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Making Cake Daddy: Dramaturgies to 'Fatten' the Queer Stage

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Making Cake Daddy: Dramaturgies to 'Fatten' the Queer Stage Making Cake Daddy: dramaturgies to ‘fatten’ the queer stage Jonathan Allan Graffam Bachelor of Arts (Hons.) Master of Dramaturgy ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1139-1890 December 2020 Submitted in total fulfilment of the degree Master of Fine Arts (Theatre) Theatre, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music The University of Melbourne Declaration This is to certify that: • The thesis comprises only my own original work towards the Master of Fine Arts except where indicated in the preface; • Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used; • The thesis is fewer than 50,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Jonathan Graffam ii Acknowledgements I am tremendously grateful for the tireless support, guidance and dual artistic and academic mentorship I have received from Dr Alyson Campbell, which began well in advance of composing this thesis and continues beyond. Thank you to Dr Eddie Paterson for his expert supervision, keen insights and ability to read multiple drafts with fresh eyes. Additionally, I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr Zachary Dunbar for his care and support throughout this project. I am deeply indebted to artists Ross Anderson-Doherty and Lachlan Philpott for their openness and generosity and I extend this to the rest of the Cake Daddy creative team. It has been an honour to be part of this fabulous queer assemblage. I hope the sheer joy I felt during our time together making this work is conveyed through the writing. Thank you to colleagues in Theatre at the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music (VCA), especially Dr Sarah Austin, as well as my graduate researcher peers. A special thank you to Rachel Patenaude for kindly sharing recorded interview material of the Cake Daddy team, which has found its way into this document. There has been much backstage support. Thank you to my parents Julie and Joe for their unceasing encouragement. The same for siblings near and far. A very special thank you to my partner Russell O’Meara who has been a source of endless kindness, hugs and laughter. To my best friend and four-legged companion Koda, I’m finally coming, buddy, go get your leash… iii Abstract This thesis examines the dramaturgical strategies used in making performance about fat identity. The research responds to fat activist performance scholar Jennifer-Scott Mobley’s call for of a ‘Fat Dramaturgy,’ and attempts to further the field by presenting unique insights and findings from within the process of making new performance work.1 The inquiry is framed by my dramaturgical practice, and that of the creative team, in the process of making Cake Daddy, an original stage work performed by fat- and queer-identifying artist Ross Anderson-Doherty. Given the powerful influence of queer activism and theory in consolidating and galvanising the nascent field of fat activist performance—and the queer identification and aesthetic of the Cake Daddy creative team—I address how queer performance strategies can be used to highlight the negative impact of dominant, medicalised narratives and the societal urge to pathologize fatness and, in doing so, encourage meaningful dialogue around other aspects of the lived experience of fat people: the social, cultural, political and sexual. Thus, I ask: what dramaturgical strategies can be used when making queer performance that frames and celebrates fat identity? By analysing moments of the Cake Daddy performance, I articulate how and why certain choices in composing these moments were determined in the creative process. I draw on the fields of fat studies, performance studies (dramaturgy) and queer theory, and situate the work within the wider field of fat activist performance. The thesis also offers an important and needed shift in the way fat activist performance is analysed by presenting perspectives from within the process of making it. Of particular significance, then, is my position as a practitioner-researcher embedded in the creative process. 1 Jennifer-Scott Mobley, “Toward a Fat Dramaturgy: Activism, Theory, Practice,” Fat Studies 8, no. 3 (2019): 213–18. iv Table of Contents Declaration ................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... iii Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Figures .............................................................................................................. vii Preface .......................................................................................................................... viii Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1 Subject of thesis ................................................................................................................ 1 Aim of thesis ...................................................................................................................... 3 Scope of thesis ................................................................................................................... 3 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 4 Structure ............................................................................................................................ 6 Significance of the study ................................................................................................... 8 1. Background: Fat studies—formalising a field of fat activist research ......................... 9 Introduction: What is fat studies? .................................................................................... 9 Fat identity and subjectivity: resisting erasure .............................................................. 12 Social determinants of health and ‘problem’ framing................................................... 14 Intersections of fat and queer ........................................................................................ 17 Fat sex, sexuality and desire ........................................................................................... 20 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 22 2. Background: Fat Dramaturgies—formalising a discourse of fat activist performance 23 Introduction: Staging fatness .......................................................................................... 23 Towards a more expansive ‘Fat Dramaturgy’ ................................................................ 27 Fat activist performance and fat community ................................................................. 31 ‘Obesity’ and Diet Discourse in Fat Activist Performance ............................................. 33 Fat Performativity ........................................................................................................... 34 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 36 3. Expanding (Fat) Dramaturgy: establishing an artistic practice and creative methodology ......................................................................................................................................38 Introduction: defining ‘dramaturgy’ ............................................................................... 38 Dramaturgy as a contemporary practice........................................................................ 43 Recording and documenting collaborative practice ...................................................... 44 ‘Queer Dramaturgies’ ...................................................................................................... 46 Genesis of Cake Daddy and the emergence of a queer hybrid form ............................ 47 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 52 4. Visibility, Presence and Community-building in Cake Daddy .........................................54 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 54 Hamburger Queen, a fat talent contest ......................................................................... 55 Cake Watchers: interaction, conversation and ‘watching cake’ ................................... 59 Devising Cake Watchers: establishing an audience community ................................... 65 The Cake Daddy Pledge ................................................................................................... 70 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 79 v 5. Queering ‘Obesity’ Discourse and Diet Culture .............................................................80 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 80 Queering the subject and creative process .................................................................... 81 Cake Watchers as queer deconstruction ........................................................................ 84 ‘Emotional dramaturgy’:
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