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Performing Citizenship Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2006 Performing citizenship: tensions in the creation of the citizen image on stage and screen John William Wright Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Wright, John William, "Performing citizenship: tensions in the creation of the citizen image on stage and screen" (2006). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3383. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3383 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. PERFORMING CITIZENSHIP: TENSIONS IN THE CREATION OF THE CITIZEN IMAGE ON STAGE AND SCREEN A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In The Department of Theatre by John William Wright B.A., Berry College, 1991 M.F.A., University of Georgia, 1995 December 2006 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I began my Doctoral studies in 1999, I had no idea of the long, strange journey I would encounter in completing this work. Seven years later, I enter my third year on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc. Every day I am reminded as I teach that I have, all this time, remained a student myself. It has given me a unique perspective on my academic career, and needless to say there are many to whom I must offer gratitude for their support in finally finishing this work. I offer my most humble thanks to my committee for their support and patience: Leigh Clemons, Michael Tick and Wayne Parent. To my chair and mentor Les Wade I give my most sincere gratitude for his continual efforts to keep me writing, to push my work to be just a little better even when I ran into walls of frustration. I would also like to thank Jennifer Jones Cavenaugh and Femi Euba for their knowledge and experience over the years. I would be remiss if I did not also thank Bill Harbin for being there my first day of class at LSU. I try to emulate your kindness and love of theatre in how I teach every day. You are missed by all who learned from you. To colleagues in the UW-Colleges who have supported me: UW-Manitowoc Interim Dean Mary Beth Emmerichs, whose continual words of advice and support helped keep me sane; Sarah Rudolph, my department chair, who always understood what I was going through in balancing my full-time duties as a theatre director with the needs of finishing this scholarship. I also thank those who played a major part in my years at LSU: Wendell Stone and Don Whittaker for being the most generous mentors when I began my program of study; fellow PhD students Elissa Sartwell, Gino Chelakis and Marla Dean, who were comrades in arms at differing points of this journey. To Leon Ingelsrud I offer my gratitude for helping me become a better ii director. My thanks to Neal Herbert for always being a good friend as well as a fellow gaming enthusiast, and for letting me crash on his couch. To my family, David E. Wright, Sr., Jennelou Wright, and my brother David, for always being there and for being supportive even when I was crazy enough to say “I want to get my PhD.” To mentors from my early days, I especially thank Bob Frank at Berry College and Stanley Longman at the University of Georgia. To all my students, past and present, who each and every day have reminded me exactly why I wanted to go through all of this in the first place. And, most importantly, I give my deepest thanks and love to my wife Mona, who has put up with me now for three crazy years of my life. I love you very much, and I wouldn’t have finished this without you! iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………… ii ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….. vi CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION (CONCEPTUALIZATIONS)……...………………………. 1 The Holistic Citizen and Theoretical Models……………………………... 12 Theatre as Active Site for the Engagement of the Citizen………………… 20 Methodology………………………………………………………………. 26 Organization of Chapters………………………………………………….. 28 Importance of This Investigation……………...…………………………... 31 2. THE EVOLUTION OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN AND THEATRE AS REIFYING AGENT IN EARLY AMERICAN DRAMA…………………. 34 The Development of the American Citizen……………………………….. 35 The Socialization of the American Citizen………………………..……… 49 Reification in the Colonial and Post-Colonial Period (Proto-American Heroes, The Yankee Character and the Evolved Citizen).………… 54 Theatrical Reinforcement Towards the End of the Nineteenth Century….. 76 3. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: AMERICAN CHARACTER BECOMES “CITIZEN” AND SUBVERSION WITHIN THEATRE………………………. 81 The Creation of a Dominant American “Character” and Resistance in Twentieth Century Theatrical Images…………………….......... 84 The “Right” to Think……………………………………………………… 97 The “American Dream” and the Citizen………………………………….. 108 Cultural Connections – The “Good” Citizen……………………………… 118 4. PHYSICALITY AND CULTURE: INSCRIBING THE CITIZEN ON THE BODY…………………………………………………………………….. 122 Theatrical Positioning of “Blackness” in the Early Twentieth Century…… 132 Reification and Assimilation: Coding the “Black” Body on the Twentieth Century Stage…………………………………………… 136 Resistance and Subversion: Radical Re-Coding of the Black Body………. 146 5. SACRIFICE AND RUPTURE: THE “FUTURE” AND MOVEMENT TOWARDS THE HOLISTIC CITIZEN………………………………………... 161 The Ethics of Sacrifice and Exchange: Views of the Holistic Citizen…….. 164 (De)Constructing Citizenship Identifiers: Can an Android Eliminate the Coding of the Citizen Body?…………………………………... 179 A Call To Arms: Merging the Eradication of Citizen Pillars with Reconstruction of the Body……………………………………….. 195 CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………. 197 iv WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………… 205 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………….. 214 v ABSTRACT What does it mean to be a “citizen” of the United States? In the simplest of terms, citizenship is a limited position of identity, relegated to a narrow definition of legal and geographical position for an individual. But to be a “citizen” in America means far more than that – it becomes an accepted image of our collective identity which seeks an historical and political supremacy that allows America, and its citizens, to claim ideological status over anyone who is not a part of that nationalistic frame. The citizen has, for us, become a set of understood rights and privileges, inexorably connected to a further set of duties and responsibilities that we must perform in exchange for those rights. This study seeks to examine the ways in which theatre has contributed to the creation of, reinforcement of, and subversion of a dominant ideological view of Americans citizens. The evolution of our concept of citizenship is explored, from its origins in Greek philosophy to twentieth-century expansions of who is and who is not considered to be a citizen. Theatrical movements and productions from differing eras are examined to reveal how each of these reacted to their historical contexts in presenting the image of the citizen on stage and screen, and how our understanding of who we are, as Americans, becomes so engrained in all aspects of society that even theatrical attempts to challenge or subvert this ideology become entangled in calls for the very same rights and privileges. Ultimately, this work challenges theatre to eradicate our stubborn and subconscious adherence to what we perceive as our fundamental rights, and to create images of the citizen which are more holistic in relationship to the world around us. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION (CONCEPTUALIZATIONS) “I am a Citizen of the United States of America.” This simple statement declares a position of identity, signifying a claim by one human being to an accepted, legally constructed status that endows certain rights and responsibilities, while also linking that individual to a collective whole which acts as identifier for the individual. It is a statement that signifies a legal meaning, the codified membership of one person within the parameters of one specific nation (the United States); it unifies the individual into a collective whole with other individuals within that same nation; and, it declares to those who are not members of that nation that they are different, or other to the citizen. The central problem with the declaration above is that its claim rests on two assumptions: first, that when a nation such as the United States establishes a legal codification for the requirements, rights and privileges of its citizens, it collectively identifies and codifies the individual position within the nation-state; and, secondly, that the individuals within the larger legalistic claim share a common understanding as to what that position signifies. “Citizenship” is, if taken as simplistically as the statement would indicate, a limited position of identity – the actual legal standing of the citizen as the subject of this claim narrowly defines itself to a location of birth, an oath of allegiance, or even more specifically to a set of words on a document that separate the American from the non-American. The meaning of that claim is left unclear, along with the
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