The Performance of Gender with particular reference to the plays of Shakespeare A thesis submitted to Middlesex University in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Luke Dixon School of Drama and Theatre Arts Middlesex University April 1998 MX 7309012 3 IIIýýWII IIIIIXVýýýwýýllllýý ABSTRACT An analytical history of the representation of gender on the English stage from Shakespeare to modern times is followed by a detailed examination of the National Theatre of Great Britain's production of `As You Like It' in 1967, the first production of a play by Shakespeare for over three hundred years in which the female parts were played by male actors. Subsequent cross-cast productions of Shakespeare's plays by Glasgow Citizen's Theatre, Prospect theatre Company, Lindsay Kemp, Theatre du Soleil and Goodman Theatre Chicago are discussed and the views of directors and critics of those productions analysed. The thesis then presents the results of a series of workshops with actors into the playing of gender and examines, by means of an experiment employing Gender Schema Theory, how actors construct gender in a production of `Twelfth Night'. The final part of the thesis describes a controlled experiment into audience perception of gender using a scene from `Hamlet'. Theories are presented about the nature of the performance of gender on stage and the use of theatrical conventions, the relationship between social conventions and stage conventions, about the way in which an actor builds a character, the influence of biological sex on actors' creativity, and about audience perception. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I Contexts, methodology, terminology. Pps1- 21 Chapter 2 The representation of gender on the English stage, an historical perspective. Pps 22 - 40 Chapter 3 The National Theatre of Great Britain's revival of `As You Like It' at The Old Vic, 1967. Pps 41 - 76 Chapter 4 Subsequent performances: `Hamlet', Glasgow Citizens Theatre 1970, `Pericles', Prospect Theatre Company 1973, `A Midsummer Night's Dream', Lindsay Kemp Company 1979, and other productions. Pps 77 - 124 Chapter 5 Summary of conclusions drawn from and issues raised by the empirical research and an outline of further investigation. Pps 125 - 130 Chapter 6 Exploring the performance of gender through workshops with actors. Pps 131 - 190 Chapter 7 The actor's construction of gender and character, an experiment with Gender Schema. Pps 191 - 231 Chapter 8 An audience's perception of gender. Pps 232 - 265 Chapter 9 Conclusions. Pps 266 - 274 Chronology of Performances Pps 275 - 286 Bibliography Pps 287 - 298 discussion, rehearsal and the endless filling out of questionnaires and especially my supervisors who have guided me through the unfamiliar mazes of academe. Professor Leon Rubin always had his eye on the ball, even when he was half way around the world, and Professor David Marks introduced me to the world of psychology and Gender Schema Theory and helped me to apply scientific disciplines to the investigation of acting. To both Leon and David I owe a huge debt. Luke Dixon London April 1998 CHAPTER 1 The plays of Shakespeare were written to be performed by men, only men; and for a while they were. The dominant convention of Shakespeare's theatre demanded that no women were to be seen on stage as actors. The female parts were played by male actors, men and boys. This was not a new convention, though the theatres in which it was used were new, and the other conventions used in the new buildings were being invented by Shakespeare and his fellow actors. The convention of only men being actors was one which had dictated the representation of humans on stage throughout the documented history of English performance'. Shakespeare's As You Like It was first performed in 1599. In 1642 the Puritans closed all the public playhouses in England and when they were reopened eighteen years later in 1660 it was with female actors playing the ' This was true of both liturgical and secular drama. The Concordia Regularis of St. Ethelwold from the eleventh century shows how the coming of the three Marys to the sepulchre and their encounter with the Angel were to be represented at Mattins on Easter Day by four brothers. `While the third lesson is being chanted, let four brethren rest themselves. Let one of these, vested in an alb, enter as though to take part in the service, and let him approach the sepulchre without attracting attention and sit there quietly with a palm in his hand. While the third response is chanted, let the remaining three follow and let them all, vested in copes, bearing in their hands thuribles with incense, and stepping delicately as those who seek something approach the sepulchre. These things are done in imitation of the angel sitting in the monument, and the women with spices coming to anoint the body of Jesus.' (from the Concordia Re uglaris, quoted in Nagler, p.39) I quote this at length as it is the first written record of how to play a woman in English theatre. 2 female roles. For the first time women actors represented women on the English stage. One convention had been exchanged for another equally as rigid. It was to be more than three hundred years before a production of a play by Shakespeare in which all the actors were men was seen on the professional stage in England, when the National Theatre revived As You Like It in 1967. For three centuries the dominant stage convention of the representation of men and women on stage remained unchallenged. In the thirty years since that National Theatre production, the casting of male actors in female roles has become an occasional but increasingly frequent anti-convention in the performance of the plays of Shakespeare. Today it is common enough to be thought of as an alternative convention. Further anti- and alternative conventions have developed from it, including that of casting all the roles in a production, male and female, with female actors. This thesis sets out to examine the history of the conventions of the representation of men and women, of gender, in the performance of the plays of Shakespeare. It seeks to explain why the rigidity of stage convention relaxed in 1967 and how the breaking of that convention allowed for the growth of alternative performance traditions and conventions. The development of cross-gender casting in the plays of Shakespeare is charted and related to changing social conventions around the representation of gender. 3 I will put forward theories about why the revival took place, analyse the views of directors as to the uses of such casting and its implications for casting in the theatre in general, and demonstrate the growth of new performance traditions based on such casting. An analysis of the uses, dramatic, artistic and sexual-political, of cross-gender casting is followed by the postulation of theories about the playing of gender as a result of practical workshops into the artistic possibilities and practical difficulties for actor, director and audience offered by such casting. I will also show how an actor's construction of gender on stage relates to the theatrical construction of character in general and how those involved in the complicity of a theatrical performance suspend their disbeliefs when the actors are of a different gender to the characters they are playing on stage. I will demonstrate, by experiment, that female actors and male actors create characters on stage in different ways, dependent upon their, the actor's, gender. I will argue that in any society there will always be a dominant set of stage conventions which reflect social conventions and show how in a multi-cultural society these conventions will always reflect those of the dominant culture. I will show how in a period of social change such change is reflected on stage allowing new conventions to become acceptable or be experimented with just 4 as such conventions are being questioned in society as a whole. I will show how social change may be such as to permit its own reflection in changed conventions on the stage. Using the convention of the representation of gender as a model I will postulate that non-dominant or alternative stage conventions will always be viewed through the lens of the dominant convention. That, for instance, theatre-in-the-round is always seen through the lens of the proscenium arch; that `colour blind' casting is seen through the lens of colour specific casting; that Pepys saw women playing women through the lens of men playing women; that the audience at the National Theatre in 1967 saw through the reverse of Pepys' lens; that any production of a Greek play today which uses masks, has to be viewed through the lens of a theatre of mask-less actors. That, in other words, the dominant convention always acts as an intervening convention to an alternative convention, even if the alternative convention was once the dominant. I will examine the problems that arise when staging a play for which the dominant conventions for which it was written no longer apply and whether the convention of gender representation being used in a production affects the job of the actor in playing a role. I will examine the acceptability to an audience of alternative conventions; to 5 what extent the dominant convention distorts alternative conventions, how far the dominant convention intervenes between audience and alternative convention; and whether an alternative convention will always be seen negatively because it is not the dominant convention. I will question whether social conventions reflect stage convention and how far one affects the other.