STILL HAUNTING THE CASTLE: FEMINIST AND POSTCOLONIAL GOTHIC THEATRE AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the DeGree of Doctor of Philosophy by Aoise A. Stratford February 2016 © 2016 Aoise A. Stratford STILL HAUNTING THE CASTLE: FEMINIST AND POSTCOLONIAL GOTHIC THEATRE AT THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Aoise A. Stratford, Ph.D. Cornell University 2016 Abstract: Despite the fact that Gothic drama dominated London and American staGes around the turn of the nineteenth century, Gothic is a critically disparaGed term rarely used in contemporary theatre scholarship. This project seeks to reclaim the term in the context of certain twentieth-century plays by women that can be said to belong to a genealogy of contemporary feminist theatre. These plays use Gothic themes, imaGes, and conventions to challenGe dominant patriarchal ideologies in the postcolonial cultures of England, Australia, Canada, and the USA. The playwriGhts primarily studied in this regard are Beatrix Christian, Judith Thompson, Connie Gault, Alma De Groen, Caryl Churchill, Suzan-Lori Parks, Liz Lochhead, Adrienne Kennedy, Sarah Kane, and The Five Lesbian Brothers. AnalyzinG this significant body of work, I arGue for the presence of a Gothic mode across a range of plays that are variously consciously Gothic (in that they take known Gothic texts as intertexts), evocatively Gothic (in that they present an accumulation of tropes, imaGes and conventions recoGnizable from earlier Gothic novels and examined in extant Gothic scholarship), or that use the Gothic as a siGnificant dramaturGical strateGy that interrupts and (re)frames the play’s narrative and meaninG. WorkinG from the claim that the power dynamics of spaces and bodies are central to the intersection of Gothic literary studies, feminist theatre studies, and postcolonialism, and drawinG on key critical texts from those disciplines, the first three chapters each examine a prominent trope of the Gothic: the dangerous Gothic space, the monstrous reproductive body, and the infectious body of the vampire. The first chapter explores postcolonial stagings of claustrophobic interiors, abject landscapes, and polyvalent spaces with unstable borders. The second chapter looks at constructions of race and gender in contemporary American fiGurations of monstrous mothers in Suzan-Lori Parks’s The Red Letter Plays. The third chapter moves from literal to fiGurative evocations of the vampire and its relationship to upheaval, exploitation, and gender. The final chapter proposes Sarah Kane’s Blasted as a case study for the feminist postcolonial Gothic theatre, lookinG at how the three tropes of the previous chapters coalesce in that play. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Aoise Stratford received a Bachelor of Arts DeGree with Honors from the University of New South Wales, Australia, with a double major in EnGlish, and Theatre and Film Studies, in 1998. She completed an MFA in WritinG, with a concentration in Fiction, from the University of San Francisco in 2000. She is also a playwright and an occasional dramaturG. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with much Gratitude that I wish to acknowledGe the support and inspiration of a Good many people in the writinG of this project. While the followinG expressions of Gratitude may seem to fit neat cateGories, the truth is that many people have helped in many ways. First and foremost, my thanks to my advisors, J. Ellen Gainor, Sara Warner, Phillip Lorenz, and Catherine Burroughs, whose unflagging support of this project, unequaled critical input, and unflinching advice have not only helped shape this project but also shaped me as a scholar. I am forever in their debt. Secondly, I wish to acknowledge the playwrights whose dramatic visions are at the heart of this project: Beatrix Christian, Suzan-Lori Parks, Caryl Churchill, Adrienne Kennedy, Alma DeGroen, Judith Thompson, Liz Lochhead, The Five Lesbian Brothers, Connie Gault, and Sarah Kane, along side those afforded less attention but still a key part of this discussion, Paula Vogel, Gwen Pharis Ringwood, J. R. Planché, Joanna Baillie, Colman the Younger, Hilary Bell, Kathryn Ash, Joan Schenkar, Carole Frechette, Beth Henley, Louis Nowra, Daniel McDonald, and Jack Thorne. AlonGside the scholarship of my committee, I would also like to acknowledGe my deep admiration and Gratitude for the work of Cheryl Black and Kim Solga in particular, whose feminist theatre criticism has been so helpful to me in formulatinG my own response to our shared subject. Kathleen Perry Long has also served as a mentor, nurturinG my interest in the Gothic when I arrived at Cornell, as has Nick Salvato, who fanned the flames iv further still in relation to television studies. The dauGhter of an academic and an English teacher, I have benefited Greatly also from the mentorship of my own parents, my first teachers and readers, Conal and Averil Condren. Graduate school is its own particular journey, and I am thankful not to have had to make it alone. My heartfelt thanks to my brothers and sisters in spirit and AGITation, particularly Lindsay CumminGs, Jimmy NorieGa, Diana Looser, Wah Guan Lim, Stephen Low, Erin Stoneking, Nick Fesette, Seth Soulstein, Honey Crawford, Jayme Kilburn, J. Michael Kinsey and Kriszta Pozsonyi. My thanks also to those who helped me think throuGh the labor of scholarship by remindinG me that I am indelibly connected to the subject of that enterprise because I also labor to make theatre: in particular Shawna Mefferd Kelty, Cheri MaGid, Gary Garrison, John Yearley, GreGory Pulver, Bruce Levitt, Austin Bunn, Wes Pearce, Emily Rollie, Sam BuGGeln, Godfrey Simmons, Beth Milles, Carolyn Goelzer, George Sapio, Donna Hoke, and Dawson Moore. I especially would like to recognize the veritable village that has supported me in ways that may be less visible in the paGes that follow but without whom there would be no pages. My deep and humble thanks to those who have provided much needed balance, friendship, and parenting support: Alicia and Mark Wittink, Meloney and David McMurray, Kathy and Peter Schwartz and Jessica Lucrayer, Alison and Brent LemberG, Toby Ault, Jenny Leijonhufvud, Karin Harjes, Sean CunninGham, Sarah Collins, Laura and Jason HarrinGton, Amy Maltzan, Lisa Ellin, Kim Evans and David La Rocca, Justine Schwartz, Dee Hay, Shelby Dietz and Eanna Flannigan, Meredith de Pol, Justine Lloyd, Juke Wyatt, Libby and Grandfa, AlleGra Zakis, and my sister in spirit, Danny KinGsley. v And finally to my family, whose sacrifices and compromises have been many: Jamie, Rowena, Gwendy and HuGo Lloyd thank you from the bottom of my heart for the Gifts of love and perspective (and tech support). Your presence is everywhere here. The somewhat unsettling experience of reading Freud while nursing an infant, the profound anxiety of caring for a sick child while writinG my A exams, and the mixed blessinG of explaininG what a vampire is to a Halloween-obsessed six year old are--for better and worse--part of this project and the person I have become because of it. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch ….. iii AcknowledGements ….. iv Introduction: In Search of a Feminist Gothic Theatre ….. 1 Chapter One: Staging the Postcolonial Gothic Space ….. 71 Chapter Two: Monstrous (M)Others and Suzan-Lori Parks’s Red Letter Plays ….. 134 Chapter Three: Vampire/Empire and TroublinG Transformations ….. 201 Chapter Four: Sarah Kane’s Blasted: A Gothic Case Study ….. 271 Provisional Conclusion: ….. 311 Works Cited ….. 324 vii INTRODUCTION: In Search of a Feminist Gothic Theatre “Wow. It’s so – Gothic” (Beatrix Christian, Blue Murder) Introduction: Who’s There? In Australian playwriGht Beatrix Christian’s Blue Murder (1994), when Eve arrives from the country and meets a reclusive man called Blue, the first thinG she says when she enters his house is: “Wow, it’s so Gothic” (Christian, Blue 3). And from these four words we know just what to expect. The house will be vast and cavernous, but somehow also stiflinG. It will smack of the past. It will contain shockinG secrets that hint at some as yet unknown and unreadable threat. The journey throuGh this place will be familiar, yet stranGe, involvinG GettinG lost while seeminGly GoinG nowhere. And lurkinG in its unfathomable shadows there will be the erotic, elusive, and dangerous presence of an Other. By describing her surroundinGs as Gothic, Eve is tellinG us somethinG not just about the house, but also about the world in which she finds herself, and in which we find ourselves—the world of the play. Two hundred years ago, Eve’s reaction, along with the various structural, atmospheric, and physical trappinGs it evokes, and our immediate anticipation of the pleasurable thrills of terror that would surely follow, would have been a common occurrence in the theatre. By 1800, Gothic drama was a siGnificant feature of both the 1 EnGlish and the American theatre landscape. Wildly popular and controversially subversive, Gothic dramas by serious poets, tragic playwrights, and sensational novelists dominated the theatre season in London and caused both deliGht and outraGe in the public. With its heiGhtened emotional reGister, instability of form, preoccupation with the irrational, and mixed messaGes about power, the Gothic was perceived by many as a threat to the well-trod boards of the leGitimate and patriarchal theatre.1 Indeed it is perhaps this aliGnment with the marGinalized that attracted so many women both as audience members and as the proGenitors of Gothic drama in their roles as playwriGhts and as popular novelists whose work begged for theatrical adaptation. The Gothic legacy Eve clearly recognizes at the end of the twentieth century is shaped by a genealogy that includes significant works by Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, and Joanna Baillie, to name a few. Yet despite its siGnificance as a dramatic Genre two centuries aGo, little to no attention has been paid in either Gothic studies or theatre studies to a Gothic genealogy that includes contemporary drama, especially not as written by women.