 One great benefit of her apparatus, then, is an applicability that resists ghettoization and opens possibilities querying difference from many locations. In this way, the notion of diaspora can migrate, for instance, to the work of an internationally-minded Anglo-American playwright such as Wertenbaker, whose theatre purposefully queries the multi-sourced nexus of national identity, ethnic identity, historical consciousness, and self-transformation. Across her book, pursuing the representation of diaspora space, Griffin analyzes plays peopled by characters who migrate for better economic opportunities and people who migrate because of persecution at home, both conditions often complementing each other. In either case, Griffin asserts that “the diasporic subject is one who experiences displacement and estrangement.” In her concluding chapter, “Living Diaspora Now”, Griffin pays particular attention to the increased emphasis on the figure of “the refugee and asylum seeker” in British plays of the 1990s.8 The immigrant, the exile, and the refugee rise as reccurring figures that Wertenbaker depicts in almost all her plays, including New Anatomies (Isabelle Eberhardt as exile and refugee; women as internal exiles in nineteenth-century patriarchy), The Love of the Nightingale (Procne as exile; Philomele as immigrant and then refugee, victim of state violence and silencing), After Darwin and Break of Day (which both consider immigrants/refugees/ dissidents from Eastern Europe sorting out a life in the UK), and several of her early unpublished plays.9 Read in this light, her most famous work, Our Country’s Good, calls forth an understanding of the prisoners of the Botany Bay prison colony as exiles and whole population of the First Fleet, officers and prisoners alike, as residents of a “multi-locationality across geographical, cultural, and psychic boundaries.” An investigation of displacement and estrangement therefore underlies most of Wertenbaker’s work. But it is Credible Witness, a product of the late 1990s that premiered in 2001, which is set in the border zone of an immigrant detention centre, and populated by diasporic subjects, that most explicitly stages the contours of diaspora, its traumatic migrations and the

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way, as Loren Kruger writes, “diaspora also raises questions about its seeming opposite—home—enabling us, for instance, to query the standard presuppositions about the stability of national, regional, or local cultures and affiliations as well as about the presumed instability of migration.”10 Credible Witness dramatizes the collision of African, Middle Eastern, Asian, and European histories and identities in British immigration politics. The characters of this play are all haunted by a history of violence and are blocked by barriers of language and custom as they forge new, multi-locational positioning of the self. The stories of immigrants, exiles, and refugees scripted by Wertenbaker in Credible Witness confirm Griffin’s point that Britain is a diaspora space and then go on to invest diaspora space and diasporic identities with resonance that moves toward something that might be called a poetics of diaspora: a theory/structure of drama built on the terms of displacement and estrangement, but reaching toward new formations of home and citizenship. Displacement and estrangement, Griffin writes, are not synonymous and in their layered relationship lie further contours of diaspora space. “For whereas displacement is an effect of location associated with the forced as opposed to the voluntary removal of a person from her place, and place does not have to refer to a literal space here although that is frequently the case,” Griffin writes, “estrangement is an effect of that displacement and relates to the violation of one’s sense of belonging which may be experienced by those who are displaced”.11 The experience of displacement and the estrangement it produces are foundational (forming the bedrock of the character’s stories) and pivotal (reinterpreted as turning points of understanding) in the trajectory of Credible Witness, sculpting the action of the play and forcing the search for a new place in which to be home/make home. Wertenbaker’s play is haunted by the negative vision of diaspora implicit in Griffin’s description of the perpetual waiting and subjugation of displacement and estrangement, but the action of the play shifts the signification of diaspora away from what Kruger describes as an older vision of “irrevocable migration from one nation to another” toward “a new transnational movement back and forth between host country and birthplace.”12 In its treatment of immigration issues, Credible Witness brings onto British soil ancient ethnic divisions and battles. Wertenbaker firmly identifies the way western powers helped create intractable internecine conflicts in colonial lands. This play, with its intertwined historical references to Alexander the Great, the Norman Invasion, the Balkan Wars, and colonialism in Africa and South Asia, and its global cast of characters who struggle and celebrate and redeem each other in

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community centers and detention centers in England, still stands as Wertenbaker’s most political assertion that in exchange, in traumatic migration, and in crises of identity, histories, nations, and selves not only can, but must be remade. To this end, Credible Witness follows the traumatic migration of Petra Karagy to England and her search for her son, Alexander, who she sent to England to avoid ethnic persecution as a Macedonian. Alexander is in some ways a refugee, also: since both he and Petra think he will prosper in England, he is in some ways an “economic” immigrant, if economy is understood as an economy of violence that must be escaped as well as an economy of opportunity that is aspired to. Still, in his monologues, Alexander refers to himself as an “exile.”13 Petra’s search for her im/migrant son plays against scenes of Alexander teaching children of Algerian, Eritrean, and Serbian descent in a “dilapidated community centre”.14 Here, as a teacher, Alexander addresses representatives of an entire generation of immigrants, exiles, and refugees, teaching them to mourn what they have left and lost and, once they have grieved, make a home in a new land. Meanwhile, Petra cannot gain free travel in England, so she languishes in a detention centre holding a hunger strike. The immigration officials who oversee her themselves further attest to the complex historical diasporic state of England. The mid-rank official is Simon Le Britten, a man with a name representing the British nation in a language that records the medieval invasion and redirection of British national and linguistic identity by the Normans. The guard of the detention centre is Paul, a South Asian man who immigrated in the mid twentieth century and holds up his generation of immigrants as exemplars: “when we came over, and we were invited, after all, we never behaved like that. We did everything to fit in. We worked hard, we kept our heads down, we put up with a lot”.15 Petra’s compatriots in the detention center further the dimensional portrait of immigrants, exiles, and refugees. There she encounters Shivan, a Tamil doctor from Sri Lanka; Aziz, an Algerian refugee; Leon, a silent musician; and Ameena, a Somalian refugee subjected to brutal gang rape in her home country and re-traumatized upon her arrival in Britain by being given a translator from a rival tribe who will not credit her story of abuse, despite the cigarette burns that dot her body. Alexander and his students, Petra and her fellow detainees, and the officials of the British immigration system are together a compelling, multi-faced portrait of diaspora. The trials they face become a frank indictment of British resistance to the concept of diaspora space as national space.

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As Griffin notes, what the refugee figure in drama “bespeaks is the changing reality of migration histories and diasporic experiences, for the refugee or asylum seeker is unlike the economic migrant who does not necessarily suffer the memory of a history of violation during war or political conflict and who has the right to seek employment and make a life for herself. The refugee or asylum seeker has no such right; stuck, quite literally, in a confined space, the detention centre, her abjection consists, inter alia, in having to wait, becoming the object of processes the outcomes of which are uncertain”.16 Just so, Petra fails at finding her son, and when he comes to her because of news reports of her hunger strike, she curses him because he no longer want to die to preserve Macedonian history. But in the detention center, despite resisting too long and loosing her life to the hunger strike, Petra elicits the stories of her fellow detainees, the telling of which convinces Paul and Simon that her compatriots are not trying to take advantage of the British system. At the end of the play, several tentative communities have been formed, and though the outcome of all the processes these inhabitants of diaspora face remain uncertain, there is a sense that new histories, and new homes will be made, especially with Alexander’s former students, whose stories form the epilogue to the play. In the second to last scene, Petra surveys Simon LeBritten, gestures to the inhabitants of the detention center and tells him: “we are your history now”.17 To return to the second premise of this study, with Wertenbaker’s immigrants, exiles, and refugees, I am interested in the way diaspora may be employed by a playwright to re-imagine how theatre can present history, nation, and identity. Wertenbaker situates her audience so that they can witness the experiences of immigrants, exiles, and refugees, rendering them dignity in their journeys. Petra Karagy helps forge a community that models where diasporic identity might take nations in the new millennium. Used in this way, diaspora becomes a querying of difference that does not foreclose the possibility of transformation through exchange and greater plurality. While Griffin and many who use diaspora theory do so as they work through the politics and literature of otherness by people marked by racial and geographical difference, reading Wertenbaker’s Credible Witness through diaspora opens how a white, Anglo-America playwright, albeit one who refuses a stable, nation-bound identity at every turn,18 challenges her predominantly white, Western audience to rethink their positions through diaspora. In this the play is classically liberal and humanist, though not necessarily naïve. Credible Witness presents Britain as a diaspora space, a border zone in history and in the present tense, and in so doing argues that the contours/poetics of

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diaspora should not be the concern of immigrants, exiles, and refugees, but of citizens everywhere, who would discover, if they looked and if they didn’t already know, that they live in diaspora space. As Kruger writes in “Introduction: Diaspora, Performance, and National Affiliations in North America,” “the migration of diaspora [as a term] from the marginal connotations of loss and nostgaliga to the central constitution of national if hyphenated identities marks shifts in the conception and realization of national identification”.19 Of course, Wertenbaker’s transnational vision is acute, as strongly developed in Maya Roth’s essay “Im/Migrations, Border-Crossings, and ‘Willful Internationalism’ in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Break of Day.”20 Roth argues that Wertenbaker’s plays work by a “traveling paradigm,” in which “theatrical spaces migrate from one history to another, one theatrical register to another, one character’s perspective to another […]” creating epics “with more diasporic and multicultural practices of home, nation, justice, and identity/ies than the source materials which she famously reworks (e.g. classic plays, historical narratives, novels)”.21 In her article, Roth outlines the type of dislocations and migrations that structure The Break of Day, suggesting that “the play leads audiences to cross borders […] not, ultimately, in order to point to meaninglessness, but rather to encourage linkages across difference”. This she characterizes as the “increasingly explicit multicultural histories” of Wertenbaker’s plays, which propel the ways “Wertenbaker imagines new forms for Anglophone drama”.22 Here, Roth begins to articulate a poetics of diaspora underlying Wertenbaker’s work that I am elaborating. Wertenbaker’s epic and multicultural forms partake of a poetics of diaspora that moves beyond the poetics of exile Chaudhuri writes about in Staging Place: the Geography of Modern Drama. Chaudhuri works with notions of displacement, “the victimage of location”, nostalgia, the “defunct heroism of departure” and the “doomed” homecoming, arguing that “from the late nineteenth century on, the image or idea of escape, of creative displacement, develops into a full-blown poetics of exile, from which the drama of the later twentieth century is still seeking to free itself”.23 Wertenbaker does something different with her immigrants, exiles, and refugees at the beginning of the twenty-first century, something less “geopathological” in Chaudhuri’s terms, so that in movement and translation and home-making (rather than home-coming) place is no longer the “problem”, but perhaps the opportunity. Indeed, home-making, which is also a form of historymaking, is what Alexander and Petra do in England, and what Ameena, Shivan, and Alexander’s students will do. Wertenbaker’s diaspora is not solely geopathological, and if it opens a poetics of diaspora, it forms a

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migratory poetics. Thinking of the Oediups cycle, Wertenbaker’s poetics of diaspora is also a translatory poetics, a poetics of old and new worlds, old and new histories meeting, (re)combining, and speaking to each other across the divide of time and culture.

PUERTO RICAN STAGES: THEATRE IN THE METROPOLIS, ON THE ISLAND, ON THE MARGINS ELENA GARCÍA-MARTÍN

I wish to organize my essay along the broad lines of the Puerto Rican search for communal and national identity through theatre. I would further delimit my subject as a contribution to the history of theatrical discourses on a Puerto Rican identity constructed through spatial coordinates. By privileging space over time—tradition, history or usable pasts—I wish to emphasize the importance of spatial continuity as a strategy of identity construction, but also, and more importantly, allude to presence—both of bodies and spaces—as a dimension that links theatre and the spatial bindings of identity. This essay presents a small insight into the recent Puerto Rican “stage,” based on spatial and geographical difference; in particular, the distinction made between the capital’s (San Juan’s) centric, upscale theatres and everything outside those boundaries. I aim to provide a material perspective of Puerto Rican theatre by situating several important dramatic offerings and their diffusion in relation to nontraditional venues, such as bus stops, churches, display windows, and cellars situated on and off the metropolitan center. I intend to highlight the processes by which the traditional distinction between city and metropolis in Puerto Rico, as places of cultural consumption and production respectively, has given way to a further polarization and the progressive centralization of the professional critical theatrical discourse upon San Juan’s commercial stages to the virtual exclusion of the periphery. With the decadence, closure, endless remodeling and virtual invisibility of provincial theatres built in the nineteenth century in provincial hubs, Ponce, Mayagüez and Arecibo, the theatrical offerings that find general publicity and critical and academic attention are generated almost exclusively in a few theatres in the capital. Thus, the geopolitical, economic and institutional decisions at work in the selection of plays that are discussed in mass publications and academic circles condition the image and projection of the national stage and, in consequence, the

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formation of the national identity. It is my intention to bring to the forefront some initiatives that have not found articulation in mainstream critical arenas, principally on account of their spatial situation “on the margins,” and which, because of their aesthetic, communal, or methodological approaches, have built their premises in terms of “difference” from and as challenges to commercial metropolitan productions. I focus my examples on production initiatives that coincide in emphasizing the fluid, collective and dynamic aspects of a theatrical culture that is conceived and constructed from below (for, with, and by the people). A common characteristic of these productions is their setting offtraditional spaces and in peripheral locations: communal spaces in the depressed, neglected areas of San Juan, alternative venues in socially marginalized areas, and unconventional spaces throughout the island. This taxonomy allows a double contrast between the commercial and the alternative and among the metropolitan and provincial spaces and their respective cultural politics. At the same time, these performances of place allow for the emergence of new cultural arenas that render products that challenge current geographic hierarchies and stereotypes and generate articulations of place-based identity. The multifaceted spatial grounding in these performances has taken diverse forms: a) integration of the theatrical event in communal and often economically-depressed spaces; b) reappropriation of gentrified or expropriated areas; and c) displacement of theatrical culture to peripheral geographic locations. Consequently, this resituated theatre allows for diverse modes of identification with the surroundings: historical, symbolic, geographic, or national. Let us begin with the adoption of communal spaces as theatrical stages in Puerto Rico. Contrary to the tendency in other Latin American countries such as Chile or Argentina, where it has been observed that the disconnection between the theatrical institution and the majority of the population has increased of late,1 Puerto Rico has seen an intensification of theatre dedicated in various manners and physically taken to the community at large. It is easy to attribute this development, as Lowell Fiet observes, to current tendencies of global fragmentation and homogenization that find in local concerns a stabilizing return to more palpable forms of action. As he notes: [The degree of fragmentation and displacement in formal Caribbean theatre] leads to the emergence of new forms of theater and performance not directly tied to conventional spaces, the rules of commodification, or the accepted local standards of propriety. These forms reflect broader global trends in performance art, experimental dance, collaborative

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installation, and ecological and community action groups while maintaining close ties to grassroots and folk performance forms and ceremonies.2

I believe that it is precisely the unconventional use of space and the rejection of logo-centrism that has frequently maintained these bodycentered, socially-engaged productions away from critical acclaim or attention.3 Not surprisingly, populist theatre that contains unveiled political denunciation and openly subversive characterizations takes place more frequently in non-conventional spaces and away from the commercial metropolitan stages. It is important to note that the sense of spectacle, modes of performance, and spatial representation in some of these productions “on the margins” reveal continuity with controversial initiatives from the 60s that offered theatre in the streets, for instance, productions like those of “El Tajo del Alacrán,” or “Teatreros Ambulantes,” heavily influenced by the populist and educational tenants of Bread and Puppet Theater and Augusto Boal. Recent groups doing the same sort of theatre in Puerto Rico include “Teatro Rodante” and “Agua, Sol y Sereno.” Pedro Adorno, director of “Agua Sol y Sereno” feels the need to insist on the fact that, no matter the imputations of certain theatre professionals, the standards of quality in his projects are exactly the same whether they are presenting in the historic Teatro Tapia or any other exclusive theatre in the metropolis, or whether they take their work to the public square of an isolated Puerto Rican village.4 It is possible to sense, here, the defensiveness of an artist whose work is under attack. In part, the devaluation of his art, he seems to feel, comes from a level of engagement that demands physical displacement and implies the re-conceptualization of the artist not simply as spokesman for the people but as material part of the people, as “artist ‘in-residence’ in the immense space of the less fortunate communities in the island.”5 This compromise has taken different causes since the foundation of “Agua Sol y Sereno” in 1993, and several of their performances have implied a re-conceptualization of space that goes beyond the group’s agenda to take theatre out of the theatres and to the people come “rain, sunshine or mist,” a loose translation of their name. Their 2002 production “Una de cal y otra de arena,” constituted a rhythmic environmental protest against the relentless destruction of the natural surroundings on the part of unethical developers over the last thirty years. The choreography of violence against nature could be re-located at will to transformed environments, where the performance would have a retrospective effect, or to natural or mythical environments, where the performance would gain the symbolic value of ravishing both the land and

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history of a people6. The use of theatre as a performance of reclamation of space has had clear antecedents in Puerto Rico. But where “El Tajo del Alacrán,” for instance, represented visceral political, somewhat crude and frequently amateurish performances of resistance and violence7, “Agua Sol y Sereno” strived to convey similar messages through choreography and a telluric sense of rhythm that appealed to the senses. On a similar note, in 2006 various artists organized themselves to protest the forced expropriation and gentrification of Santurce, a centric though economically depressed area of San Juan. This protest could hardly find a more suitable form of expression than the performance of the reappropriation of place symbolized in the presence of bodies that claim spaces as they reconstruct spatial memories. Several initiatives and artistic collectives have been engaged in this common cause: from the multimedia, experimental projects of spatial re-appropriation of Myrna Renaud’s “La Ruta Cangrejera” to the artists of “Museo del Barrio,” whose performance component tends to revolve around concepts generated by Deborah Hunt. Myrna Renaud’s work, which finds resonance in current artistic expressions, combines the global and the local, and both physical and multimedia modes of articulation. But the protean quality of her work reveals a constant level of engagement with place that springs from a quasi-poetic awareness of presence, evident in its fusion with space, and manifested in lyrical dance pieces that combine the symbolic with the folkloric and the stylized with the prosaic. Her multifaceted projects contain an element of exhortation to the communal rediscovery of collective spaces (which paradoxically, is diffused cybernetically). Her cultural announcements, open to the general public, lead to the material exploration of the relation of the body with its fluid surroundings. As she states in the opening: In this route we will remain in constant movement, transporting ourselves towards spaces of creation and display as they emerge. Parallelly, we will visit art galleries and workshops, spaces established through corporal negotiations. This interdisciplinary workshop/performance means to artistically inhabit all spaces in Santurce, particularly those neglected or in a state of decadence.8

The popular response to this creative call is nothing short of astonishing, as, after minimal coaching that provides a lexicon of movements and responses, students, the homeless, homemakers and professionals mix in poetic choreography to map the corners of streets, squares, churches and bus stops in a process through which they may be rediscovered and

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invested with new meaning. The sense of empowerment that ensues from the exploration is all-inclusive, since there are no passive observers. Renaud’s directions exhort the performers: “Park the car. walk, ride your bike, your wheel chair, just Move!”9 Other artists close to the community participate with similar reclamations of space. But, whereas Myrna Renaud’s hinged upon the body’s symbolic capacity to absorb and re circulate spatial energies, Deborah Hunt’s project revolves about the ritualistic transcendence of place and the reconstitution of spatial memory. Hunt’s “Animas de Santurce” [Lost Souls of Santurce], or her “Piratas urbanos de Santurce” stand out by bringing to the forefront the political abuses of the Ministerio de la Vivienda [Housing Department] in ritualized performances of dislocation, dispossession and eviction that resist erasure or invisibility. Hunt protests by recreating the negative image of absence, dislocated bodies and dispossessed ghosts that inhabit expropriated buildings that are about to be demolished and replaced by luxury facilities. The forced eviction and demolition by the Housing Department of a whole community finds its aesthetic expression in silent masked figures marching through the streets of Santurce as dispossessed souls. Later, the white masked figures go about their usual chores among the rubble, walking, ironing, cooking, vacuuming and perpetuating the use of condemned objects, memories and spaces. The following statement by Hunt spells out the concept behind the event: This performance/debris supports the efforts of this community against the evictions of the residents of the district of San Mateo in Santurce. The props used were found in expropriated and abandoned houses. The event is inspired by the native American “ghosts dances” of the 1800’s that had the power to get the white man out of their lands. Perhaps, like the Indians, we, residents of this neighborhood, may get out of our lands those who want to benefit from the sale of our homes. 10

In this instance, theatre becomes a relevant arena for collective articulation and resistance to institutional and economic power by its refusal to allow the destruction of the memory of place. Hunt’s performances reactivate experiential memories by collecting debris out of the rubble spared by the wrecking ball—fragments of void checks, brooms, pots, broken dolls— and integrating them, covered in red paint, as fractions of the past that resist or complement the institutional acts of remembrance. Thus, in contrast to some other historical-political acts of reminiscence that select and promote a particular version of the past to serve a particular ideology,

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this ceremony resists the erasure of communal experiences inscribed in bodies, places and spaces. As Susan Bennett observes: The ability of history to flatten out the contradictions, complexities, and messiness of human lives and to organize everyone and everything into seamless, coherent narratives is both powerful and pervasive.11

I would add that history, or historic memory, also tends to erase conflict, and that in this case, the marks of class conflict inscribed within Santurce would be erased with the emergence of the new developments. Initiatives such as Hunt’s mean to prevent this from happening. Renaud’s and Hunt’s performances also define themselves in direct opposition to logocentric tenants of cultural institutions such as the Puerto Rican Ateneo under the direction of its most prominent and prolific author, Roberto Ramos-Perea. The Ateneo has effectively proclaimed itself as the depositary of the Puerto Rican dramatic tradition by a common determination to “defend the word,” in opposition to the theatre of the pure image.12 Ramos-Perea goes even further when he affirms that the romantic obsession with Puerto Rican identity is no longer a matter of concern and confesses the group’s disapproval of the pompous postmodernity and their “repulsion towards a theatre as ephemeral as that of the ‘happening,’ ‘dancing theatre’ and the scenic dramaturgy that opened new forms of expression not dependant upon the text.”13 Immediately clear is Ramos Perea’s polarizing intention of defining the “new dramaturgy” as a continuation of the canonical “protectors of the word” and in opposition to “postmodern expressions from the body,” thus indirectly favoring written history over memory, and theatre closely controlled by the author over the collaborative, fragmentary or fluid character of performances such as Renaud’s, Hunt’s or Adorno’s. If we are to situate culturally these new “expressions from the body,” centered on presence, pantomime, experimental dancing and community action, we must define their position with respect to what Manuel Castells terms the “values of the information age.” The significance of this positioning of the body as presence in these art forms is crucial for a people that still strives to define itself in terms of local culture before it is able to situate itself globally. The lack of spatial grounding generally shown by global, cybernetic cultural forms and based on what Castells terms “postmodern spaces of flow” is resisted here by forms of ceremonial, communal performance that revert back to “traditional spaces of place,” even in this age of technology and information.14 Yet, these artistic forms make themselves actual and reflect global trends by utilizing cybernetic spaces as democratically accessible arenas from which to

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attract public attention, record the images of threatened communal spaces and inscribe the images of an infinitely repeatable performance of spatial memory. In sum, given the capacity of theatre to appropriate, re-locate and reinterpret space and place, it is particularly important to explore recent Puerto Rican theatrical productions that allow for new articulations of contested spaces not only as forms of community action that resituate the social position of the artist, but also as locus of innovative and experimental theatrical forms. Although these theatrical forms have barely attracted serious critical consideration—partly on account of their corporal grounding and unconventional use of space—it is my contention that they constitute invaluable contributions to the Puerto Rican theatrical discourse, and that they often present conceptual and formal elements that surpass by far many of those found on commercial metropolitan stages.

QUERYING DIFFERENCE ON THE BATTLEFIELD LEIGH CLEMONS

When most people think of battle reenactments, they conjure up images of aging, overweight white men in Confederate uniforms lying on a hillside pretending to be dead. In today’s society, however, battle reenactments serve an important function. For many people, they are a tangible link to history. To their participants, battle reenactments are a form of popular entertainment as well as a means for historical pedagogy. For many observers, battle reenactments constitute the only education they receive about America’s involvement in war. Like their more permanent counterpart, the living history museum, then, battle reenactments not only perform history, they are history. Reenacting queries notions of difference in both its process and performance. It calls into question how difference is represented and maintained within the hobby itself and in the events it purports to represent. What is difference? It is more than just the simple opposition of two unlike things. Giles Deleuze reminds us that “space and time display oppositions (and limitations) only on the surface, but they presuppose in their real depth far more voluminous, affirmed and distributed differences which cannot be reduced to the banality of the negative.”1 Difference is not, therefore, the simply juxtaposition of opposing ideas or forces; it is the establishment of a mode of operation which serves to perform distinctions. This process is a mediation of “the fourfold root of identity, opposition, analogy, and resemblance.”2 Through the tension amongst these forces, difference maintains and constitutes itself as an identity that is more than mere surface appearance. In fact, surface appearance may mask universalizing characteristics that actually subvert difference in action. Underlying these tensions is the idea of “contrariety,” a fundamental aspect of creating true difference. According to Deleuze, “only a contrariety in the essence or form gives us the concept of a difference that is itself essential.”3 Of the few real studies that exist on battle reenacting, only one deals with the complexity of representations and motivations within the hobby. The overall level of scholarship has not reached a point where the

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processes by which differences are constructed have been examined. That time has come; as reenacting continues to grow in popularity, it also becomes more performative. Events, especially public ones, are progressively more scripted. Interpreters rely more and more on immersion techniques to achieve the desired “period rush.” Also, reenactments and living history in general are becoming common tools of teaching history, turning the practice of history itself into performance. The validity of such a practice is not a question, in my opinion. To quote Homi K. Bhabha, “what does need to be questioned, however, is the mode of representation of otherness.”4 What, then, constitutes difference on the battlefield? Such difference comes in many forms. Perhaps the most obvious is the us/them binary: to have a battle, one must have at least two sides. This surface difference, however, is a misleading one, as reenactments may contain elements from many different nationalities or regions of the country, depending upon the war represented. WWI and WWII European events feature British, German, American, French, Belgian and Russian troops. American Civil War reenactments contain impressions of units from all over the Union and Confederacy, from Texas to Wisconsin to New York. While these groups may blend together on the battlefield into a seeming uniform resemblance, each unit maintains a separate identity that distinguishes it from others. Furthermore, there are not only soldiers. Many events, public and private, feature a number of civilian support staff impressions, including field medics, nurses, war correspondents, and aid workers. Their presence helps to reinforce the uniqueness of the soldier’s role in general. The differences within the hobby of reenacting itself, however, are considerably more complex than a bunch of guys dressing up in costumes and shooting guns. First and foremost, reenactors see themselves as distinct from the general public. This separateness is due mainly to two factors: the public’s perceived lack of historical knowledge and the public’s skewed perceptions, fed by the media, of what reenacting is. Reenactors find the public ignorant of history in general. Tales abound at many public events of reenactors accosted by audience members wanting to know which war the impression came from.5 There are even stories of WW II reenactors who have been asked if they were fighting in the Civil War! Rectifying this historical ignorance is the basis for reenacting’s educational mission. Through their interaction with the public, reenactors give people the chance to ask questions about war and history, see period weapons and clothing, and even learn songs, dances, and other cultural aspects of the people they represent. In fact, it is only out of a desire to

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educate the average citizen that many hardcore reenactors will endure a public event and mingle with the “touronz.” Most reenactors see the media as the real “enemy.” This group is too uninformed and desirous of information that feeds the stereotype of reenactors as right-wing gun nuts to look at what reenactors claim are the “real” aims of the hobby. Twentieth-century reenactors, in particular, are leery of public scrutiny; many prefer private events to public ones, especially if the reenactor is playing a “bad guy” such as a German. Civil War reenactors, while slightly more used to the public eye, are also careful to distinguish themselves from extremist racist and Neo-Nazi groups, even if individual reenactors hold those points of view. (Most units have disclaimers barring political or ideological extremism from the group and events, citing it as historically inauthentic.) Even the most “hardcore” reenactor is careful to portray himself as a servant to history, a commemorator of the past whose task it is to remind people of the sacrifices the soldiers made. The preservation of honor and the memory of the soldier is a public mantra of the reenactor.6 The media is seen as a prime enemy because it attempts to paint all reenactors as “paramilitaries” and “skinheads.”7 The media does correctly identify difference as a cause for investigation and representation when discussing reenacting. It often, however, reinforces a surface notion of difference by stereotyping all reenactors according to a preconceived framework. Scholars are often little better; with few exceptions, academia has brushed aside or ridiculed reenactors as amateurs or “having the moral dimensions of twelve-year olds.”8 Kevin Walsh wrote that battle reenactments “are nothing but mere titillation, meaningless amateur dramatics promoting the postmodern simulacrum, a hazy image of a manipulated and trivialized past.”9 Another prominent distinction exists between reenactors and “professional” living historians who are employed at permanent museums and other institutions. Most of these individuals at the more prominent sites, such as Colonial Williamsburg and Mount Vernon, look down upon battle reenactors. Dennis Hall, a historian, calls Civil War reenactors—the most studied group—“amateurs in the strictest sense.”10 William Sommerfield, who portrays George Washington at Mount Vernon, said in 2004 that reenactors [are] the people who are in costume and have weapons and march about. But most often they are not superlative presenters. And then we have people who are generic living history people who do people that are not actually well-known. But I would say with modesty, at the top of

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the heap we have what I call notable historical interpreters and all of them are easily recognized by the public.11

This demarcation rests on the idea that amateurs involved in the hobby are less authentic and less educated about the times and characters they represent than their professionally-employed counterparts at living history museums. Many hardcore reenactors, however, prefer the term “living history” for their hobby and refer to themselves as “living historians.”12 They see no difference between the quality of their work and that of persons who get paid. Some, like Texas Revolutionary reenactor Dennis Reisdel, are both professional living historians and reenactors. In fact, some reenactors believe that their impressions are more accurate than those of paid living history performers, because reenactors are representing the “common soldier,” not trying to fulfill the public’s expectations as to the behavior of “great men.” Here, in the minds of many reenactors, while there is difference in training between members of the hobby and members of the living history profession, said training results in at least comparably similar portrayals. Then there is the concept of difference amongst reenactors themselves. Paul Calloway, the founder of Authentic Campaigner, the most famous Civil War online organization, cites four primary designations in reenacting: farb, mainstream, progressive, and hardcore.13 Farbism is the primary delineator of difference on the battlefield. There is no one single definition of farb, and the word’s etymology is apocryphal. Civil War reenactor Ross M. Kimmel defines a farb as “a person who is not authentic.”14 Tony Horwitz called farb “the worst insult in the hardcore vocabulary. It referred to reenactors who approached the past with a lack of verisimilitude.”15 And Jenny Thompson, speaking of twentieth-century reenactors, believes that “a farb is a person who is judged as having failed to establish a legitimate link to history.”16 “Farbs” are held in opposition to “hardcores,” people who “base every article of [their] impression[s] on documented sources.”17 It is important to many reenactors, especially the hardcores, to be able to set themselves contrary to their farbier counterparts. To do so is, in fact, the essence of the successful impression. Who determines what is farby? That is a subject for some debate. Just about every reenactor considers himself to be “authentic” in his impression and most consider their units to be among the most hardcore in terms of accuracy. When talking about other units, however, the opinions are much lower, with a high farb quotient present outside their own membership. Not to say there are not true hardcores; Tony Horwitz’s description of the hard-marching, rank-smelling, and gaunt-eyed membership of the Confederate Southern Guard is a prime example of the

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lengths many reenactors will go to in order to achieve what they perceive to be historical authenticity. Also, many hardcore reenactors—“stitch Nazis,” as they are sometimes called—are quick to delineate farbiness as they see it. Descents into farbdom can range from inaccurate haircuts and non-period footwear or watches to contemporary talk in the trenches to being too clean in appearance to wearing the wrong year’s uniform to an event (example: wearing a 1944 Bulge-era uniform to a 1943 Eastern Front event). The primary indicators of farbism, after anachronistic items, are age and weight. The vast majority of reenactors range in age from late 20s to early 50s. The average age of the common Army private, though, ranged from 16-25 depending upon the war. Weight is an even stickier issue because, while a reenactor can dye his hair and pass for a younger man, he cannot disguise his weight, even from a distance.18 Most Civil War soldiers, for example, weighed less than 135 lbs., and Confederate soldiers were especially thin.19 As a result, farbism, the essence of contrariness in battle reenacting, is often a difference based upon surface distinctions; the look and level of detail in an impression define authenticity, which, in turn, defines identity. The difference between farbs and hardcores—and everyone in between—is a question of authenticity. There is an immense amount of historical research that goes into many impressions.20 Trips to the National Archives to study photographs, newspapers, and other period documents are common, and reenactors often have extensive collections of history books, photographs, authentic military equipment (especially in twentiethcentury battles) and other accoutrement. According to one reenactor, “the items are tangible objects that embody the world of the past. They are the props that re-create the past as a lived context, a creation central to the reenactment experience.”21 The question of authenticity is a question of difference, of setting one’s own impression against those of other reenactors and judging which is the more “time-period correct.” As a result, reenactors “live” simultaneously in two spaces: the “now” of the reenactment and the “past” that said experience purports to represent.22 When participating in a re-enactment of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, Turner himself felt the unique doubling of being both in the present performative moment and the past moment the re-enactors were representing. They negotiate this difference through analogy: reenactors play themselves, but themselves-as-other, a period version of whom they believe they would be. There are no “characters” in reenacting, only “impressions.” Some men do don famous impressions, especially at Civil War events (Horwitz speaks of a battle that had at least three Robert E. Lees23), but they are more for living history purposes than

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work on the battlefield. Only a few reenactors attempt continuous, immersed, first-person impressions that would resonate with theatre people as “acting” (and those reenactors are considered over-the-top, even by hardcore standards). The search for authentic experience, the “period rush,” cannot be achieved by being someone one is not. To do so, in the minds of many reenactors, would dishonor the soldiers they wish to remember. That is why most reenactors portray privates—without medals—because they have not earned rank and honor. Paradoxically, it is only through the continuity of self-identification that reenactors can achieve difference in their impressions. Once on the battlefield, differences quickly return to the us/them (enemy) binary. The question, then, asks the motivations for representing a certain side, or becoming the “other.” These motivations are themselves sites of difference. First, there is the idea of heritage as determinant. Reenactors often choose to play on the side that their ancestors did (often in Civil War), or to “honor” an ancestor in their portrayals (often in twentieth-century war). Many Latinos choose to portray Mexican Army soldiers or Tejanos in the Texas Revolution. In short, by identifying with a similar heritage, reenactors distinguish themselves as representative of a particular group. Regardless of the side on which side a reenactor ends up, the common theme that runs through all impressions is the life of the “common solider.” Few reenactors, especially among those whose impressions could be seen as inflammatory, claim any link with the politics or ideologies involved in the wars they reenact. Most reenactors will say that their interest in a particular side stems not from the politics, but in its representation of the “common solider,” the average guy who, for whatever reason, woke up one day and found himself fighting a war. Politics are conspicuously absent from most impressions; the goal is to represent what Jenny Thompson called “the soldier’s essential ‘neutrality’.”24 Even in the Civil War, where many of the reenactors are guided in their choices by their ancestral loyalties, the focus is on representing the individual soldier, his immediate needs and everyday life, not the larger ideological issues for which the war was supposedly fought. The lack of focus on ideological issues creates a universal ideal of the soldier that supposedly transcends differences of nationality or other perspectives, especially in twentieth-century reenacting. In fact, most reenactors believe that, underneath, all of the grunts in a war wanted the same things: a hot meal, a shower, and to go home. A major focal point of difference on the battlefield centers upon portraying the “bad guys” in a given war. First, there is the task of

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determining just who is the bad guy. Twentieth-century Germany is the obvious surface choice. There is a general consensus among twentiethcentury reenactors that German Army enthusiasts are “one brick shy of a full load,”25 and that the presence of German Army impressions at public events is a potential disaster because the media focuses on those reenactors in the hopes of finding a neo-Nazi.26 It becomes more difficult, however, to distinguish between “us” and “them” at other events. The Texas Revolution’s Battle of Coleto/Goliad “Massacre” reenactment has made attempts in recent years to balance the story and show how bad judgment on both sides resulted in the deaths of 342 men. (In the end, however, it still paints the Mexican Army as the murderer of innocent Texian soldiers.) And Civil War events are particularly fractious, as differentiating the good from the bad largely comes down to which side a reenactor represents, regardless of who won the war. Confederate reenactors counter stories of Southern atrocities with tales of Northern ones, and insist that the War Between the States was fought over states’ rights, not slavery. The reasons that a reenactor may choose to play the defeated enemy in a conflict are numerous. In addition to heritage, a number of reenactors choose Texas Revolutionary Mexican Army,27 Civil War Union Army, and twentieth-century German impressions because, in their opinions, the uniforms are better-looking.28 On the other hand, because Confederate uniforms were not as set in their look as their sharper, Union counterparts, many hardcore reenactors consider the challenge of achieving an authentic Confederate “look” to be the ultimate symbol of authenticity. The need for this particular type of difference in a reenactment is obvious. Without “the enemy,” a reenactment cannot function; there is no conflict. People who portray enemy characters such as WWI or WWII Germans believe that their impressions are not only necessary for a successful event, they are vital to the educational mission that reenacting purports to advocate. Many German Army reenactors believe it is possible to honor the common soldier while being cognizant of the larger machine of which he was a part and not cause offense to veterans, war survivors, or the general public—provided that nobody does a Waffen SS impression.29 Notably absent from this discussion of othering on the battlefield are representations of gender and race. Reenactments in the United States are primarily white, male affairs. In her survey of twentieth-century battle reenactors, Jenny Thompson determined that “they’re overwhelmingly white (97.8 percent) and male (96.8 percent).”30 Gender and race are subjects for authentic debate, as many hardcore reenactors find the presence of women, even as support staff such as nurses and war

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correspondents, to be farby. Likewise, allowing Latinos, AfricanAmericans, and Asian-Americans to participate with white reenactors in twentieth century units that were traditionally segregated is as frowned upon as allowing a three-hundred-pound man to play a starving Confederate soldier. Disallowing the presence of persons who do not “look right” is defended as necessary to preserve authenticity; to allow a person to play anyone he/she wanted would be bowing, in the minds of some reenactors, to revisionist political correctness and dilute the hobby’s educational mission. Yet there are ways that difference, within these confines, can also be used to subvert the master narrative of mainstream history. In 2005, a new wrinkle appeared in the representation of “Mexicans” during the Battle of Coleto/Goliad Massacre reenactment. I met Latino reenactors, there, who saw their role as one of subversion. Two members of the Mexican Army, Rudi Rodriguez and Gus Martinez, seek to break down the traditional, “whitewashed” history of the Revolution by inserting a Latino perspective.31 To this end, neither man will “cross-dress”—not even as Tejano characters—if they support the Revolution; each plays only Mexican Army soldiers. When in first-person they base their impressions upon actual Mexicans and Tejanos from the period. Unlike many of their counterparts at Goliad, for whom the reenactment is a chance to dress up in a spiffy uniform, these two reenactors see their roles as an opportunity to make the performances more culturally authentic. They, and others like them, are working to help insert Latinos into the whitewashed history of the Texas Revolution, a history that has traditionally portrayed the “Mexican” as a faceless, vicious enemy. In the end, however, it is the differences off the battlefield, not on, that define the essence of a reenactor. The ultimate “period rush” is death and, therefore, unachievable; the bullets are blanks. If someone does die, which is rare, it is due to health reasons or his neglect of the numerous safety rules. Many hardcore reenactors, then, decline to even participate in actual battle events, preferring instead to focus on those parts of the soldier’s experience which are achievable: sleeping outside in bad weather, eating rations, going on forced marches. By immersing themselves in the minutiae of the soldier’s life—the immediate concerns—reenactors not only avoid dealing with the political motivations for the conflicts they represent, they also are able to reduce war, “the most unfathomable event in human history,” to something that is imaginable and comprehendable, albeit without the attached political contexts of an individual conflict.32 The distinctness of the details provide a patina of similarity—the experience of the common soldier—that masks the very real differences

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implicit in their impressions and the arguments of authenticity which make those differences possible. So, then, what is difference to the battle reenactor? On its website, the Indiana-based 5th Viginia, Co. D, a Civil War reenacting group, posts what it calls the “creed of the living historian”: We are part of the future they died for. They are part of the past that bought the future. What they did—the lives they lived, the sacrifices they made, the stories they told and the songs they sung and finally, the deaths they died—make up part of our own experience. We cannot cut ourselves off from it. It is as real to us as something that happened last week.33

There is, according to this credo, no difference to the battle reenactor between historical impression and contemporary life. They are but two facets of the essence that foregrounds reenactors and their craft as unique. When battle reenacting units like the 5th Virginia claim to be “Honoring the Past, Educating the Present, Preserving for the Future,” they are performing a multi-faceted, simultaneous function of their views of living history. This is a history that is alive today and vitally needed by the general public. By performing history today, they create a living memorial of the past in the present. Yet their modes of representation, struggle for authenticity, and obfuscation of larger political agendas in favor of minute, common details reveal the very real questions of difference lurking beneath the stereotypical image of the battle reenactor. By questioning these stereotypes, historians can come to a fuller and richer understanding of the issues that emerge in the processes, performances, and reception of these rapidly-expanding “living histories.”

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NOTES John Fletcher, “Ten-Foot-Pole Historiography” 1

Phelps’s infamous website, “God Hates Fags” ( http://www.godhatesfags.com. [Accessed February 27, 2006]), contains an extensive archive of articles, interviews, and media links. See also The Signs of the Times Homepage ( [Accessed February 27, 2006]) for a growing collection of short movies by Westboro church members (including Phelps himself) in which they explain the rationale behind various tactics and messages. 2 On their website, Westboro posts a scanned copy of one of their flyers, which touts the message “All nations must immediately outlaw sodomy (homosexuality) and impose the death penalty!” (Westboro, “God Hates Fags Homepage,” Featured section). 3 See Judy Keen, “Funeral Protesters Say Laws Can’t Silence Them; Their Belief: Troops Dying because USA Tolerates Gays.” USA Today, September 14, 2006, Final Edition: 5A. More recent coverage of Phelps deals with ongoing attempts by state and local governments to restrict his groups’ protests of funerals. See, for example, Carl Manning, “House and Senate Moving Closer on Funeral Picketing Bill,” (Associated Press, March 9, 2007, Lexis-Nexis, ([Accessed March 13, 2007]). 4 For a striking example, see “The Truth For Youth,” an evangelical ministry aimed at reaching young adults through comic books. Their publication about homosexuality, Born That Way, features the main characters (young, “normal” people) caught in a gang-war-style battle between conflict between violent homosexual activists and militant anti-gay forces who wield signs reading “Kill the Fags.” The Christian character (the mouthpiece for Truth For Youth) portrays her opposition to homosexuality as a peaceful, reasonable alternative to the violence of either side (Tim Todd Ministries. The Truth for Youth Homepage. http://www.truthforyouth.com/standard/main.htm.. 5 See Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political (New York City: Verso, 2005). 6 Mouffe 13. 7 “Christianity is not a game,” argues Phelps on his website, “consisting of who can get the most people to repent. Our job is simply to preach, and by the foolishness of our preaching, we hope that people will be saved. However, Jesus is the Savior, not us. No man can come unto Him unless the Father in heaven draws him. (Westboro, “God Hates Fags Homepage,” FAQ section). 8 To watch and hear Phelps himself explain this etymology, visit Fred Phelps, “God Hates Fags” Explanation. (http://animation.speakfree.net/video/sott/wmv/ghf.wmv. [Accessed February 27, 2006]). 9 Phelps and his followers use this rationale to justify their protests of Iraqi war

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veterans via signs like “Thank God for I.E.Ds.” 10 Fred Phelps, in “Interview with A. J. Daulerio,” The Black Table. April 2, 2003. (Accessed February 27, 2006). 11 Jacques Rancière, Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy, trans. Julie Rose (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1997) 26-7. 12 Westboro Baptist Church. God Hates America Homepage. (Accessed February 27, 2006). 13 See Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998). 14 Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven: Yale UP, 1997) 9. 15 Mouffe 146-7. 16 Michel Foucault, Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: New York Press, 1997) 256. 17 Patriot Guard Rider Homepage, http://www.patriotguard.org. (Accessed February 27, 2006). 18 Slavoj Žižek, Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the (Mis)use of a Notion (New York: Verso, 2001) 3-4. 19 Žižek 3-4. Henry Bial, “The Play Review as a Means of Querying Difference” 1 William Goldman, The Season: A Candid Look at Broadway (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969), 70. 2 Marvin Carlson, Theatre Semiotics: Signs of Life (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 15. 3 Clive Barnes, “Angelically Gay About Our Decay,” New York Theatre Critics Reviews 54,11 (1993), 210. 4 See Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971). 5 See J.L. Austin, How to Do Things With Words (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962). 6 See Henry Bial, Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethicity on the American Stage and Screen (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005). 7 Wendy Wasserstein, Shiksa Goddess: Or, How I Spent My Forties (New York: Knopf, 2001), 4. 8 See, for example, Butler’s “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal 40, 4 (1988), 519-31. 9 Linda Winer, “Pulitzer-Winning ‘Angels’ Emerges from the Wings,” New York Theatre Critics Reviews 54, 11 (1993), 209. 10 Winer, 209. 11 Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millenium Approaches (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1993), 11.

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Robert Shimko, “Who is the Historical Theatre Historian?” 1

Peter Holland, “Series Introduction: Redefining British Theatre History,” Theorizing Practice: Redefining Theater History, ed. W.B. Worthen with Peter Holland (New York: Palgrave, 2003) xvii. 2 Michel De Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York: Columbia UP, 1988) 11. 3 Ronald W. Vince, Renaissance Theatre: A Historiographical Handbook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984) x. 4 Vince xi. 5 Peter Holland, “A History of Histories” in Theorizing Practice: Redefining Theater History. 6 Jacky Bratton, New Readings in Theatre History (New York: Cambridge, 2003). 7 T. Carlos Jacques, “When Does the Critic Speak? A Study of Foucaults’s Genealogy,” (1991) Michel Foucault: Critical Assessments vol. 3, ed. Barry Smart (New York: Routledge, 1994) 98. 8 Shannon Jackson, Professing Performance : Theatre in the Academy from Philology to Performativity (New York : Cambridge, 2004) 82. 9 De Certeau 21. 10 De Certeau 6. 11 De Certeau 3. 12 Thomas Heywood, “To my Worthy Friend, Master Thomas Hammon…” in Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, (London: 1633) no page number. 13 Vince 85. 14 For an overview of Cavendish’s dramatic work, see Dale B.J. Randall, Winter Fruit: English Drama 1642-1660 (Lexington, KY: UP of Kentucky, 1995) 313318. 15 Richard Flecknoe, “A Short Discourse of the English Stage,” Love’s Kingdom (London: 1664) no page number. All following quotes from this essay, which does not have page numbers in the original, will not be footnoted. 16 Holland 13. Alan Sikes, “The Trouble with Tribades” 1

Elizabeth Colwill, “Pass as a Woman, Act Like a Man: Marie Antoinette as Tribade in the Pornography of the French Revolution.” Marie Antoinette: Writings on the Body of a Queen, Ed. Dena Goodman (New York: Routledge, 2003) 139170. 140. 2 Hekma, et al., “Leftist Politics and Homosexuality,” Journal of Homosexuality 29. 2/3 (New York: Haworth, 1995). 3 Hekma, et al., 3 4 Hekma, et al., 8 5 Anonymous. Le Branle des Capucins. Reprinted in Fleischmann, Hector. MarieAntoinette: Libertine (Paris: Bibliothèque des Curieux, 1911) 55. 6 Le Branle des Capucins, 165.

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7 Jeffrey Merrick, “The Marquis de Villette and Mademoiselle de Raucourt.” Homosexuality in Modern France. Ed. Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. (New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 30—53) 40. 8 Merrick, 41. 9 Anonymous, “Confessions of a Young Girl.” Excerpted from The English Spy. Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection. Ed. Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. (New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 137-151) 145. 10 “Confessions of a Young Girl,” 147. 11 “Confessions of a Young Girl,” 147 12 “Confessions of a Young Girl,” 148. 13 Anonymous, “Liberty, or Mademoiselle Raucourt to the Whole Anandrine Sect, Assembled in the Entry Hall of the Comèdie Française.” Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection. Ed. Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. (New York: Oxford UP, 2001. 204–212) 208. 14 “Liberty,” 208. 15 “Liberty,” 204. 16 “Liberty,” 205. 17 “Liberty,” 206. 18 While the Raucourt of the Liberty text issues tribadic calls to action that seem to link her with Revolutionary activity, it is important to note that the historical Raucourt is more often linked to the royalist sentiments she is heard to echo in the opening lines of the pamphlet itself. Merrick notes that a number of ‘patriotic’ pamphleteers often accused her of hostility toward the Revolution, adding that “the Jacobins almost had the last word with Raucourt, who was arrested, along with other theatrical suspects, on 3 September 1793” (45). Doubtless, her association with the Comèdie Française, an institution long supported by the ancien regime, rendered Raucourt suspicious in the eyes of the leaders of the Terror. Merrick remarks that Raucourt was released from prison when the Terror ended, adding that “she encountered other difficulties during the Directory but resumed her career triumphantly under the Consulate” (45). Merrick also notes that Consulturned-Emperor Bonaparte displayed his own fondness for Raucourt by taking her on tour with him throughout the Empire—a fact that links her to another autocratic, if not ancien, regime. Yet, I maintain that the ascription of royalist leanings to the historical Raucourt do little to mitigate her connection to Revolutionary activity intimated by the Liberty pamphlet; indeed, the disjunction between the historical Raucourt and her satirical counterpart only heightens the indeterminate political status of the figure of the tribade.

Shauna Vey, “The Master and the Mademoiselle” 1

Clipper, 25 February 1860. NY Times, 20 December 1863. Entered as evidence in a lawsuit (James R. McDonald vs. Spenser Q. Stokes et al.) a letter from the King of Sardinia presenting Zoyara with a stallion. “Ella Zoyara” Obituary, San Francisco Chronicle, 28 May 1879.

2

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3

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See NY Tribune, 15-28 January 1860. Clipper, 25 February 1860. 5 Clipper, 3, 10 March 1860. 6 Clipper, 3, 10 March 1860. 7 Clipper, 3, 10 March 1860. 8 Clipper, 3, 10 March 1860. 9 “Ella Zoyara,” San Francisco Chronicle, 28 May 28, 1879; Clipper, 17 May 1879; “Spenser Q. Stokes Death,” New York Times 1 March 1888. Twenty years earlier (28 January 1860), the NY Tribune wrote that Zoyara was a German boy picked up by Stokes. 10 NY Tribune ad of 16 January 1860 sites performances in 1854 (Vienna) and 1855 (Turin, Sardinia). See also note 2 above. 11 Clipper, 11 February 1860. 12 Clipper, 17 March 1860. 13 Brooklyn Eagle, 31 May 1860. 14 “Affairs in Boston,” New York Times, 24 March 1860. 15 Clipper, 4 February 1860. 16 Clipper, 11 February 1860 17 Eric Lott, Love and Theft (Oxford, 1993); Robert Toll: Blacking Up (Oxford, 1974). 18 Toll, 72. 19 Toll, 72. 20 Toll, 87. 21 Lott records that Olive Logan, writing in 1875, claimed that Barney Williams was the first wench (157). 22 Clipper, 5 May 1860, 7 September 1861, reprinted from Liverpool [England] Mail 10 August 1861; G. R. MacMinn, The Theatre of the Golden Era in California (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1941), 437. 23 Clipper, 4 February 1860. 24 New Orleans Picayune, 3 February 1859. 25 Several members of George Christy’s minstrel troupe felt that he had treated them unfairly. Unable to obtain a fair settlement, the most prominent members, Master Eugene notable among them, staged an exodus. On February 4, 1860 Master Eugene was headlining for Christy. By March 3d, he was starring with Hooley and Campbell’s. Christy advertised his Mr. Zoyara on February 25th. The loss of a star female impersonator must have created a void in Christy’s troupe while the Zoyara question was the talk of the town. It would have been difficult for Christy to find a female impersonator of Mater Eugene’s stature. By creating his own Zoyara, Christy was able to present a female impersonator who would not be compared to the star who deserted him. 26 Lott, 24; Toll, 32, 44. 27 For the inspiration for this argument I am indebted to Tracey C. Davis, “Shotgun Wedlock: Annie Oakley’s Power Politics in the Wild West,” Gender in Performance, ed. Laurence Senelick (Hanover, NH: Tufts University, 1992), 14157. Davis juxtaposes the magic show with the “pretended meritocracy” of the Wild 4

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West show that emphasized the skill of the “scientist/athlete.” 28 Senelick, Introduction, Gender in Performance, xi. 29 Toll, 84. 30 Clipper, 28 January 1860. 31 “Affairs in Boston,” New York Times, 24 March 1860. 32 Lott, 35-6. 33 Toll, 72, 37. Kate Roark, “People Who Went to Ridicule Remained to Admire” 1

“Guildford, July 30. Civil Side, Unlicensed Theatricals, Dunn v. Davidge.” Times (London) July 31, 1828. This lawsuit was filed by the Drury Lane’s secretary and treasurer James Dunn, against the Coburg Theatre’s manager George Bolwell Davidge. Though filed under Dunn’s name, Price was the man in control of the Drury Lane, and the decision to sue the Coburg must have been his. 2 “Report and Minutes of the Select Committee on Dramatic Literature (1832) in Parliamentary Papers, Reports from Committees, 18 vol, 6, 1290. 3 Dunn v. Davidge. 4 William Dunlap, History of American Drama. 1833, 85. 5 Waters, “Ira Aldridge and the Battlefield of Race,” Race Class 45 (2003): 1-30. 6 In 1833, Aldridge was engaged at the Covent Garden theatre for the first time, and followed that with a successful run at the Surrey Theatre, then under the management of Osbaldiston. Davidge became manager of the Surrey Theatre the following year (1834) and again engaged Aldridge in 1838. See Knight, William G., A Major London ‘Minor’: the Surrey Theatre 1805-1865 (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1997). 7 Aldridge repeatedly claimed to have started his career with the African Theatre in New York, both in his playbills, and in his Memoirs. However, no playbill or newspaper evidence of his ever appearing with the African Theatre is extant. See Shane White, Stories of Freedom in Black New York (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002) for more on the reliability of Aldridge’s claims. 8 On the likelihood that Price’s organized the harassments of the African Theatre, see Errol Hill and James Hatch, A History of African American Theatre (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003); 25-31; Samuel A. Hay, African American Theatre: A Historical and Critical Analysis (Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, 1994) 9-11; George A. Thompson, Jr., A Documentary History of the African Theatre (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1998) 107; Marvin McAllister, White People Do Not Know How To Behave At Entertainments Designed for Ladies and Gentlemen of Colour (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003) 148; and White, 83-85 and 93-96. 9 Thompson, 99-100. 10 Thompson, 103. 11 Thompson, 105. 12 Thompson, 87, citing New York Commercial Advertiser newspaper clipping for January 16, 1822.

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13 Thompson, 85. The New York Commercial Advertiser article was reprinted in the National Advocate, the New York American and in the National Advocate for the Country. 14 George C.D. Odell, Annals of the New York Stage, Vol. III, 1821-1834 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929) 582. See also Jonathan D. Sarna, Jacksonian Jew: The Two Worlds of Mordecai Noah (New York: Holmes & Meier: 1981). 15 Thompson, 85 citing Commercial Advertiser, 1/9/1822. 16 Ira Aldridge, Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius. (London: J. Onuhyn, 1849) 11. 17 One white competitor Price forced out of business at approximately the same time as the African Theatre was James West, the proprietor of a circus on Broadway, not far from the African Theatre’s location on Mercer Street. During the summer of 1822, when the attacks on Aldridge and Brown and the African Theatre riot took place, a severe outbreak of yellow fever caused Price’s Park Theatre to open their fall 1822 season at West’s Circus because people believed there was less risk of contagion in an open-air venue. Price’s Park Theatre company performed at West’s Circus from September 9 through November 4, when the yellow fever had passed. The following spring, Price created the impression that he was going to build his own circus, and as a result managed to buy out West’s entire business, including his engagements with performers, and even got West to agree not to establish another circus in the United States. The Belmont brothers and the other circus employees who participated in the riot at the African Theatre were employed at West’s Circus, and they became Price’s employees the following summer, when Price bought out West. Though these circus employees were not officially working for Price at the time of the assaults and the riot, the plans for Price’s Park Theatre company to occupy West’s Circus in September must have been underway by August when the riot and the attack on Brown occurred (Barnard Hewitt, “‘King Stephen’ of the Park and Drury Lane,” The Theatrical Managers in England and America: Players of a Perilous Game, ed. Joseph W. Dononhue Jr. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971] 109). When the African Theatre moved next door to the Park Theatre in 1821, Price had the police raid their theatre and the African Theatre moved to the outskirts of the city. The yellow fever outbreak in the summer of 1822 unfortunately made the Park Theatre and the African Theatre neighbors again, as Price moved his company to West’s Circus. This time, however, it appears that Price was determined to stop their competition before he moved into the neighborhood. The fact that the indictments against the Belmonts and the other rioters were never prosecuted also suggests they had friends in high places, and Price’s certainly had powerful connections with Sherriff Noah, and other important New Yorkers. George Thompson, historian of the African Theatre has concluded that “Price was certainly not above such a piece of villainy” (Thompson, 112). 18 McAllister, 7 and 9. 19 Herbert Marshall, and Mildred Stock, Ira Aldridge, The Negro Tragedian. (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1958) 54-55

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20

For more on the Master Betty, see Sandra K. Norton, William Henry West Betty: Romantic Child Actor (Dissertation, Univeristy of Missouri Columbia, 1976). For more on the Infant Roscius phenomenon, see Hazel Waters, ‘That Astonishing Clever Child’: Performers and Prodigies in the Early and Mid-Victorian Theatre,” Theatre Notebook 50.2, 78-94. and Lawrience Hutton, Curiosities of the American Stage (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1890). 21 Marshall and Stock, 54-56. 22 Marshall and Stock, 66, quoting Brighton Gazette, December 15, 1825. 23 Marshall and Stock, 66, quoting Brighton Gazette, December 15, 1825. 24 The Times, London, 31 July, 1828. 25 The Times, London, 31 July, 1828. 26 Allardyce Nicoll, A History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama, 1800-1850 (Cambridge, England: The University Press, 1930) v. 1, 90 and v2, 420 27 Nicoll, v2, 442. 28 The Times, London, 31 July, 1828. 29 The Times, London, 31 July, 1828. Dongshin Chang, “Proximity and the Demarcation of the Other” 1

Elkanah Settle (1648–1724), for example, utilized information about The Manchu Conquest reported by the Jesuit missionaries in China to write The Conquest of China by the Tartars, which was performed in 1675. See Edwin J. Van Kley, “News from China; Seventeenth-Century European Notices of the Manchu Conquest,” Journal of Modern History 45.4 (1973) 561–582; Adrian Hsia, “History as Fiction, Fiction as History: The Manchu Conquest of China in Dutch and English Drama of the 17th Century,” in his Chinesia: The European Construction of China in the Literature of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1998). The Fairy Queen (1692), an operatic version of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ends with “six pedestals of China-works” rising from under the stage; they “support six large vases of porcelain, in which are six China-Orange-trees.” See Elkanah Settle, The Fairy Queen: An Opera (London: Jacob Tonson, 1692), 48. 2 For biographical accounts of Dance and Talbot, see, for example, the entry of Dance in Kurt Gänzl, The Encyclopedia of Musical Theater, 2nd ed. (New York: Shirmer Books, 2001), 1:459–461 (hereafter cited as Encyclopedia); the entry of Dance in Gale Research Company, Who Was Who in the Theatre, 1912–1976: A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Directors, Playwrights, and Producers of the English-Speaking Theatre (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1978), 2:593 (hereafter cited as Who Was Who); the entry of Talbot in John Tyrrell and Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan and Grove’s Dictionaries, 2001). Dance’s birth date is uncertain. Who Was Who gives 1865 as his birth year, while Gänzl states that Dance was born in 1857 (Encyclopedia, 1:459). 3 For bibliographical accounts of Vernon and Owen, see, for example, the description of Vernon in the Harry M. Vernon Collection kept at the Margaret

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Herrick Library, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, http://www.oscars.org/mhl/sc/vernon_184.html; the entry of Vernon in John Parker, ed., Who’s Who in the Theatre: A Biographical Record of the Contemporary Stage, 9th ed. (New York: Pitman, 1939), 1484, and the entry of Owen in Who Was Who, 3:1860. Parker gives Vernon’s birth date as 1878, which is different from that (1880) in the description of the Harry M. Vernon Collection. 4 For bibliographical accounts of Hazelton and Benrimo, see, for example, the entry of Hazelton in Allen Johnson and others, ed., Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1946?–1958), vol. 4, pt. 2, 475– 476; the entry of Benrimo in Parker, Who’s Who in the Theatre, 298–299; “J. Harry Benrimo, Actor, Playwright,” New York Times, March 27, 1942, 23. 5 Among the three plays, only The Yellow Jacket has received substantial examination from modern critics, most of whom criticize its portrayals of China and the Chinese as caricaturized and mysterified. See, for example, Crystyn Moon, “From Aversion to Fasciantion: New Lyrics and Voices, 1880s–1920s,” in Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s–1920s (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005), 114–118; Dave Williams, “The State and the Self-Sacrificing Woman: The Daughter of Heaven and The Yellow Jacket,” in Misreading the Chinese Character (New York: Peter Lang, 2000), 157–174; Wenwei Du, “Traditional Chinese Theatre on Broadway,” in Cultural Encounters: China, Japan, and the West, ed. Søren Clausen, Roy Starrs, and Anne Wedell-Wedellsborg (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 1995), 197, 206–207; Erika Fischer-Lichte, “What Are the Rules of the Game? Some Remarks on The Yellow Jacket,” Theatre Survey 36 (May 1995) 21–36. 6 J. P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1900–1909: A Calendar of Plays and Players (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1981), 1:123–124; Gänzl, Encyclopedia, 1:364– 366; The British Musical Theatre (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 1:720. Wearing records that A Chinese Honeymoon had a consecutive run of 1,071 performances (123), while Gänzl states that it had a run of 1,075 (British Musical Theatre, 1:725). 7 George Dance and Howard Talbot, A Chinese Honeymoon. Musical Comedy, Nineteenth Century English Drama: Plays Submitted to the Lord Chamberlain ([1902]; reprint, New Canaan, CT: Readex, 1985–) (hereafter cited as Honeymoon). This program, reproduced in microfiche, is undated. However, it includes the song “Tit-bits from the Plays” that comments on contemporary productions. The most recent play it describes is Ulysses, produced between February and May, 1902. 8 Ronald Pearsall, Edwardian Popular Music (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1975) 11. 9 For the lyrics of The Geisha, see Sidney Jones, The Geisha; A Story of a Tea House (London: Hopwood and Crew, 1896). Synopses of its story are provided in Gänzl, Encyclopedia, 1:731–733; British Musical Theatre, 1:585–590. Other examples of interracial courtship besides The Geisha include San Toy (1899), set in China, which features the love affair between a mandarin’s daughter and a

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British captain, and Florodora (1899), set in the Philippines, which depicts the confusion of courtships between the British and the natives. For discussions of these two musicals, see, for example, Gänzl, Encyclopedia, 1:665–668, 3:1790– 1792. 10 For the libretto of The Mikado, see, for example, W. S. Gilbert, The Best Known Works of W. S. Gilbert (New York: Illustrated Editions, 1932) 101–161. 11 Dance and Talbot, Honeymoon, 5, 19. 12 Ibid., 9–10, 79–80. 13 J. P. Wearing, The London Stage, 1910–1919, A Calendar of Plays and Players (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1982) 1:402–403. 14 Harry Vernon and Harold Owen, “Mr. Wu,” The Lord Chamberlain’s Plays, 1913/36 (1913), Department of Manuscripts, the British Library (hereafter cited as “Mr. Wu”). 15 Vernon and Owen, “Mr. Wu,” 3: 6, 16. 16 Heidi J. Holder, “Melodrama, Realism and Empire on the British Stage,” in Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790–1930, J. S. Bratton and others (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991) 146–147. 17 Wearing, The London Stage, 1910–1919, 1:328. 18 George C. Hazelton and J. Harry Benrimo, The Yellow Jacket: A Chinese Play Done in a Chinese Manner in Three Acts (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1913). 19 J. Harry Benrimo, “Legend and Truth: The Facts about ‘The Yellow Jacket,’ Again in Revival Here,” New York Times, November 4, 1928, p. 118. 20 The Billy Rose Theatre Collections of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts holds the “George Cochrane Hazelton Papers, 1848–1941” (hereafter cited as Hazelton Papers), which contain various editions of manuscripts, correspondence, programs and clippings of reviews of The Yellow Jacket. There are also additional programs and clippings of The Yellow Jacket kept in this library. In addition, the Manuscripts and Archives Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, New York Public Library, keeps the collection of “Joseph Henry Benrimo Papers, 1906–1941” (hereafter cited as Benrimo Papers), which contains correspondence and manuscripts of The Yellow Jacket. Together these resources provide rich information about how The Yellow Jacket took shape, how it was staged and how the audiences responded to its depiction of China and the employment of Chinese theatre conventions. The piece of paper with the characters’ names in English and corresponding Cantonese soundings is included in Benrimo Papers; the Chinese business card is included in Hazelton Papers, Box 29 (29,007), fol. 9. 21 J. Harry Benrimo, “Legend and Truth.” 22 See, for example, “‘A Chinese Honeymoon,’ at the Strand,” Illustrated London News, October 12, 1901, p. 520. 23 See, for example, “Strand Theatre,” Times, October 7, 1901, p. 5; “‘A Chinese Honeymoon,’ at the Strand,” Sketch, October 9, 1901, p. 462; “The Strand,” Stage, October 10, 1901, p. 14; “A Chinese Honeymoon,” Era, October 12, 1901, p. 15; “‘A Chinese Honeymoon,’ at the Strand,” Illustrated London News, October 12, 1901, p. 520.

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24

“Strand Theatre,” Times, October 7, 1901, p. 5. “The Playhouses: ‘Mr. Wu’ at the Strand,” Illustrated London News, December 6, 1913, p. 976. 26 “An Anglo-Chinese Play: ‘Mr. Wu’ at the Strand,” Times, November 28, 1913, p. 12; “London Theatres: The Strand,” Stage, December 4, 1913, p. 26; John Palmer, “The Worst Play in London,” Saturday Review, May 9, 1914, p. 598. 27 “Things New: At the Theatres,” Sketch, December 3, 1913, p. 260. 28 “The Yellow Jacket,” Era, March 29, 1913, p. 14; “The Duke of York’s,” Stage, April 3, 1913, p. 20; “Duke of York’s Theatre: ‘The Yellow Jacket,’” Times, March 28, 1913, p. 10; “The Playhouses,” Illustrated London News, April 5, 1913, p. 444. 29 “Duke of York’s Theatre: ‘The Yellow Jacket,’” Times, March 28, 1913, p. 10; “The Yellow Jacket: Simple Chinese Play Delights a London Audience. The Glorification of Pretence,” Sketch, n.d., quoted from Hazelton Papers, Box 48 (29,026), 50. 30 E. F. S. (Monocle), “The Stage from the Stalls: ‘The Yellow Jacket’ in an English Dress,” Sketch, April 9, 1913, 10. 31 “The Theatre: In the Chinese Manner,” Globe, March 28, 1913; “‘The Yellow Jacket’: A Chinese Play Given in the Chinese Manner,” Daily News and Leader, March 28, 1913; “In the Chinese Manner: An Oriental Play—Without an Oriental Audience,” Daily Graphic, March 28, 1913. All of these reviews are quoted from Hazelton Papers, Box 48 (29,026), 51, 54–55. 25

Gibb, “The paduanos” 1

Carey McWilliams, North from Mexico: the Spanish-Speaking People of the United States (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1949) 43. 2 McWilliams 46. 3 The term “Mexican-American” is anachronistic here. In 1930s California, the word “Mexican” was most often employed, by both Anglos and U.S. citizens of Mexican descent. I need to make distinctions, however, between the mostly U.S.born Padua Institute employees and Mexican citizens, as well as between them and later Chicano theatre artists. I will therefore use “Mexican-American,” although that term is by no means unproblematic. 4 Matt García, himself a descendent of paduanos, has related the history of the troupe in several publications, including “‘Just Put On That Padua Hills Smile’: The Mexican Players and the Padua Hills Theatre, 1931-1974” in California History 74: 3 (Fall 1995) 244-261; “Adjusting the Focus: Padua Hills Theatre and Latino History,” OAH Magazine of History 10 (Winter 1996); and “Intercultural Relations and Popular Culture in the San Gabriel Valley: Padua Hills Theatre and El Monte’s American Legion Stadium,” California Politics and Policy (1998), 1927. In A World of Its Own: Race, Labor, and Citrus in the Making of Greater Los Angeles, 1900-1970 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001), García argues that the Mexican Players were “strategic essentialists” (152). For a less favorable interpretation of the paduanos’ agency, see Alicia Arrizón,

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“Contemporizing Performance: Mexican California and the Padua Hills Theatre,” Mester Special Double Issue 22:2 (Fall 1993) & 23:1 (Spring 1994), 5-30. 5 “Californio” was the name many pre-conquest Mexican Californians used to define themselves. 6 Matt García, “Interview of Casilda Amador Thoreson, 5-19-1995” (California Case, Pomona Public Library Special Collections) 15. 7 Quoted in García, A World of Its Own, 143. 8 Accented English is clearly indicated in scripts for the afterpieces. See “La Jamaíca, Summer 1936” (Padua Theater/Mexican Players Collection, Pomona Public Library Special Collections). 9 Casilda Amador Thoreson mentions the theme park project in her 1995 interview with Matt García (10). García notes the record of Disney’s frequent visits found in the Padua Hills guestbooks (A World of Its Own, 287, n. 75). 10 A complete listing of the Mexican Players’ repertoire from the 1930-1931 season to the 1961-1962 season can be found in Pauline Deuel, Mexican Serenade: The Story of the Mexican Players and the Padua Hills Theatre (Claremont: Padua Institute, 1961) 63-75. 11 “La Jamaíca, Summer 1936,” n.p. 12 Rafaela Castro, Chicano Folklore: A Guide to the Folktales, Traditions, Rituals and Religious Practices of Mexican-Americans (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 17. 13 Deuel, 33; García, “Just Put On That Padua Hills Smile,” 254. 14 Evidence of such sabotage can be found in the “La Jamaíca, Summer 1936” script, probably written by paduano Juan Matute. In the script, the character “Juan,” supposedly the inhabitant of a Mexican village overjoyed to receive U.S. tourists, says that he has worked “in the Mexican Plays at Padua Hills.” With that line, Matute reveals the charade being performed, destroying any illusion audience members may have of temporarily leaving Claremont for the simple pleasures of an imagined Mexican vacation. 15 Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Destination Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) 65. 16 Castro notes: “It was the influence of the Chicano civil rights movement, el movimiento chicano, that launched the institution of ballets folklóricos as symbols of a Mexican American cultural identity.” (Chicano Folklore, 17). Martinovich, “Haunted Landscapes” 1

Ping Chong, “Deshima” in The East/West Quartet, (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004), p. 46. 2 Ping Chong, “Chinoiserie” in The East/West Quartet, (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004), 78. 3 The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 10th edition, ed. Judy Pearsall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 247. 4 The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 10th edition. ed. Judy Pearsall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) 1517, 596.

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5

Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1976) 95. 6 Anne Anlin Cheng, The Melancholy of Race (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 142. 7 Chong, “Deshima”, 22. 8 Chong, “Deshima”, 21. 9 Herbert Blau, Take up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1982) 28. 10 Chong, “Chinoiserie”, 107. 11 Peter Buse and Andrew Stott, “Introduction: A Future for Haunting” in Ghosts: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, History, ed. by Peter Buse and Andrew Stott (London: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1999) 15. 12 13

Chong, “Deshima”, 23, 24.

Buse and Stott, 9. 14 Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 1996) 67. 15 Dorinne Kondo, About Face: Performing Race in Fashion and Theater (New York: Routledge, 1997) 208. 16 Michel Foucault, “Film and Popular Memory: An Interview with Michel Foucault”, trans. Martin Jordin, Radical Philosophy 11 (Summer 1975) 25-26. 17 Cheng, 69. 18 Cheng, 139. 19 Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994) 39. Katie N. Johnson, “From Camille to Lulu Belle” 1

David Carb, “Seen on the Stage,” Vogue Magazine 67 (April 1926): 116.-117. Carb, 116-17. 3 E. Patrick Johnson, Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003). 4 Harry Elam, “A Black Thing,” Theatre Journal, 57.4 (December 2005), 4. 5 “Best Plays,” Time Magazine 21 June 1926, n.p. 6 Arthur Dorlag and John Irvine, Ed. and Intr. The Stage Works of Charles MacArthur (Tallahassee: Florida State University Foundation, 1974), 12. 7 Gerald Bordman, American Theatre: A Chronicle of Comedy and Drama, 19141930 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 283. 8 “Mayor Stars War on Immoral Plays,” New York Times, 29 December 1926, 1. 9 See Katie Johnson, Sisters in Sin: Brothel Drama in America, 1900-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006). 10 Celebrated black actress Florence Mills refused to play Lulu because she found it degrading, in spite of the fact that the role of Lulu Belle may have been patterned after her. After white actress Helen Menken passed on the part, it was offered to Ulric, a Minnesota native who went on to make her fame in the part of 2

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Olympe in the 1937 film version of Camille. See “Some Plays on the Way,” New York Times, 23 August 1925, X1. 11 Charles MacArthur, “In Which the Playwright Interviews His Star,” New York Times, 28 March 1926, X1. 12 Larry Barretto, “The New Yorker,” Bookman 63 (April 1926), 216. 13 E. Patrick Johnson, 3. 14 James Weldon Johnson, Black Manhattan, (New York?: Da Capo Press, 1991), 205. 15 W.E.B. Dubois, quoted in “Colored Magazine on ‘Lulu Belle’ Players,” Variety, April 28, 1926, 72. 16 Sheldon and MacArthur, Lulu Belle, 37. 17 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York: Routledge, 1993), 2. 18 Sheldon and MacArthur, Lulu Belle, 45, 48. 19 “Colored Magazine on ‘Lulu Belle’ Players,” Variety, April 28, 1926, 72. 20 Douglass, quoted in Eric Lott, “Blackface and Blackness: the Minstrel Show in American Culture,” Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy, eds. Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara (Hanover: Wesleyan UP, 1996), 3. 21 22

Lott, 3.

“Boston to Bar ‘Lulu Belle,’ Mayor Unofficially Decides,” New York Times 24 March 1928: 11. 23 Brooks Atkinson, “Wages of Sin in Four Acts,” New York Times, 10 February 1926, 20. 24 Brooks Atkinson, “Benelli to Belasco,” New York Times, 14 February 1926, X1. 25 Barretto, 216. 26 Hubert H. Harrison, “The Significance of Lulu Belle,” Opportunity, 4 (July 1926), 229. 27 Stanley Appelbaum, ed., The New York Stage: Famous Productions in Photographs (New York: Dover, 1976), 74. 28 Langston Hughes, Big Sea (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), 228. 29 Carl Van Vechten became known for his frequent jaunts to Harlem. When his novel Nigger Heaven appeared in 1926 (the same year that Lulu Belle opened), it was heavily denounced by black critics. See Carl Van Vechten, Nigger Heaven, 1926 (New York: Octagon Books, 1973), 30 James V. Hatch, “The Harlem Renaissance,” A History of African American Theatre, eds. Errol Hill and James Hatch (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003), 215. 31 David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Knopf, 1981), 318. 32 Carb, 116. 33 Brooks Atkinson, “Drama As Acting,” X1. 34 Brooks Atkinson, “Wages of Sin in Four Acts,” 20. 35 Hughes, 224-35. 36 “Glorifying the Harlem Girl (picture)” New York Times 5 September, 1926,

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RPA2. 37 See, for instance, “Presenting the Holiday Attractions,” New York Times, 26 December, 1926, X2. 38 Ruth Dennis, “Lulu Belles—All?” New York Amsterdam News, March 24, 1926, 5. 39 Dennis 5. 40 Sheldon and MacArthur, 26-27. As Carl Van Vechten noted in the glossary of his controversial chronicle of Harlem slumming, Nigger Heaven, “yellow” and “punkin” were black slang for “mulatto.” See Van Vechten, 285-86. 41 Sheldon and MacArthur, 55. 42 Atkinson, “Wages of Sin,” 20 and Carb 116. 43 Wallace Thurman, The Collected Writings of Wallace Thurman: A Harlem Renaissance Reader, ed. Amiritjit Singh and Daniel M. Scott (New York: Rutgers University Press, 2003), 372. 44 Brooks Atkinson, “Up ‘Harlem’ Way,” New York Times 3 March 1929, xi. 45 Thurman, 243. 46 David Krasner, A Beautiful Pageant: African AmericanTtheatre, Drama, and Performance in the Harlem Renaissance, 1910-1927 (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 196. 47 Krasner, 213. 48 Steven Watson, The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African American Culture, 1920-1930 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996), 106). 49 Laban Carrick Hill, Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance (New York: Megan Tingley, 2004 ), 107 50 James Weldon Johnson, 206. 51 Harrison, 229. 52 Barretto, 216. 53 E. Patrick Johnson, 6. 54 James Wilson, “That’s the Kind of Gal I Am: Drag Balls, Lulu Belles, and ‘Sexual Perversion’ in the Harlem Renaissance,” in Staging Desire: Queer Readings of American Theater History,” edited by Kim Marra & Robert A Schanke, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 264. 55 Wilson, 264. 56 “Citizens Claim that Lulu Belle Club on Lenox Avenue is Notorious Dive,” New York Amsterdam News, February 15, 1928, n.p. See also “Battle on Among Broadway Elite of the ‘Third Sex,” Variety, March 7, 1928, 45. Michael Rothmayer, “The Moral Tetralogy” 1

Mervyn Rothstein, “Morality’s The Thing For This Playwright,” New York Times (12 March 1991, late ed., sec. C: 11ff) 1. 2 Robert Berkvist, “From ‘Breaking Away’ to ‘Division Street’–In Love With America,” New York Times (5 October 1980, late ed., sec. 2: 1, 4-5) 4. 3 Berkvist 4. 4 “The Wimping Of America,” unpublished essay, c. 1991, np. 5 Bruce Weber, “Critics and Defenders As Akalaitis Leaves The Public Theater,” The New York Times (16 March 1993, late ed. final. sec. C: 13). 6 “Breaking Down: Steve Tesich’s Bleak Vision Of America In Decline.” Chicago Tribune (23 April 1989, final ed., sec. Arts: 16ff) 16. 7 Tribune, 16. 8 Steve Tesich, The Speed of Darkness (New York: Samuel French, Inc., 1989). 9 Tribune, 16. 10 Rothstein, 11. 11 Helen Dudar, “Theater; As One Playwright Strikes Out for the Future….” New York Times (18, February 1990, late ed., sec. 2: 5ff) 5. 12 Steve Tesich, Square One (New York: Applause Theatre Book Publishers, 1990) 7-8. 13 Dudar, 5. 14 Steve Tesich, On The Open Road (New York: Applause Theatre Book Publishers, 1992). 15 Rebecca Morris, “Actor’s Interpretation Of Art Imitating Life.” Newsday (15 February 1993), 36. 16 Tesich, On the Open Road, 86. 17 Stephanie Coen, “Steve Tesich: The Only Kind of Real Rebel Left, He Figures, Is a Moral Person,” American Theatre 9.4 (July 1992) 30. 18 Steve Tesich, Arts and Leisure (New York: Samuel French, Inc.) 1997. 19 Tesich, Arts and Leisure, 63 20 Patrick Pacheco, “If All The World’s A Stage, Are All The Men And Women Merely Critics? Steve Tesich’s Arts & Leisure Is About People Who Voice Opinions And Then Have Supper And Go Home,” Newsday (19 May 1996, sec. Fanfare: C17). 21 Steve Tesich, “Niggerization: Everything, not just charity, begins at home,” unpublished essay, c. 1995. Julie Pearson-Little Thunder, “Acts of Transfer” 1

Regarding this phrase, Peter Nabakov writes, “It is the innately democratic virtue of much oral tradition” that its multiple versions “enrich the listener’s experience,” A Forest of Time (Cambridge University Press: University of California, Los Angeles, 2002) 40. Nabakov points out this phrase also serves as a cross-reference to “native glosses and commentaries” that “usually require an intimate awareness of the community’s different, perhaps contradictory microhistories to interpret.” 2 An ethos is “a value system governing collective behavior,” seen as crucial to ensuring the survival of the group, Delore Huff, To Live Heroically (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997) 70. As Huff observes, the fact that this value system is not always practiced on an individual basis, does not diminish its regulatory power over a group’s religious, family, economic and political systems. 3 Diana Taylor, The Archive and the Repertoire (Durham: Duke University Press, 2003).

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173

Taylor, 19, 18. Taylor, 19. 6 As Taylor points out, this is not to say that one can speak of “uninterrupted or authentic practices— as if there were such a thing—transmitted from one generation to the next, “Scenes of Cognition: Performance and Conquest,” Theater Journal 56:3 (2004) 371, 21. However, “even though the embodiment changes, the meaning might very well remain the same,” Archive and the Repertoire, 20. 7 I define Native theater as the intersection of Indian social space with western theater formats and conventions to create Indian theatrical space My reference to [Indian] social space is adapted from Henri Lefevbre, The Production of Social Space, trans. Donald Nicholson Smith (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). Indian theatrical space exists at the material level of enactment by Indian theater artists and the habitus of Native actors and audiences; at the symbolic level, as referents drawn from tribal spatial practice (which need not be mimetic); and at the material/ discursive level of critical reception, artistic praxis and the like. 8 Taylor, “The Archive and the Repertoire,” 2. 9 Taylor, 21. 10 Foghorn is published in New Native American Drama: Three Plays by Hanay Geoigamah (University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1980) 46-82. 11 Phyllis Brisson reports she was especially taken by Maggie Geoigamah’s acting in the piece—“I knew I wanted to do something like that,” taperecorded interview by author 4 Dec. 2004, Los Angeles, California. 11 Raven program, Inigo Theater. 12 Phyllis Brisson, 4 Dec. 2004. Among the actors who emigrated to Red Earth permanently were Bruce Gerald Miller and Keith Conway. Marie Antoinette Rogers worked with REPAC in Raven before taking a role in. REPAC staged two of Geoigamah’s plays in all—Body Indian and Coon Cons Coyote and each time it did one of Geoigamah’s plays, brought the playwright in as well. (Donald Matt, telephone interview 23 Oct. 2005). 13 Donald Matt, (telephone interview), 23 Oct. 2005. 14 Raven program, Oct. 1975, Inigo Theater, Seattle University, Red Earth scrapbook. 15 Frieda Kirk, taperecorded interview by author, 4 Dec. 2004, Los Angeles, California. 16 Raven program, Inigo Theater. 17 Matt, 23 Oct. 2005. 18 Luci Tapahanso qtd. by Peter Nabakov, in Matt, 40. 19 Tapahanso, in Matt, 40. 20 Louis Owens, Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian Novel (University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, 1992), 10. “The emphasis in storytelling falls […] not upon the creative role of the storyteller but upon the communal nature of the stories, with the ‘outcome’ of each story already being known to the audience.” 21 Matt, Oct. 23. Frieda Kirk was part Klamath but she was also half Sioux. Matt 5

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was Flathead, another Washington tribe, but an inland tribe, not a coastal tribe. 22 Taylor, “Performance and Conquest,” 371. 23 Taylor, “Performance and Conquest,” 364. “The term, performance, suggests both a praxis and an episteme.” 24 The Oxford Concise Dictionary, 9th ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), describes the gavotte as a “medium-paced French dance popular eighteenth century,” 561. 25 Matt, Oct. 23. 26 Edward Bruner qtd. by Dwight Conquergood, “Performance Theory, Hmong Shamans, and Cultural Politics” in Critical Theory and Performance, ed. Janelle G. Reinelt and Joseph R. Roach (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992) 51. 27 Bruce Miller wrote Changer for a state arts grant, interview by telephone with author, 6 Jan. 2005. It was adapted from a Skokomish creation story, dealing with ‘“the time of capsizing’ during which Dukweebaht, the changer, was sent to change the world,” unpublished manuscript, Red Earth scrapbook, 1. Coon Cons Coyote by Hanay Geoigamah was based upon a poem by Jerome Rothenberg of the same name and adapted by Rothenberg from a Nez Perce tribal epic, in Stories of Our Way. ed. Hanay Geoigamah and Jaye T. Darby, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999, 357-444. 28 Gerald Vizenor qtd. by Jayce Weaver in Other Words (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001) 246. 29 According to Brisson, from the moment Miller joined the group, he brought with him a delight in improvising during performance, interview with author by telephone, 6 Jan. 2005. Gina Gray who performed in Miller’s play, Changer, recalls, “Whatever was on the page was not what came out of that man’s mouth. It was a combination of cartoons and storytelling […] he was so animated with his face and body language,” personal interview, 21 July, 2005. 30 Kirk, 6 Dec. 2004. In its production of Coon Cons Coyote contemporary costuming elements were added to this playing style, debunking the notion that traditional stories should always be serious, high-minded, and fixed in the past. 31 Jean and John Comaroff qtd. in Circe Sturm’s Blood Politics (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2002) 23. While this statement seems obvious, it is important to note that Native habitus is not single but multiple and complexly layered. It is shot through with numerous influences—family, personal, regional, national, geographic and the like—which are constantly in flux, and subject to historicization. Expectations about Native habitus may produce internal stereotyping on the part of Indian people towards other Indians , expressed in the indictment of someone who “acts white.” At the other end of the spectrum, are judgments offered up by (mostly) white movie casting agents, and often based upon the latest Indian movie, about what kinds of physical movement and what kinds of accents look or sound “Indian.” Members of American Indian Theater Company of Oklahoma ran into this type of discrimination on a frequent basis during the 1970s Indian movie wave, according to J.R. Mathews, taperecorded interview by author, 4 Sept. 2004, Miami, Oklahoma.

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32 Discussing the habitus of Native actors on stage also requires acknowledging the spectatorial lens, itself a product of habitus, which Native spectators bring to the theater. The culturally-determined lens of spectatorship encourages particular readings, filtered through the habitus of audience members. 33 When Raven opened, there were only a few Indian spectators present, primarily friends and family of the actors. However, news of the show quickly spread until Indians made up half the house, Phyllis Brisson, interview by author by telephone, 6 Jan. 2005. 34 This phrase Ibid. Explains Brisson, “People were curious to see what we were doing.” 35 Peggy Phalen qtd. by Camille F. Forbes, “Dancing with Racial Feet,” Theater Journal 56:4 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press) 608. 36 Pamela Jennings, review of Raven by Nik Di Martino (Red Earth Performing Arts Company, Seattle) Seattle Times Sept. 1975, Red Earth scrapbook. Jennings was probably not privy to Miller’s influence on the set and costume design. She does, however, qualify Di Martino’s adaption as dealing with “some understanding” of the Indian legends of the Pacific Northwest Coast. 37 Donald Grat, review of Raven review by Nik Di Martino (Red Earth Performing Arts Company, Seattle) Northwest Arts, Sept. 1975, Red Earth scrapbook. 38 C.W. E. Bigsby term, qtd. by Sally Ann Heath, “The Development of Native American Theater Companies in the Continental United States,” Ph.D. diss. (Boulder: University of Colorado) 144. Bigsby applied this term to the ethnic, political and experimental theaters of the period. 39 Paula Gunn Allen, “The Sacred Hoop: A Contemporary Perspective,” American Indian Theater in Performance: A Reader ed. Hanay Geoigamah and Jaye T. Darby (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), 51. 40 Allen, 51. 41 Jennings, np. 42 Geoigamah, 7. 43 Geoigamah, 7. 44 Geoigamah, 8. 45 Hanay Geoigamah, telephone interview, 11 June, 2005. 46 Miller played the lead role of Bobby Lee in the La Mama production. In REPAC’s show, however, he was cast in the supporting role of Howard. According to Geiogamah and Matt, Miller had a smaller role because he was simultaneously touring with another REPAC show. Geoigamah, 11 June 2005, thinks it was Changer. Matt, 23 Oct. thinks it was Coon Cons Coyote. 47 Geiogamah, 11 June, 2005. 48 Geiogamah, Body Indian, 8. 49 Taylor, “Performance and Conquest,” 371. 50 Eduardo and Bonnie Duran, Native American Postcolonial Psychology (Albany: State University of New York Pres, 1995) 28. 51 Duran and Duran, 28. This perception was so strong during the seventies that one popular prevention poster at American Indian Theater Company where I worked, bore the slogan, “Drinking won’t make you more Indian.”

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52 Indians who still own a portion of their allotments, and do not farm the whole portion themselves, will often lease their lands to neighboring farmers or ranchers who must bid on the land. While the leasers can talk to the Indian owners directly, the leases are executed by the realty agency of the tribe. 53 There are a number of stories concerning the origins of 49s. Lilly Williams attributes the dancing style (people, including men and women, linking arms and dancing in a circle facing inwards, to Indian veterans experiences in World War II, watching the French women do the can-can. Round dances are performed in a circle and they are one of the few kinds of tribal dances in which Plains men and women make physical contact, the Two Step and Snake dance being two others, interview by author by taperecorder, 14 March, 2004. 54 This includes Bobby Lee’s assertion that he intended to hold out for a more fair payment from his leaser this year, but “I had to sign for what he wanted to give me” Body Indian, 11. 55 Brisson, 6 Dec. 2004. 56 Ellen Kaplan, “Going the Distance: Trauma, Social Rupture and the Work of Repair,” Theater Topics, 15:2 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005), 182. 57 Geoigamah, 11 June, 2005. 58 Ibid. 59 This is the group Brisson describes as being “unsure how they felt about the play,” 6 Dec. 2005. 60 This was the reaction of Tulsa director, Bob Hicks, when he staged another play which also dealt with alcohol abuse. But Hicks’ reasons for wanting to present the play to Indians only, had to do with what he saw as the script’s unwieldiness and actors’ inexperience, Bob Hicks, taperecorded interview by author, Tulsa, Oklahoma 29 Sept. 2004. 61 Kirk, 6 Dec. 2004. 62 Brisson, 6 Dec. 2004. 63 Ibid. 64 Taylor, “Performance and Conquest,” 358. 65 Ibid, 365. 66 Taylor, Archive and the Repertoire, 24.

Jodi Van Der Horn-Gibson, “Constructing the Fruited Plain” 1 Audre Lorde, “Good Mirrors are not Cheap,” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (Freedom, Ca: Crossing, 1998). 2 See James M. Barrie, Peter Pan: A Fantasy in Five Acts (Scribner’s, 1928, reprinted by Samuel French, 1956); and Peter Pan: The Complete and Unabridged Text (New York: Viking, 1991). 3 Gretchen Bataille, Introduction, Native American Representations: First Encounters, Distorted Images, and Literary Appropriations, ed. Gretchen Bataille (Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2001) 3. 4 Bataille, 2.

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5 Paul Rathbun, “American Indian Theatre,” Pamphlet, 1 January 2003 (Author’s Collection), a10 6 Rathbun, a12. 7 See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1979). 8 One aspect for further study centers on a comparison/analysis of the multiple versions of Peter Pan, and how each one differs in its representation and construction of “Indian.” I would be curious to see how each version connects, relates, or reflects the popular sentiment surrounding “Indians.” The Caird and Nunn text provides an interesting (British) perspective on the story as well as the representation of “other.” 9 James M. Barrie, Peter Pan or, The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up: A Fantasy in Five Acts (1985), ed. John Caird and Trevor Nunn (New York: Dramatists, 1993) 82. 10 Barrie, Peter Pan, The Motion Picture Event: The Original Story (1911) (New York: Harper Festival, 2003) 131-132. 11 Barrie, 2003, 153. 12 Barrie, 2003, 154. 13 Barrie, 2003, 155. 14 Philip J Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale UP, 1998) 8, 124. 15 Frantz Fanon, Black Skins, White Masks, trans. Charles Lam Markmann (New York: Grove, 1967) 232. 16 Gonzalez, Jo Beth Gonzalez, “Problematizing the Inclusion of Marginalized Cultures in Aurand Harris’ Yankee Doodle,” Youth Theatre Journal 9 (1995) 104. 17 Gonzales, 104. 18 Gonzales, 104. 19 William S. Yelow Robe, Jr., quoted in David Rooks, “The Real Thing: Identity and Cultural Authenticity Are Dramatic Fodder for William S. Yellow Robe, Jr.” American Theatre (July/August 2005) 22.

Sara Freeman, “The Immigrant, The Exile, The Refugee” 1

Introductory remarks on The Thebans. Radio broadcast. BBC Radio 3. 10 December 2006. 2 See, for one of the most fully articulated instances, Timberlake Wertenbaker, “The Voices We Hear.” Dionysus Since 69: Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium, Edith Hall, Fiona Macintosh, Amanda Wrigley, eds., (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004) 361-368. 3 See Loren Kruger, “Introduction: Diaspora, Performance, and National Affiliations in North America”, Theatre Research International 28.3 (October 2003) 259-266, and Kruger, “Comment” Theatre Journal 50.1 (March 1998) n.p. For Chaudhuri, see Una Chauhuri, Staging Place: The Geography of Modern Drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995. 4 Gabrielle Griffin, Contemporary Black and Asian Women Playwrights in Britain, Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre (London: Cambridge UP, 2003) 8. 5 See Kruger, “Comment.” Chaudhuri stops short of this… somewhat.

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Griffin, 8. Griffin, 8-9. 8 Griffin, 36; 224. 9 Most of Wertenbaker’s early, unpublished plays feature displaced, immigrant, or exiled characters as well, such as Nikos, the Greek husband married to an English woman in Case to Answer (reminiscent of Yoyo in Three Birds Alighting on a Field), or the European wife in The Vigil, married into a traditional Greek family and never accepted into her mother-in-law’s home. Inside Out, a play written as part of the same exploration of cross-dressing that produced New Anatomies, is about the Japanese poet-courtesan Ono Komachi, who goes into exile after her lover Shosho dies. The immigrant, the exile, and refugee thread through Wertenbaker’s plays at their earliest stages, as she begins to explore how to pose the questions about nation, identity, history, and language she wishes to stage through theatre, as explored in my master’s thesis, “Plays in Question: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Early Plays 1978-1985” (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997). 10 Kruger, “Comment.” 11 Griffin, 36. 12 Kruger, “Introduction: Diaspora, Performance, and National Affiliations in North America,” 259. 13 Wertenbaker, Timberlake. Credible Witness (London: Faber and Faber, 2001) 12. 14 Credible Witness, 16. 15 Credible Witness, 33. 16 Griffin, 224. 17 Credible Witness, 63. 18 This refusal of single identity and national labels is the hallmark of almost all Wertenbaker’s interviews with journalists for newspapers and is particularly developed for analysis in Susan Carlson’s “Issues of Identity, Nationality, and Performance: The Reception of Two Plays by Timberlake Wertenbaker” (New Theatre Quarterly 35.9 [August 1993] 267-289) and described in Carla McDonagh’s biographical note on Wertenbaker for British Playwrights, 19561995: A Research and Production Sourcebook, ed. William DeMastes (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1996) 406-415. 19 Kruger, 260. 20 Maya Roth, “Im/migrations, Border-Crossings and Willful Internationalism in Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Break of Day”, Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of the New Millennium, ed. Marc Maufort (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2002) 79-90. 21 Roth, 81. 22 Roth, 82-83; 79. 23 Chaudhuri, xvii; 175; 178; 7 7

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179

Elena García-Martín, “Puerto Rican Stages” 1

Osvaldo Pellettieri, “Situación actual de la dramática porteña,” Las Puertas del Drama: revista de la asociación de autores de teatro (Verano 2000-No3) 9. 2 Lowell Fiet, “Shifting Perspectives on Caribbean Performance,”

3 Besides the recuperation of communal spaces there are several other possible angles to the theatrical construction of spatial identity. There is, for one, relocation of theatrical culture to de-centralized geographic locations by companies such as “Teatro rodante,” or “Agua, sol y sereno.” But mention should also be made of professionals who, not only took their art to the periphery, but established residence in the geographical margins of the island. The several collectives that have found residence in “Casa cruz de la luna” are such a case. The work of these groups, located in the cellar of a nineteenth-century house in San German, often hinges upon geographical metaphors that reflect upon the condition of Puerto Rican places and identities. The commentary on a recent production, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ plays from New Orleans, spells out the hybrid and symbiotic nature of this city which is “in so many ways Caribbean.” The director, Aravind Adyanthaya observes that, similar to Caribbean towns, New Orleans defines itself in terms of resistance to the elements and as a combination of “hybrid, migratory, fluid and mixed” identities (Adyanthaya, Aravind. Playbill for “Tennessee Williams, Nueva Orleans.” Script and direction by A. Adyanthaya. Perf. Students from University of Puerto Rico, Aguadilla. Teatro Casa Cruz de la Luna, San Germán. April 2005.). Thus, through this exercise of spatial translation, Williams's story of flooding, protean, surviving cities is made to reflect the reality of an island that resists, survives and continually reinvents itself. In this metaphorical approach, theatrical experience serves as a type of rhetorical strategy to contribute to the national discourse, and the “dramaturgy of the stage,” (Peter Brook's notion) proposes a memory of the theatre that is not written but aesthetic, visual and centered on the body. 4 Mario Alegre Barrios, “Teatro como pócima educativa” El Nuevo Día (10-22005) 18. 5 (Alegre, 19). Other groups that have strived to take their art out of the metropolis to other parts of the island are “Teatro Rodante” and “Huevo de la Caleta,” successors of Santaliz's “Teatro Pobre,” that share in social commentary from similar aesthetic premises (the farcical aesthetic of violence) 6 The performance of reclamation of place took, appropriately, a more political dimension in their 2000 participation in the “Justice and Peace” camp in Vieques as part of a series of events that protested the US military presence on the island. As it can be seen, spatial reinterpretation may occasionally imply erasure of place from specific political entities (US territories) or reinsertion in others (Latin America and the Hispanic Caribbean). 7 The works of “El Tajo del Alacrán” took place in “rural and urban neighborhoods, invasions, and suburbs of the low-middle class,” and titles such as “The Man Who Said No,” and “The Trial,” displayed cases of selling out the patria

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and land expropriation (Lydia Milagros González, Textos para teatro de ‘El tajo del alacrán’” [San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1980] 17). However, under their own admission, their acting could be, at times, 'amateurish' (González 14) and portrayed the seeds of rebellion and violent confrontation as the “aggressive connotations of their name reveals” (González 6). 8 “En esta ruta nos mantendremos en movimiento, desplazándonos hacia espacios de creación y exposición según vayan surgiendo. Paralelamente, visitaremos galerías y talleres establecidos con la gestión corporal, un taller interdisciplinario dedicado a poblar artísticamente todos estos espacios santurcinos, incluyendo los que se encuentran en estado de deterioro y decadencia. La gestión estará en función hasta julio del corriente. Si deseas unirte, llama al 787.929.3146.” (Renaud, Myrna. “Ruta Cangrejera No 1” Noctámbulo. February (2005) . Path: Ruta Cangrejera; No 1. 9 "Estaciona el carro. Camina. Sigue la ruta a pie, en bicicleta o en silla de ruedas. Muévete." (Renaud, Myrna. "Ruta Cangrejera No 1" Noctámbulo. February (2005) . Path: Ruta Cangrejera; No 1. 10 (Hunt, Deborah." Animas"Museo del Barrio.Junio (2005) Path: Animas 1.)14 June 2005). The concept of “performance/debris” [performance/despojo] relates to the rhetorical signature of another project by “Artistas por la dignidad,” mobilized periodically to honor the memory of the recently assassinated Filiberto Ojeda. Their “Performance of Waste” alludes to the waste of life and, literally, blood, that results from political oppression, a symbol akin to that of “Animas de Santurce,” which links the material experiences of the lost souls to rubble. 11 Susan Bennett, “Performing Lives: Linda Griffiths and Other Famous Women,”Performing National Identities: International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre,” ed. Sherrill Grace & Albert-Reiner Glaap. (Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2003) 25. 12 Edgar Quiles, “Teatro de la denuncia, teatro de la palabra: la Nueva Dramaturgia Puertorriqueña y la continuidad de un teatro de ruptur,” Boletin del archivo nacional de teatro y cine.del Ateneo Puertorriqueño 2 (Julio-Diciembre 2004) 12. 13 Roberto Ramos-Perea, “Homenaje a la Dra. Bonnie Hildebrand Reynolds,” Boletin del archivo nacional de teatro y cine del Ateneo Puertorriqueño 2 (JulDic. 2004) 6. 14 Manuel Castells, The Informational City: Information Technology, Economic Restructuring, and the Urban-Regional Process (Blackwell Publishers, 1994) 126. Leigh Clemons, “Querying Difference on the Battlefield” 1

Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia UP, 1994) 51. 2 Deleuze, 29. 3 Deleuze, 30. 4 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994) 68. 5 20th Annual Goliad Massacre/Fort Defiance Living History Program, Presidio La Bahia Goliad, TX, March 2005; see also Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic:

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Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War (New York: Vintage, 1998) 278). 6 Jenny Thompson, War Games: Inside the World of 20th Century War Reenactors (Washington: Smithsonian, 2004) 124. 7 Thompson, 118. 8 Thompson, 119. 9 Kevin Walsh, The Representation of the Past: Museums and Heritage in the Postmodern World (New York: Routlege, 1992). 10 Dennis Hall, “Civil War Reenactors and the Postmodern Sense of History,” Journal of American Culture 17.3 (Fall 1994) 11. 11 William Sommerfeld, Interview with Lynn Neary, Talk of the Nation (National Public Radio, Broadcast 4 July 2004). 12 Thompson, 169; Horwitz, 10. 13 Paul Calloway, “An Attempt at Defining the Terms: Authentic, Hardcore, Progressive, Mainstreamer, Farb and Campaigner,” Civil War Talk. Retrieved 29 April 2005 from . 14 Ross M. Kimmel, “Confessions of a Blackhat: Recollections as a Skirmisher During the Civil War Centennial, Part Six in a Series: Frictions and Film.” Camp Chase Gazette XXVII.3 (Winter 2000): 55. 15 Horwitz, 10. 16 Thompson 216. 17

18 Thompson, 118. 19 Horwitz, 12. 20 See, for instance, Horwitz; Thompson; and 21 Rory Turner, “Bloodless Battles: The Civil War Re-enacted.” TDR 34.4 (Winter 1990) 125. 22 Turner, 126. 23 Horwitz, 134. 24 Thompson, 133. 25 Thompson, 125. 26 Thompson, 124. 27 Goliad, 2003. 28 Thompson, 53. I also had a conversation with a Mexican Army officer at the 2003 Goliad Massacre/Fort Defiance Living History Program in which he stated that one of the many reasons he did a Mexican officer impression was because the uniforms looked good. 29 Thompson, 124-25. 30 Thompson, 79. 31 Goliad, 2005. 32 Thompson, 134. 33 The 5th Viginia, Co. D website .

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Henry Bial teaches theatre at the University of Kansas. He is the author of Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage and Screen (University of Michigan Press, 2005), the editor of The Performance Studies Reader (Routledge, 2004), and the co-editor (with Carol Martin) of The Brecht Sourcebook (Routledge, 2000). His articles appear in The Drama Review, The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, and The Journal of American Ethnic History. Dongshin Chang teaches in the School of English at the University of Guelph. His research interests include race and performance, stage representations of the Other and intercultural performance. Leigh Clemons is Associate Professor of Theatre/Women's and Gender Studies at Louisiana State University. Her forthcoming book is entitled, Lone Stars: Theatre, Performance and Texan Cultural Identity (University of Texas Press). Her articles appear in Theatre History Studies, Theatre Survey, Theatre Journal, and Theatre Forum. John Fletcher is Assistant Professor of Theatre History, Louisiana State University. He has published articles in Theatre Survey, Theatre Topics, and Laberinto. Sara Freeman teaches theatre at the University of Oregon. Her articles and reviews appear in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, New Theatre Quarterly, Modern Drama, The Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Theatre Research International, New England Theatre Journal, Comparative Drama, and Theatre Insight. Elena García-Martín is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Literature at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City. Her articles appear in Symposium and Variorum. She is currently at work on a book length project entitled, “Performing Golden Age Theater in the Margins: Shaping Local Identities and Cultural Traditions.”

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List of Contributors

Andrew Gibb is a PhD candidate at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His dissertation, “Stages of Negotiation: Cross-cultural Theatre, the Bilingual Press, and the Imagining of Community in Transitional California, 1845-1859,” examines audience reception and discourses of nationalism in multicultural nineteenth-century California. Katie N. Johnson is Associate Professor of English at Miami University. She is the author of Sisters in Sin: Brothel Drama in America (Cambridge 2006) and her articles appear in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, the Journal of American Drama and Research, American Drama, the Eugene O’Neill Review, the American Transcendental Quarterly, and the Gay and Lesbian Review. Kay Martinovich is a doctoral candidate at the University of Minnesota. Her essay, "The Mythical and the Macabre: The Study of Greeks and Ghosts in Directing the American premiere of "By the Bog of Cats..." appears in The Theatre of Marina Carr: "before rules was made" (Carysfort Press, 2003). Julie Pearson-Little Thunder is a playwright and scholar. Her articles and reviews appear in The Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance and The American Indian Culture and Research Journal. She authored the text for Artistic Tastes: Favorite Recipes of Native American Artists. Kate Roark is visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre at Illinois Wesleyan University. Michael Rothmayer is Associate Professor of Theatre at Drake University. Rob Shimko is Assistant Professor of Theatre History and Dramaturgy at the University of Houston. His essay, "Dramaturg as Instructor/Instructor as Dramaturg" appeared in Theatre Topics. Alan Sikes teaches theatre at Hunter College-City University of New York. He is the author of Representation and Identity from Versailles to the Present (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2007). His essays have appeared in Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture, and Text and Performance Quarterly.

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185

Jodi Van Der Horn Gibson teaches theatre at Molloy College in New York. Shauna Vey teaches speech and theatre at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY. Her research focuses on the physical, economic, and social circumstances of production. Her work has been published in Theatre Survey and Theatre History Studies, as well as Boyhood in America, Black Women in America, and The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. In 2006, Dr. Vey won the Robert A. Schanke Research Award for Excellence in Theatre Scholarship for “The Master and the Mademoiselle,” included in this volume.

INDEX

Adorno, Pedro, 143, 146 African Theatre of New York City, 64-66, 70 Agamben, Giorgio, 21 Agua, Sol y Sereno, 11, 143 Aldridge, Ira, 6, 61-66, 68, 69 Alleyn, Edward, 34 Althusser, Louis, 27, 30 Angels in America, 4, 27, 29 Antoinette, Marie, 5, 38, 40, 42, 121 Appelbaum, Stanley, 99 Appropriation, 104, 130 Archive, 2, 5, 10, 114-116, 126 Atkinson, Brooks, 98, 100, 101, 102, 105 Barnes, Clive, 27, 28 Barrie, J.M., 10, 127-31 Bataille, Gretchen, 127 Belasco, David, 95, 97-98, 100, 103, 104 Belmont, George, 64 Belmont, James, 64 Benchley, Robert, 26 Bennett, Susan, 146 Benrimo, Joseph Henry (a.k.a. J. Harry Benrimo), 71, 75, 77 Berlin, Irving, 99, 104 Blau, Herbert, 89 Boal, Augusto, 143 Body Indian, 10, 114, 115, 121-25 Bosnian Serbs, 107, 112 Boys in the Band, 27 Boyzenarius, Ella (see Zoyara, Ella), 51 Brah, Avtar, 11, 134, 135 Bratton, Jacky, 32 Bread and Puppet Theatre, 143 Brighton, Theatre Royal, 66

Brisson, Phyllis, 115, 123, 125 Brothel Drama, 8, 94 Brown, William, 64 Burke, Master, 66, 69 Buse, Peter, 90 Butler, Judith, 28, 97 Cabaret, 25 Californios, 8, 82, 84 Camille, 8, 94, 101 Carlson, Marvin, 25, 89; The Haunted Stage, 89 Casilda, Amador Thoreson, 82 Castells, Manuel, 146 Cavendish, William, Duke of Newcastle, 34, 36 Charles I, 34-36 Charles II, 34, 35 Chaudhuri, Una, 134, 139 Cheng, Ann Anlin, 92 Chicano Movement, 85 Chinese Honeymoon, A, 71-73, 73, 77, 79 Chinese Theatre, 71, 77; conventions, 77 Christy Minstrels, 55 Christy, George, 50, 55, 161n25 Circus, 6, 48, 53, 57-58, 64, 127 Claremont, California, 81, 82, 85 Class, 3, 6, 19-21, 38-44, 46, 54, 59, 60, 95, 102, 107, 146 Coburg Theatre, 6, 61-64, 66-69 Cody, William (Buffalo Bill Cody), 127 Cooper, James Fennimore, 127 Courtesans, 9, 94, 101-102 Covent Garden, Theatre Royal, 6, 61, 63

Querying Difference in Theatre History d’Amilie, Eugene, 6, 48, 52, 54-60, 56 Dance, George, 71 Davidge, George Bolwell, 61, 62, 66, 68-69 de Certeau, Michel, 31, 33 de Mairobert, Mathieu-François Pidansat, 43 Deleuze, Gilles, 12, 148 Deloria, Philip J., 11, 130 Demarcation, 77, 79, 151 Dennis, Ruth, 100 Derrida, Jacques, 8, 87-88, 90, 92; Hauntology, 8; The Trace, 89; Undecideability, 87 Dialect, 75, 97 Diaspora, 2, 11, 72, 77, 134-139 Difference, 1-5, 11-12, 16-24, 2729, 36, 58, 71, 102, 126, 135, 138, 139, 141, 148-56 Disney, Walt, 83 Displacement, 42, 134-36, 139, 142, 143 Douglas, or The Noble Shepherd, 68 Douglass, Frederick, 98 Drury Lane, Theatre Royal, 6, 6164, 67-70 DuBois, W.E.B., 96-104 Dunlap, William, 63 Easiest Way, The, 94, 96, 101 Elam, Harry, 9, 95 English Restoration, 34-36, 62 Exile, 11, 133 Farbs, 12, 151-52, 155 Feingold, Michael, 26 Fiddler on the Roof, 25 Fierstein, Harvey, 25, 27, 28 Fiet, Lowell, 142 Flecknoe, Richard, 5, 34-37 Foucault, Michel, 5, 22, 32, 33, 92 Fragmentation (see also Historiography: Fragmented histories), 91, 142 Freud, Sigmund, 91

187

Frontier, 107, 122 Garner, Bess, 82, 84 Gender, 2, 3, 6, 12, 18, 46, 51, 53, 54, 59, 60, 107, 116, 154 Ghosts, 8, 88, 90, 91 Gilbert and Sullivan (W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan), 72, 77 Goat Alley, 95 Goldman, William, 25 Gonzalez, Jo Beth, 131 Grat, Donald, 119, 120, 121 Griffin, Gabrielle, 11, 134, 135, 136, 138 Grose, Donald, 128 Habitus, 10, 115, 117, 119-22 Hardcores, 12, 150-155 Harlem Carmen, the, 100, 101 Harlem Renaissance, 9, 95, 99, 103 Harper Festival, 129 Harris, Aurand, 131 Harrison, Hubert H., 98 Hatch, James, 9, 96, 99 Haunted stage/Haunted space, 8, 86 Hay, Samuel, 65 Hazelton, George, 75 Hegemony, 91, 128 Heteronormativity, 105 Heywood, Thomas, 34 Hill, Errol, 9, 96 Hill, Laban Carrick, 103 Historiography, 2, 4, 5, 8, 12, 17, 22, 23, 25, 32-35, 86, 90, 92, 115, 126; Periodization in history, 33 Hobbes, Thomas, 35 Holland, Peter, 31, 32, 36 Homosexuality, 3, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 26, 28, 29, 39, 104, 105 Horwitz, Tony 151-52 Hughes, Langston, 99, 100 Hull, Henry, 96, 97 Hunt, Deborah, 12, 144, 145

188 Immigration, 11, 80, 113, 135-137; Migration, 11, 135-137, 138, 139 Indian Space, 118, 119, 173n7 Indians (see also Native People), 10, 94, 114-32, 145; Indian-ness, 126, 131 Interregnum, 35, 36 Intertribal Theatre Project, 128 Jackson, Shannon, 32 Jennings, Pamela, 119 Jewishness, 4, 27-29, 34 Johnson, E. Patrick, 9, 95, 96, 104 Johnson, James Weldon, 97, 103 King Richard III, or The Battle of Bosworth Field, 61, 67 Kingsley, Omar, 53, 57, 59, 60 Kirk, Frieda, 116 Kirkpatrick, Jeanne, 29 Krasner, David, 9, 96, 98, 102 Kruger, Loren, 134, 136, 139 Kushner, Tony, 4, 27, 29, 40 L’espion Anglais / Confessions of a Young Girl, 43, 44 Le Branle de Capucins, 40, 41, 42, 44 Legitimate Drama (Serious Drama, Regular Drama, Major Drama), 62 Liberty, or Mademoiselle Raucourt to the Whole Anadrine Sect, Assembled in the Entry Hall of the Comèdie Française, 44, 160n18 Licensing Act of 1737, 6, 61, 67, 68 Logocentrism, 12, 146 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 127 Lorde, Audre, 126 Lott, Eric, 9, 54, 59, 96, 98 Louis XVI, 5, 38 Lulu Belle, 8, 94-104 MacArthur, Charles, 95 Martínez, Michelle, 82

Index McValues, 112 Melodrama, 71, 73, 75, 78, 103 Mexican Americans, 81, 167n3 Mexican Players, 81, 83, 85 Mikado, The, 72 Miller, Arthur, 26 Minstrelsy, 59 Mixed Race (Miscegenation), 95, 102 Molina, Alfred, 25 Morton, Thomas, 66 Mostel, Zero, 25 Mouffe, Chantal, 3, 18, 22 Mourning, 91, 137 Mr. Wu, 71, 73, 74, 74, 75, 77, 79 Mrs Warren’s Profession, 94, 101 Musicals, 72, 106; Musical comedy, 71, 72, 77 Mythology, 10, 127, 128 Nationalism, 66, 127 Native People (see also Indians), 3, 115, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131 New Negro, The, 99 New York Newsday, 29, 30 New York Post, The, 27, 28, 30 Niggerizaton, 10, 112 Noah, Mordecai, 64 Nostalgia, 134, 139 Novellas, 127 Objectification, 127 Old Spanish Days Fiesta (Santa Barbara, California), 80 Olviera Street (Los Angeles, California), 80 Oroonoko, 66 Owen, Henry, 71 Padua Hills Theatre, 81-85 Padua Institute, 7, 80, 81, 83 Paduano/as, 7, 80-85 Pageants, 127 Panoramas, 127 Park Theatre, 63, 64, 65 Passing, 88, 97, 104

Querying Difference in Theatre History Patriot Guard Riders, 22 Patriotism, 109 Performative/Performativity, 12, 27, 28, 29, 33, 53, 91, 97, 104, 149, 152 Peter Pan, 10, 127, 128, 129, 131 Phelps, Fred, 16-23, 157n1 Ping Chong, 8, 86-92; Chinoiserie, 8, 86, 88, 90-92; Deshima, 8, 8692; The East/West Quartet, 8, 86, 92 Place, 3, 6, 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 26, 39, 40, 41, 43, 46, 63, 75, 84, 88, 90, 92, 95, 97, 104, 107, 109, 110, 112, 114, 119, 136, 139, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147 Postcolonialism, 131 Price, Stephen, 6, 61, 63, 64, 67, 163n17 Prostitution, 45, 94, 101 Proximity, 7, 71 Race, 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 12, 18, 21, 60, 87, 88, 91, 96, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 107, 127, 128, 129, 130, 154 Ramos-Perea, Roberto, 146 Rancière, Jacques, 20 Rathbun, Paul, 128 Raucourt, Mademoiselle (Françoise Marie Antoinette Josephe Saucerotte), 5, 42-46, 160n18 Raven, 10, 114-124 Red Earth Performing Arts Company, 10, 114-121 Reenactment/Reenactors, 12, 150156 Refugee, 134, 135, 137, 138 Remembering, 29, 86, 89, 104, 109, 134, 153 Renaud, Myrna, 11, 144-46 Repertoire, 10, 114-119, 122, 123, 125 Revolt of Surinam, or a Slave’s Revenge, 66 Revolution, 109

189

Rice, Dan, 50 Richelieu (Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu), 35 Rivers, Frank, 50, 59 Roscius, 66-69 Said, Edward, 128 Scenery/Setting/Spectacle, 36, 67, 77, 85, 98, 108, 143 Select Committee on Dramatic Literature, 61 Sexual politics, 40 Sexuality, 2, 9, 21, 42, 44, 101, 102, 118 Shakespeare, William, 36, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 78 Sheldon, Edward, 95 Sitting Bull, 127, 130 Slave, The, 66 Slumming, 99, 100, 103, 104 Southern, Thomas, 66 Space, 7, 11, 64, 77, 79, 80, 82, 87, 88, 104, 115, 116, 117, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 143, 144, 145, 147, 148, 173n7 Stereotypes, 122, 150 Stott, Andrew, 90 Surrey Theatre, 67, 69 Talbot, Howard, 71 Taylor, Diana, 10, 114 Tesich, Steve, 9, 106-13; Arts and Leisure, 106, 111, 112; Division Street, 107; On The Open Road, 106, 109, 110; Speed of Darkness, The, 106, 108, 109; Square One, 106, 109 The Ethiopian, or The Quadroon of the Mango Grove, 66 Theatre Monopoly, 61, 68 Thompson, Jenny, 151, 153, 154 Thurman, Wallace, 102 Tolerance, 17, 19, 20 Tribadism, 5, 38, 41-46

190 Ulric, Lenore, 9, 96-101, 169n10 Užice, 106 Van Vechten, Carl, 99 Vernon, Harry, 71 Victims, 16, 68, 128, 129, 135 Walzer, Michael, 21 Wasserstein, Wendy, 28 Wenches, 55, 57, 59 Wertenbaker, Timberlake, 11, 133139, 178n9 Westboro Baptist Church, 16, 19, 20, 23

Index Wilkins, Bill, 118 Wilson, James, 104 Winer, Linda, 29 Wolfe, George C., 27 Yellow Jacket, The, 71, 75, 76, 76, 78, 79 Yellow Robe, William S., Jr., 11, 132 Yugoslavia, 107 Žižek, Slavoj, 23 Zoyara, Ella, 6, 48-60, 49, 58