SUSAN BENNETT
Through this position paper the author seeks to provide a focus for extended discussion of some of the key issues arising from feminist approaches to theatre research. She indicates some of the insights made possible by feminist theoretical analyses of theatre historiography as well as some of the implications of the various positions inscribed in articles on Canadian feminist theatre historiography over the past ten years. The author hopes to facilitate more discussion of the wide variety of feminist challenges to and transformation of the theory and practice of theatre research and theatre historiography.
Au moyen de cette communication-directive l'auteure compte mettre en place des perspectives qui permettront une discussion plus approfondie de certaines questions-clés posées par les approches féministes dans le domaine des recherches théâtrales. Elle expose certains des aperçus provenant des analyses féministes de l'historiographie du théâtre, aussi bien que les implications de diverses prises de position inscrites dans des articles féministes et canadiens parus dans ce domaine au cours de la dernière décennie. L'auteure espère animer ainsi une discussion axée sur la contribution très importante apportée par le féminisme à la théorie et à la pratique de la recherche et de l'historiographie du théâtre.
As long ago as 1974 in a paper entitled 'On the Affinity Between the Historiography of Theatre History and Women Studies,' Cynthia Sutherland Matlack concluded that 'if in the past, theatre history has served the men, perhaps we can now insist upon a more rigorous view of the historiolrapher's directive function; we can make theatre history serve the people.'2 For her reader in 1992, the kind of rigour she seeks seems both obvious and necessary. Matlack's voice now sounds surprisingly tentative: she ventures very carefully that 'the facts of theatre history, seldom occur in a pure state free of interpretations projected from them.3 Such a statement reminds us that the practice and dissemination of theatre history has been strongly challenged in the intervening years and that by way of post-structuralist and other recent critical theories, we have learned to be suspicious of even the designation 'theatre history.' We have learned, moreover, as Bruce McConachie puts it (albeit in an American context) to 'question the validity and the assumptions of histories structured to tell the story of the triumph of cultural pluralism and democracy.'4 We have also become more willing to undertake interdisciplinary work and readily bring feminist theories to the analysis of theatre history since, as Tracy Davis reminds us, 'everything bearing on the operation of gender difference and sexuality in the theatre is appropriate to the endeavor.'5 And it is such self-consciousness about historiographic methodologies which informs a recently visible subject of our theatre histories, women-centred and feminist work.
Although I do not primarily undertake the study, writing or teaching of theatre history, I do spend some of my time working in and much of my time thinking, writing and teaching about feminist theatre. And I spend all of my time as a feminist. It is this perspective which provokes my interest in reading the categories of feminist theatre historiography and Canadian feminist theatre as well as their potential intersections. Each of these constructs ,means' in different and complicated ways and when we bring them together, then the two categories both blur and expand. While inclusivity and imprecision can function to enlarge the fields of study, we must be cognizant (to recall McConachie's warning) that cultural pluralism is not simply or necessarily cultural equality. Feminist theatre in Canada is far from an accepted component of the larger category of 'Canadian theatre'6 and I am concerned to outline here some urgent and critical questions about the histories we do (and will) write.
We would benefit, I think, from a more self-conscious exploration of the limits and absences of each of these categories. Moreover, when we harness either category to our investigation of theatres already designated 'Canadian' we need to be particularly aware of the modification of its construction and application. To engage with actual and possible relationships between the constructs of feminist theatre historiography and Canadian feminist theatre, I reviewed the last ten years of writing about women in Canadian theatre, Canadian women's theatre, and (particularly) Canadian feminist theatre. While there is certainly interesting and important work in print, articles are few and far between except when they are found in clusters in special issues; they are, to take up Lynda Hart's observation about feminist theatre in general, 'cordoned off.'7 Through the practice of the special issue, women are contained as a distinct and separate category and by particular types of writing. To understand the effects of such containment, I propose to examine two such special issues, Canadian Theatre Review (Summer 1985) and Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du théâtre au Canada (Spring 1987) and, by readings of the strategies adopted in these texts, might provoke, I hope, some questions for future writers of the history of Canadian feminist theatre.
A landmark publication of the last decade is undoubtedly the Summer 1985 issue of Canadian Theatre Review 'Feminism & Canadian Theatre.' With this example, I'd like to speculate about the significance of the issue's title and, in particular, the relationship between the two components enacted by the conjunction 'and.' The use of this conjunction gestures towards the joining of equal parts, a joining which here has its equality emphasized (if rendered rather fragile) by the substitution in the cover title of an ampersand for the letters 'a/n/d.' If we read the implications of this title, I think we can understand something of the ideological and methodological bases for this record. The approach of the issue is to bring together the already heavilycoded (perhaps overcoded) signifiers 'feminist' and 'Canadian theatre' and to see how one informs the other or perhaps to investigate if, in fact, these signifiers can cohabit. Since 'Canadian theatre' is the on-going subject of the journal, the interest in this particular issue is apparently feminism. We are asked to read how 'feminism' might raise concerns, shape our thinking, and introduce different subjects that have otherwise been outside the scope of our other readings of Canadian theatre. 'Feminism,' then, seems to be a 'something'-in the introduction it's referred to as a 'theme'8 -which is being brought to the study of Canadian theatre rather than being a part of some or all of the same. In linking the two with 'and/&' rather than compounding them as 'Canadian feminist theatre' or even 'feminism (or feminists) in Canadian theatre' the issue seems to announce a poor fit. As one of the contributors (Lynne Fernie) remarks [t]he title of this issue ... is depressingly accurate. It reflects the fact that the substantial amount of theatre based on feminist analyses produced over the past decade has not been incorporated in any significant way into any level of the institution of Canadian theatre.'9
Perhaps the intention of the title was to avoid the 'ghetto' phenomenon, to disguise the 'cordon.' The issue isn't about Canadian feminist theatre (which we might think of as a particular manifestation of 'alternative' theatre), but it's about all Canadian theatre: women are everywhere, albeit an everywhere that constructs them as victims of a systemic discrimination in the mainstream. Or was there an implicit fear that if the issue took as its subject 'Canadian feminist theatre,' no-one would read it except feminists? It would only preach to the converted. In fact, the constituencies of the subject, of the writers, and of the imagined and actual reading publics of this issue are far from coincident and this is evidently an anxious site. Such anxiety is palpable in the editor's introduction. Robert Wallace is at pains to outline his own position and to direct thanks to the women who collaborated with him in this preparation of this issue. It's revealing, nevertheless, that, in 1985, a man takes on this task and that whatever the good intentions, the articles themselves unpack a reluctance to name 'feminism' in Canadian theatre.
The Spring 1987 issue of Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du théâtre au Canada is altogether more direct and perhaps hopeful in its title 'Women in the Theatre of Quebec and Canada.' And the issue's editor, Louise Forsyth, doesn't sound at all like Robert Wallace or Cynthia Sutherland Matlack: her comments are celebratory and strong. She writes: '[W]omen have been making and helping to make theatre throughout Canadian history and, no doubt, in every Canadian community.'10 Here, of course, the interpolated 'no doubt' speaks both confidence and ignorance. We (as feminists) know that this work gets done across the country; we just don't (yet) have information about it all. As part of her introduction, Forsyth elaborates this point by charting some of the work done as well as that still to be done and, some five years later, I am conscious that the need Forsyth identifies to network our research is still very much with us. Yet for all the shift in tone in Forsyth's introduction, feminist theatre is, in this special issue like Wallace's CTR issue, still only absence. Its traces garner only a single sentence which is, ironically, elaborated as footnote-literally, then, positioned in the margins. Even when women are marked as subject, feminists remain a silent sub-group, 'cordoned off' within the already cordoned issues. Feminist theatre is, in such ways, further and further distanced from the apparently legitimate core of Canadian theatre history. In her introduction, Forsyth explains: 'Although feminist theatre promises to have a significant impact on the evolution of Canadian theatre history, it has not been possible in this special issue to study its emergence here and to situate it as an historical phenomenon.'11 Neither of these tasks, it seems to me, is yet undertaken. We do not have a carefully theorized history of emergent feminist theatre in Canada. Nor do we have a comparative history of feminist theatres across the regions of Canada, far less one which reads these theatres pan-nationally. Instead we must recognize these potential histories are receding from our lens as a result of the kinds of segregation and omission identified here.
One of the responsibilities of the feminist theatre historian (that doubly-encoded writer who is both herself a feminist and an investigator of feminist theatre) is, obviously, to write histories of the work being produced. In other words, she must focus on actual practices. We don't have to go back very far in theatre history-including Canadian theatre history-to realize the effects of gaps in our historical narratives, to become aware of why recovery has been such an important strategy in the field. Given the urgency of this task and the often frighteningly fragile circumstances of the material which -is to be recorded, we need to share the methodologies we employ, to discuss their strengths and weaknesses and, above all, to be aware of the implications of how we proceed. To date, however, articles about Canadian feminist theatre practices are constructed most often on the basis of 'local knowledge' and have two common trajectories. We write about what we know and that is, as a rule, the work which is most accessible to us (either as archive or performance). For my own part, my involvement with Calgary's only women-centred theatre, Maenad Productions (where I participate as a member of the Board of Directors and, this year, on the selection committee for next year's, season') has meant that I have a vested interest in documenting their work. 12 And, to this end, I adopt, at least in part, the first of those two common trajectories: I function to record the work as 'docu-history.' As Forsyth reminds us in Theatre History in CanadalHistoire du théâtre au Canada, few feminist play and performance texts get published and, thus, feminist academics have a particular responsibility to arrest further loss of women's work. The second commonly-used trajectory is the justification of an interest in feminist work, the assertion of it as an appropriate subject for scholarly investigation. To these ends, many articles rely on statistical evidence: we are told how many shows a company did and how many people saw them. 13 We are also given testimony as to their suitability to compete with other (read, 'male') theatres. A good example of this is Meredith Levine's conclusion to an article on feminist theatre in Toronto, published in Theatrum in 1987: 'The histories of Nightwood Theatre, Company of Sirens and Hysterical Women give proof that feminist theatre has matured.'14 'Matured' in this description means moved beyond a constituency audience, a surprisingly prevalent marker of legitimacy. Indeed, one of the most concerted debates between both feminist theatre practitioners and feminist theatre academics centres on the desirability or possibility of reaching non-constituency viewing/reading publics.
Other articles on feminist theatre printed in Canadian journals take as their topic the non-traditional processes by which feminist practitioners make theatre and, like the 'docu-histories,' their mode is descriptive, rarely analytical. This, of course, is not without reason. As recently as the Summer 1989 issue of CTR on 'Sexuality, Gender and Theatre' editor Ann Wilson had to address 'the [striking] absence of an article dealing with an avowedly lesbian practitioner or theatre.'15 And, similarly, none of these special issues looks to work primarily by/about Canadian women of colour.16 Not all women's theatre, we can see, even makes it to history-by-description. Yet, if Canadian theatre history has yet to pay sufficient attention to the diversity of work by women and particularly to work named as 'feminist,' one trait can be celebrated. Our journals are, in comparison to their American and British counterparts,17 far more accessible to the makers of theatre. The strength of Robert Wallace's 1985 special issue of CTR is the wealth of material written by women practitioners who speak with passion and determination about what they do. This may be cause to celebrate or, conversely, it may offer other indicators: does it suggest that not enough academics take an interest in feminist theatre work? Perhaps. Although the attention given by many members of the Association for Canadian Theatre Research in both their publications and at the annual conference speaks, at least in part, against that possibility. Or does it announce that we, as academics, have much work still to do? This is undoubtedly so. I'm reminded of Louise Forsyth's conclusion in 1987: 'If readers of this issue are sufficiently struck by the number of gaps and inadequacies it contains to undertake further research, if they see the various articles as an invitation to explore the field even further, my hopes and purpose will have been achieved.'18 We will work hard at this task, although probably not quickly enough.19 We are beginning to move beyond the descriptive. But I think we are also at a critical juncture where we need to examine the relationship between academics who are specialists in theatre and who are interested in feminism, and practitioners who make theatre and who are interested in feminism. No longer should we construct historiographies which exclude the makers of theatre from participation. We need to foster a relationship, an interaction between the history of practice and the practice of history, to encourage a collaboratively-produced 'expertise.' With feminists on both the maker and recorder sides of the equation, we should surely be able to assist in each other's struggle.
My purpose, then, is to ask how we construct such collaborations, how we each make our languages accessible and available. My goal is to work towards better, more productive ways of talking to each other, and-perhaps more importantly--of listening to each other. This project is an increasingly urgent one. As feminist/lesbian performance artist Shawna Dempsey remarked recently, 'we are starting to experience a funding feminist backlash'20 and I believe her fears are well founded. Such a climate in Canada (and elsewhere) makes our effective and willing collaboration a necessity and, with that in mind, I turn back feminist theatre historiography to a question from Hayden White. He asks 'to what is the historian responsible, or rather, to what should one be responsible? 21 This is perhaps at the heart of the challenges we presently confront.
NOTES
FEMINIST (THEATRE) HISTORIOGRAPHY CANADIAN (FEMINIST)THEATRE: A READING OF SOME PRACTICES AND THEORIES
SUSAN BENNETT
1 This is a revised version of a position statement given at a panel on 'Feminist Historiography' at
the annual meeting of the Association for Canadian Theatre Research/Association de Recherches
Théâtrales au Canada at the University of Prince Edward Island on 27 May 1992
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2 See ALAN WOODS ed, The Historiography of Theatre History, supplement to Theatre
History 21 (1974-75) p 12
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3 P 11
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4 'New Historicism and American Theater History: Toward an Interdisciplinary Paradigm for
Scholarship' in SUE-ELLEN CASE AND JANELLE REINELT eds, The Performance of
Power (Iowa City: Univ of Iowa Press 199 1) p 269
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5 'Towards A Feminist Methodology in Theatre History' in THOMAS POSTELWAIT and
BRUCE MCCONACHIE eds, Interpreting the Theatrical Past (Iowa City: Univ of Iowa Press
1989) p 77
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6 As ALAN FILEWOD pointed out in a recent discussion at the ACTR/ARTC annual meeting
(University of Prince Edward Island, 29 May 1992), the category 'Canadian theatre' is at this
historical moment (again) a fraught and problematic territory. While it is outside the province
of this paper, it will surely be the focus of many others in the next few years
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7 LYNDA HART writes 'Feminist critiques of capitalist patriarchy have demonstrated how social
spaces have been colonized by men, relegating women and other marginalized people to
minimal spaces cordoned off by the privileged classes' ('Introduction' to Making a Spectacle
(Ann Arbor: Univ of Michigan Press 1989) p 8
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8 WALLACE talks about the collective effort always required for a 'theme issue' p 4
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9 In 'Ms. Unseen' p 59
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10 Theatre History in Canada/Histoire du théâtre au Canada 8.1 (Spring 1987), p 3
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11 Pp 5-6
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12 See SUSAN BENNETF's 'Mother Tongue: Colonized Bodies and Performing Cultures' in
Contemporary Theatre Review, special edition on Women & Theatre, ed JULIA PASCAL
(London: Harwood, forthcoming, June 1993). I'm conscious here--and elsewhere--of my
willing participation in a cordoned-off activity. This still seems a necessary strategy in getting
feminist work into print. The only other critical record of Maenad Productions is an interview
published in Canadian Theatre Review 69 (Summer 1991) pp 28-33. 'Local knowledge' also
applies here since the interview was conducted and edited by fellow Board member and my
colleague at the University of Calgary, SUSAN STONE-BLACKBURN
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13 See, for example, ODETTE LAVOIE and MAUREEN MARTINEAU on 'An Alternative
Culture,' a history of Le Théâtre Parminou, in Canadian Theatre Review 55 (Summer 1988) pp
25-29
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14 P 10
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15 P 3. More recent issues of CTR have dealt with the work of lesbian theatre practitioners. See,
for example, JANE ORION SMITH's 'Feminist Lesbian Aesthetic in Scenography,' CTR 70
(Spring 1992) pp 23-26
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16 In the recently published Women on the Canadian Stage: The Legacy of Hrotsvit (edited by
RITA MUCH and published by Blizzard Publishing in Winnipeg), actor/director/playwright
DJANET SEARS has an important and celebratory article, 'Naming Names: Black Women
Playwrights in Canada.' I very much hope this brings some very long overdue attention to their
work
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17 In Britain the 'Women and Theatre Network' newsletter is this year being repositioned as a journal, edited by MAGGIE, GALE, and this promises a continuing and useful interaction
between practitioners and academics
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18 P 6
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19 To this end the Women's Caucus of ACTR/ARTC discussed at the 1992 annual meeting the
establishment of a research network. Such a network might also explore connection with The
University of Bristol's Women Theatre Collection, the only archive in existence which collects,
exclusively, women's theatre material from any period and from any country. Further
information about the Women's Theatre Collection can be obtained from LINDA
FITZSIMMONS at the Department of Drama, University of Bristol, Bristol BSI 5LT England.
Please let her know if you have (or know of) any material that might be lodged in the
Collection (in original or photocopy)
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20 During 'Strategies of Engagement,' a panel at 'Breaking the Surface: An Interactive
Festival/Conference on Women, Theatre and Social Action' (University of Calgary, 14
November 1991)
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21 In 'Method and Ideology in Intellectual History' in Modern European Intellectual History:
Reappraisals and New Perspectives (Ithaca: Cornell 1982) ed DOMINICK LACAPRA and
STEVEN KAPLAN, p 286
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