Queer Performance in the Post-Millennial Scramble
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QUEER PERFORMANCE IN THE POST-MILLENNIAL SCRAMBLE MOYNAN KING A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO November 2019 © Moynan King, 2019 ii Abstract The subject of this dissertation is contemporary queer feminist performance in Canada. My practice-informed research takes a unique approach to studying performance through what I call the “queer performance scramble”—a term that draws on the multiple meanings of “scramble” to understand the aesthetics of queer performance and its challenges to stable conceptions of both identity and temporality. I investigate works that are happening now and that scramble the sticky elements of their own cultural constructions and queer temporalities. The temporal turn in queer theory supports my engagement with the effects of temporality, performativity, and history on queer performance, and, conversely, the effects of queer performance on time. I am equally interested in the formal and material dimensions of the work I study. I look to the content, style, material conditions, and social scenes of queer feminist performance from the perspective of both an academic and an artist to make accessible work that is often marginalized within Canadian cultural production ecology. Chapter 1 investigates queer feminist hauntings with an analysis of Allyson Mitchell and Deirdre Logue’s Killjoy’s Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House. Chapter 2 argues that cabaret is the primary site for queer feminist performance in Canada, and when framed as a methodological problem/solution matrix, both the celebratory and limiting potential of the form can be explored. In chapter 3 I analyze performances by Jess Dobkin, Dayna McLeod, and Shaista Latif to excavate forms of durationality that expose the complex interplay of life and art. And, in chapter 4, I turn to practice-based research methodology to explore the concept of queer resonance in a trans feminist performance called trace. This research will give rise to new conversations about the Canadian performance ecology and its performance archive. It will enrich theoretical considerations of “queer” as iii always already transtemporal and intractable and make an intervention into the ideological space between queer and feminist performance studies. Thinking within the rubric of the queer performance scramble means thinking differently about performance and time—while always keeping the art at the very centre of the investigation and always returning to it for guidance. iv Acknowledgements Thank you to the York University Theatre and Performance Studies graduate program for warmly welcoming me and giving me the space and time to do this work. This research was funded by York University, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Ontario Graduate Research Fund, and the Don Rubin Graduate Award for research in Canadian Performance. I am eternally grateful for all of these generous funding sources. Embarking on an extended research project like this requires the support of many people and the magical appearance of a plethora of happy accidents. David Tomlinson, thank you for being in the dressing room with me when I first said out loud that I might go back to school. Your enthusiasm gave me courage. Aunt Pat, the care and trust you showed in my first year gave me ease and peace as I embarked on this path. I am so grateful to my study buddies; Weronika Rogula, for all the time we spent quietly co-working at the library, and my great friend and colleague, Dayna McLeod, with whom I spent many hours theorizing over the skype with a cup of coffee (for me) and a Red Bull (for her). Laine Zisman-Newman, thank you for organizing the Queer Theory Reading Group at the Jackman Centre for the Humanities at the University of Toronto, which supplied me with wonderful queer theory books and interesting folks to talk about them to. Annie Gibson and Playwrights Canada Press, thank you for enthusiastically getting on board for the publication of Queer/Play, the companion anthology to this dissertation project. I am grateful for the many friends whose feminist faith and queer collegiality kept me buoyed even when I thought I was sinking; thanks especially to Keith Cole, Heather Shaw, Shannon Cochrane, Jess Dobkin, Hilary McCann, Elvira Kurt, Andrea Ridgely, Sasha Pierce, and Paula John. v I have learned a great deal in the course of this research and I simply could not have done this work without the brilliance, care, and commitment of my dissertation committee. Thank you so much Laura Levin, Darren Gobert, and Allyson Mitchell. My love, Carolyn Taylor, for always keeping the faith, and infusing my life with humour, sweetness, respect, and love, thank you. vi Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. viii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter Breakdown .................................................................................................................. 12 Chapter One: Killjoy’s Kastle: A Monstrous Collaboration ......................................................... 20 Queer Feminist Hauntings: A Theoretical Reflection .............................................................. 28 Monstrous Representation ........................................................................................................ 30 Killjoy’s Kastle: A Lesbian Feminist Haunted House .............................................................. 33 Monstrous Collaboration .......................................................................................................... 41 What’s Scary and Who Will Be Scared? .................................................................................. 45 Moving Right Along ................................................................................................................. 52 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 54 Chapter Two: Queer Feminist Cabaret: Disappearance, Resurrection, and Return ..................... 59 Cabaret: a Chronic State of Precarity........................................................................................ 64 The Cabaret Solution/Problem Matrix ...................................................................................... 66 Edgy Women/Redux ................................................................................................................. 74 Cabaret Edgy ........................................................................................................................ 78 Fin/End ................................................................................................................................. 83 Strange Insatiable Sisters .......................................................................................................... 84 Insatiable Redux.................................................................................................................... 90 Returns, Restarts, and Re-visions ............................................................................................. 94 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 103 Chapter Three: The Performance Has Started/The Performance Is Still Going On ................... 109 Queer Feminist Duration......................................................................................................... 111 The Magic Hour ...................................................................................................................... 117 Lobby................................................................................................................................... 118 vii Inside ................................................................................................................................... 118 Running ............................................................................................................................... 120 Scratching at Trauma ......................................................................................................... 120 The Trauma Is Still Going On ............................................................................................. 121 Performance and Experience .................................................................................................. 123 The Performance Is Still Going On ........................................................................................ 126 Adult/Child .........................................................................................................................