Feminist Theory and Postwar American Drama

City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 1988 Feminist Theory and Postwar American Drama Gayle Austin The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2149 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] INFORMATION TO USERS The most advanced technology has been used to photo graph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the original text directly from the copy submitted. Thus, some dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from a computer printer. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. 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Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Order Number 8820840 Feminist theory and postwar American drama Austin, Gayle, Ph.D. City University of New York, 1988 Copyright ©1988 by Austin, Gayle. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PLEASE NOTE: In ail cases this material has been filmed in the best possible way from the available copy. Problems encountered with this document have been identified here with a checkV mark. 1. Glossy photographs or pages_____ 2. Colored illustrations, paper or print______ 3. Photographs with dark background_____ 4. Illustrations are poor copy______ 5. Pages with black marks, not original copy. 6. Print shows through as there is text on both sides of page_______ 7. Indistinct, broken or small print on several pages. 8. Print exceeds margin requirements______ 9. Tightly bound copy with print lost in spine_______ 10. Computer printout pages with indistinct print______ 11. Page(s)___________lacking when material received, and not available from school or author. 12. Page(s) seem to be missing in numbering only as text follows. 13= Two pages numbered . Text. Text follows. follows. 14. Curling and wrinkled pages 15. Dissertation contains pages with print at a slant, filmed as received 16. Other Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FEMINIST THEORY AND POSTWAR AMERICAN DRAMA by Gayle Austin A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Theatre in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 1988 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. (c) 1988 GAYLE AUSTIN All Rights Reserved ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Theatre in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. [signature redacted] 10 / 7.0 f ?? Date Marvin Carlson Chair of Examining Committee [signature redacted] Date Marvin Carlson Executive Officer [signature redacted] [signature redacted] Albert Bermel [signature redacted] Mary/Ann Caws Supervisory Committee The City University of New York iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Long afterward, Oedipus, old and blinded, walked the roads. He smelled a familiar smell. It was the Sphinx. Oedipus said, "I want to ask one question. Why didn't I recognize my mother?" "You gave the wrong answer," said the Sphinx. "But that was what made everything possible," said Oedipus. "No," she said. "When I asked, What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening, you answered, Man. You didn't say anything about woman." "When you say Man," said Oedipus, "you include women too. Everyone knows that." She said, "That's what you think." Muriel Rukeyser "Myth" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First of all, I would like to thank my committee members for all their help: Marvin Carlson for so capably chairing; Vera M. Roberts for her mentorship in American theatre history since my undergraduate days at Hunter College; Albert Bermel for his humor, editorial skills, and good talk; and Mary Ann Caws for her course "Writing Women" and her intellectual stimulation. I would also like to thank Margaret Knapp, who, as my first chair, saw me through the birth pangs of this project, suffered my doubts, and helped me through to the second draft. Sue-Ellen Case has been my mentor in feminist theory ever since her summer course at NYU in 1984 gave me a germinal bibliography and the belief that feminism and theatre could mix. Jill Dolan has been a supportive and constructive reader of this work as it has evolved and I want to acknowledge her help in my thinking through many ideas of feminism and representation. I want especially to thank Julia Miles, who got me into all this to begin with, and the playwrights and directors of The Women's Project, who have helped keep me going. Sallie Bingham and The Kentucky Foundation for Women's grant gave me encouragement and time, both of which have enriched this dissertation. Most thanks to Natalie Zdanow, for her patience, supportiveness, and quiet confidence that I could make a contribution. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . ............................. .. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ............................. 1 CHAPTER 2 FEMINIST ANTHROPOLOGY: "THE EXCHANGE OF WOMEN" AND FIRST STAGE C R I T I C I S M ...................38 CHAPTER 3 FEMINIST PSYCHOLOGY: MOTHER-DAUGHTER BONDING AND FIRST AND SECOND STAGE CRITICISM .... 67 CHAPTER 4 FEMINIST LITERARY CRITICISM: MADNESS, CONFINEMENT, AND SECOND STAGE CRITICISM ................ 96 CHAPTER 5 FEMINIST FILM CRITICISM: REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN AND THIRD STAGE C R I T I C I S M ..................129 CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS ............................. 165 APPENDIX A VARIOUS FORMULATIONS OF THE POLITICAL DIVISIONS OF FEMINISM ................ 173 APPENDIX B THREE RECURRING TOPICS IN RADICAL FEMINISM: WOMEN'S CULTURE, LESBIAN FEMINISM, AND "NEW FRENCH FEMINISM" ................ 180 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 194 Vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This dissertation is the record of a journey. The journey is through feminist theoretical writings which bear on many subjects that might provide points of view, ideas, critical tools, for examining postwar American plays in a constructive way. There are visits to plays that lend themselves to discussion using these theories. The journey is a process, which I hope to keep as flexible and open- ended as possible along the way, while not losing sight entirely of the conclusions in the distance: a goal but not an end. My starting point is the intersection of several interests: theatre as a process as well as an event; the text that ignites the process; women as subjects, writers, and audiences of those texts; and culture as their context. I am exploring the possibilities of using for dramatic analysis recent developments in feminist analysis in four areas of study: anthropology, psychology, literary criticism, and film theory. I lived in Manhattan for sixteen years, September, 1 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. theatre. This dissertation comes out of my observations during that period and my reading of various types of feminist theory. As Literary Manager of The Women's Project at The American Place Theatre, from 1978 to 1984 I read hundreds of new plays written by American women, with the aim of helping more women move into the mainstream of playwriting and directing, we produced staged readings of 130 plays and productions of twenty-six, as well as two published anthologies of plays. My interest in women as writers for theatre developed there. When I returned to graduate school for doctoral

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