Timberlake Feminist Drama: Two Plays

Timberlake

Feminist Drama: Two Plays by Timberlake Wertenbaker

Theatrical performance, beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing through the twentieth and into our current era, has been at the forefront of social and political change. This has been arguably true of the art from during other epochs of human history, but has been most noticeable in the modern age. Issues of class, race, sexuality, and gender were first truly explicitly dealt with in plays such as Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House and Ghosts, George Aiken's stage adaptaion of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, and other examples of nineteenth and early twentieth century realism such as Strindberg's Miss Julie and even, to a degree, the more serious works of Anton Chekov. The change in style and theme of these theatrical scripts both reflected and helped to perpetuate the ongoing social changes throughout this time period, including to a large degree the reshaping of identity that occurred in modern society at large, but especially in the subjugated and/or minority subclasses.

For the entirety of Western civilization, the female members of the species have comprised one such sub-class. This issue has been recognized in greater or lesser degrees since at least the time of the ancient Greeks; one of the clearest and earliest examples of a (quasi) feminist text is Aristophanes' Lysistrata, in which women use their sexuality to end a pointless war. Though the themes and plot of the play are not exactly progressively feminine by today's standards, even this Old Comedy makes clear the injustice and illogic inherent to a highly patriarchal system. Various other figures in history and drama have also contributed to the bucking of the male dominated power system, but it was not until modern drama that the issue of feminine identity was truly addressed.

The Beginnings of Feminist Drama

Aphra Behn is the first known female playwright in the English language, but despite the social and economic boundaries this proved her capable of crossing, her Restoration-era scripts such as The Rover and The City Heiress did little to truly redefine the role or identity of women in her society. The Mexican author Sor Juana showed an early grasp not only of the colonial and ethnic experience and its influence on identity, but also on the parallels that these situations had to the issue of gender. In one of her short loas, preceding a larger work entitled The Divine Narcissus, America is embodied as a female somewhat caught between the warring (and masculine) figures of Occident, an Indian male, and Zeal, a Spanish male, and eventually won over by the calm and compassionate reasoning of Christianity (a Spanish female) (Case 42). The female as an object of control is made explicit in America's plight, though the questions of agency and identity are confused somewhat by Christianity's entrance.

This confusion of identity, however, has been a hallmark of feminist drama even in its most concrete forms. It is, in fact, central to the issue of feminist theory (as well as many other branches of criticism dealing with marginalization and postcolonialism). Ibsen's A Doll's House does not offer a clear judgment of its protagonist, Nora, and her decision to leave her family and make her own life. What the play does is highlight the difficulty and uncertainty of such a possibility for the female, and this uncertainty persists in feminist drama and literature.

The issue of identity and the uncertainty of attaining it are also essential to modern drama as a whole, and not just to works with overtly or explicitly feminist themes. This is not to suggest that modern theatre has developed in tandem with feminist ideologies. As Fortier points out, "like much materialist theory and unlike, for instance, much phenomenology and post-structuralism, feminine theory is directly and predominantly political. Its purpose is to struggle against the oppression of women as women" (Fortier 108). This is in many ways a gross oversimplification of the aim and process of feminist drama, but Fortier's definition does have its merits. It provides the very basic framework within which feminist drama is operating; i.e. feminist drama operates under the assumption that women are being oppressed as women, consciously or otherwise, and that they oughtn't to be. Most feminist drama, however, attempts to move beyond the mere assertion of these blithe (and by now rater pedantic and even trite and cliche) truisms and delves into the possibility of a female existence and identity that is not only un-oppressed, but that is also independently and freely expressed.

Finding the Second Sex

In her seminal 1949 work The Second Sex, philosopher and critic Simone de Beauvoir examines the question of female identity and the phenomenology of gender at great length. In her book, she critiques many other constructions of gender identity, including contemporary theories that, while showing a definite progression from the unadulterated patriarchy from whence they came, fail to grasp the issue in clear enough terms to be truly progressive. The title of the book itself explicitly references the secondary status given to the issue of female identity and gender studies as a whole, which colors most if not all of the scholarship occurring along such lines. Beauvoir notes that this is still defining the female from a masculine perspective.

Beauvoir makes this especially explicit in her treatment of the psychoanalytical theory. After describing the liberation that this new perspective gave in its reduction (though not elimination) of biological constraints on gender, Beauvoir engages in a long discussion with freud's theory on feminine development and self-awareness, concluding that "The two essential objections that may be raised against this view derive from the fact that Freud based it upon a masculine model... All psychoanalysts systematically reject the idea of choice and the correlated concept of value, and therein lies the intrinsic weakness of the system" (Beauvoir). That is, Baeuvoir sees the psychoanalytical approach as reducing not simply the biology of gender, but even the very humanity of choice -- especially for female-identified individuals.

Reclaiming such choice in the process of making identity, then, becomes the goal of feminist theory and of feminist texts. Beauvoir asserts her attempt to "place woman in a world of values and give her behavior a dimension of liberty. I believe that she has the power to choose between the assertion of her transcendence and her alienation as object" (Beauvoir). This sentiment can be echoed even in the early stirrings of feminist drama, even before the genre or indeed the phrase had been fully conceived. August Strindberg's Miss Julie is not strictly a piece of feminist drama; he refers to the heroine as a "half-woman" and "man-hater" (Strindberg 93). But in his preface to the play Strindberg notes the multiplicity of perspective and motive that he attempted to employ in defining and guiding the rather unsympathetic title character, from the "passionate character of her mother" to "her menstruation" and "her association with animals" and ultimately ("of course") "the passion of the sexually inflamed man" (Strindberg 92).

This quite explicitly demonstrates the conflict found in feminine texts, and perhaps particularly in feminist drama which has the added layer of conscious scripted performance overlaid on the subconscious, automatic, and always-already present performance of gender. Even while attempting to create a more well rounded and complexly motivated female character, Strindberg finds himself (without apparently realizing it) working within a construct that defines femininity in terms of its relationship to and/or resemblance/disfigurement of masculinity. This construct reflects the fundamental oppression of women in a patriarchal society; as Fortier puts it, "if most cultural work has been given over to men, it follows that most prominent cultural work is invested in a masculine perspective...patriarchal culture is seen as the exchange of cultural material -- often involving representations of women -- within an exclusively male social economy (Fortier 109-10). Without female practitioners and predominantly female audiences, the female perspective simply isn't.

Modern Feminist Drama

Strindberg's own masculinity, then, might be one of the major reasons that he was unable to create a female character with true agency and complexity while retaining full status as a woman. In addition, such a concept was not culturally viable. Though there were exceptions, not until the twentieth century were women truly able to seek out careers and livelihoods in a field of their choosing. Even (perhaps especially) writing was closed to them, and the economic constraints necessarily limited the perspective presented in the culture. Feminist theory and texts have not dealt with a purely ideological issue, but also with the very real attendant practicalities.

Themes of economics and political and social agency are common and even essential to feminist drama. Again, this is clearly visible in A Doll's House; even though this was the creation of a male author in a highly patriarchal society, the practicalities of life as a woman in such a system from the fundamental basis for the plot of the play. More recent feminine dramatic texts, however, more closely relate such practicalities with the inner struggle to form an independent feminine identity. As Beauvoir said, these plays tend to deal with restoring a sense of value and choice to a world that has been largely stripped of these features by modern critical, literary, and dramatic trends. Character is created with a greater sense of agency in these plays, and identity -- especially feminine identity -- ironically emerges as more of an actively created and self-determined construct through its interactions within and agsint societal demands. Due to the economic constraints on women until the last century (and arguably even today, though to a lesser degree), the feminine identity and perspective is still being created, and is not yet ready to give way to postmodern meaninglessness. It emerges as an economic and political force that embodies this sense of agency in its determinative powers.

The Works of Wertenbaker

Many of modern playwright Timberlake Wertenbaker's plays deal explicitly with the issues of feminist drama. In constructing feminist dramatic texts, Wertenbaker has the obvious advantage over Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg of actually being female, as well the fact that she was born jut a few short years after World War II and thus grew up in a world where identity -- especially along gender lines and other demarcations of marginalization -- was in a state of explicit and near-constant redefinition. But although it would be disingenuous and naive to completely ignore such personal and historical information, her texts also stand on their own.

Feminist texts, dramatic or otherwise, are often read and/or judged with the assumed perspective of the (feminine) author, which in and of itself relegates such texts to a secondary and subjugated status; a minority perspective not as equally indicative of or relevant to its cultural underpinning as non-feminist (or male-authored) works. Wertenbaker's plays are as susceptible to such (mis)readings as any other text, but an examination of the texts themselves reveals a much more profound reshaping of feminine identity (Sullivan). Not all of her works are primarily or even tangentially concerned with this issue, insofar as it can be escaped, but "are particularly pertinent to materialist critiques of culture" which at once has implications specific to feminist theory and broader issues. (Sullivan 141) Through all of Wertenbaker's works, an essentially inclusive and humanistic perspective is apparent, which matches the attempt to define femininity and feminine identity not as a separate construct in opposition or contrast to masculinity, but as an equally viable and necessary perspective.

The Grace of Mary Traverse

One of Wertenbaker's most explicitly feminist texts is The Grace of Mary Traverse, which was first produced in London in 1985. The play follows the title character as she attempts "to perfect, then escape and replace, the particular kind of subjectivity society prescribes for her" (Dahl 150). Specifically, it traces her descent from a well brought up young lady in London to a prostitute, madam, and even revolutionary in the streets and halls of that same city. At every turn, though Mary's choices are quite obviously and explicitly limited by the male world that surrounds her, she also displays a complete sense of agency in her quest for knowledge and experience. Both the aspects of patriarchal control and this agency on the part of Mary Traverse herself mark this play as a decidedly feminist piece of dramatic text, as the plot is quite overtly and consciously about a young woman's search for identity on her own terms.

The play also makes sure that this plot -- which seems to consciously mimic Dickens in some of its turns and is very nearly an example of a female-center bildungsroman -- includes a redefinition of individualistic, and not just feminine, perspective. Mary states the purpose of her own journey not in terms of the self, and how she is perceived by the world and allowed to negotiate with society, but rather as an attempt on her part to "know how to love this world" (Wertenbaker 130). This is perhaps the most explicit reference to this perspective in the play, but it is apparent throughout. A major issue of the feminine crisis, related to but distinct from the issue of self-identity, is the confusion of perspective. That is, in part due to the lack of a concrete sense of female identity, the female perspective can have difficulty in understanding and connecting to a world that does not operate along the same terms. The plot shows Mary traveling through many different levels and sections of London society not simply in an attempt to define her role within it, but rather in an attempt to gain access to it; enough of a connection to engage in the free-flowing dialogue that is the (largely illusory, in life and in the play) advantage of masculinity in a patriarchal socio-political system.

Wertenbaker's examination of the feminine issue in this play goes deeper than mere plot, however. Mary's actions (and those that occur to her) are, of course, the basis for all interpretations and readings of the play, but to view The Grace of Mary Traverse as a simple allegorical tale following one woman's struggle to shape her identity is foolishly overly simplistic. Though her journey is emblematic and symbolic of the feminine struggle, it also engages in a dialogue with modern political and social thought in defining the role of the individual. Mary's journey is as much a one of carving out an externally realized identity as it is about forming an internal sense of self. At the beginning of the play, Mary is entirely focused on the external. She delivers a monologue to an empty chair with her father standing behind her, her identity dependent on the absent individual she is addressing and the watchful gaze of Giles Traverse. The subject of the monologue, too, is wholly concerned with perception of the external: "You were telling me how we are to know nature. Do we dare look at it directly, or do we trust an artist's imitation" (Wertenbaker 7). It is obvious that this speech is not actually engaging for Mary, but her role and identity has been constructed to deal in such banal externalities. Her self-discovery is as much about mapping her internal world as it is about expanding her external one.

The Female Individual

The issue of individuality is central to the issue of feminine identity. It is in fact, to some ways of thinking, the defining characteristic of feminism, in asserting that women face the same and even harsher struggles in regards to defining their individuality within the constraints of a culture and society as do men. In this regard, Dahl notes that The Grace of Mary Traverse "represented social and political relations in a way that recalled Louis Althusser's analysis of how ideology shapes individual subjectivity (Dahl 150). That is, it is not only the creation of the feminine in the social and political patriarchy that exists in the world at large and specifically and minutely in the world of the play that this text deals with, but the difficulty in the free formation of any sense of identity at all in a world with such a strict hierarchical structure. This is an essential part of the feminist underpinnings of this play.

Simone de Beauvoir had demonstrated the essence of this argument nearly forty years before this play appeared on te London stage. In her chapter of The Second Sex concerned with the historical view, she notes that:

the very concept of personal possession can be comprehensible only with reference to the original condition of the existent. For it to appear, there must have been at first an inclination in the subject to think of himself as basically individual, to assert the autonomy and separateness of his existence.

(Beauvoir).

This again raises the issue of economics and possession as means of identification within society.

As much as Mary's journey can be seen as a struggle for identity, it is also quite clearly struggle for basic and practical independence. Her decision to whore herself out to others, and later to whore others out, is not borne (at least not solely) of an extreme moral degradation or any prurient obsession. Instead, Mary is finding a way to make the economics of her life work. This is reflected in her father's choice of words when "he would incorporate her fully, but she rejects him. Her father tells her she has become 'accountable'" (Dahl 156; Wertenbaker 122). This word implies the economic and practical realities of an independent life, and Mary's realization and acceptance of her own "accountability" form the beginning of her realization of her own sense of identity. She has carved out both a personality and a place in and perspective on society that are uniquely her own, untied by the fetters of the patriarchal society she must deal in. Her circumvention of certain attitudes and practices within that society allowed her to come back to it and dwell within it on entirely her own terms -- the very goal of feminism.

The Love of the Nightingale

Wertenbaker takes a more extreme turn in her reworking of Greek myth and tragedy in the play The Love of the Nightingale. The story of the play recounts the tale of Philomele, who is raped by her brother in law and prevented from accusing him or seeking justice when he cuts out her tongue. Her eventual revenge -- and indeed, all of the elements of the action -- takes on a much different significance in Wertenbaker's rendering if the myth. As in The Grace of Mary Traverse, there are obvious representations of the feminist struggle in the plot of the play, which lead to deeper symbolic social and cultural commentaries about the female condition.