UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Performing with the Environment A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies by Courtney Beth Ryan 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Performing with the Environment by Courtney Ryan Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies University of California, Los Angeles Professor Shelley I. Salamensky, Chair Focusing on twentieth through twenty-first century ecological theater, literature, film, and new media in the United States, I ask how humans may interact with the environment rather than only act upon it. While the nascent field of eco-theater recognizes the importance of space and place, this dissertation goes a step further, combining spatial theory and ecocriticism in order to generate a spatialized eco-performance. The project takes up the prefix trans- to consider human and nonhuman environmental encounters and how these spatiotemporal crossings illuminate both spatial injustices and interspecies dependency. I argue that, while each environment has its own particularities, there are parallels to be made between the systems of environmental injustice in one site and those in another. I adapt interdisciplinary methodologies of ecocriticism, urban political ecology, and environmental justice in order to strengthen reciprocity between humans and other bio-organisms, as well as to expose the unequal power dynamics historically embedded in human and nonhuman relations. ii The first half of the dissertation centers on land. It explores the ways in which land and metropolites have become separated from each other, and it analyzes performances that expose this constructed divide by transgressing boundaries of “public” and “private” space. The second half of the dissertation centers on water. It considers how water exploitation can lead to disasters that both displace and destroy local ecologies but also make humans aware of their ecological interdependency. Through the prefix trans-, this project analyzes how diverse bio- organisms cross and converge, be it in congested cityscapes or moments of crisis. Elucidating performances that foster egalitarian, symbiotic relationships between humans and other bio- organisms, this dissertation both exposes the joint subjugation of people and place and highlights interdependency between humans and their environments. iii The dissertation of Courtney Ryan is approved. Sue-Ellen Case Elizabeth DeLoughrey Shelley I. Salamensky, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Vita vii Introduction 1 Chapter One: “Transplantment” as Interspecies Performance 16 Chapter Two: Rethinking Green—Performing Environmental Justice in Gaps and Cracks 64 Chapter Three: Spacing and Displacing the Los Angeles River 112 Chapter Four: The BP Oil Spill and Performances of Ecological Irresolution 167 Works Cited 212 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to the courageous artists whose work is featured in this dissertation, particularly Meghan Moe Beitiks, Vaughn Bell, Cornerstone Theater Company, Vlatka Horvat, and Caridad Svich, who generously gave me their time, scripts, and photographs. This dissertation would not have been possible without funding from the UCLA Department of Theater, Film and Television, Graduate Division, and the Center for the Study of Women. In particular, I am grateful for the Dissertation Year Fellowship, the Fred Thorp Fellowship, the Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, and the Chancellor’s Prize. Thanks also to the Johns Hopkins University Press for granting me permission to reprint, as a section of chapter one, my article “Playing with Plants,” which first appeared in Theatre Journal 66.3 (2013). Parts of the Introduction appeared in “Puppet Planets and Spirit Soldiers: Staging Ecological Representation in Baby Universe and Forgotten World,” an article in Richard D. Besel and Jnan Blau’s edited volume, Performance on Behalf of the Environment, published by Lexington Books in 2014. I am deeply appreciative of my dissertation committee. Thanks to Elizabeth DeLoughrey for introducing me to postcolonial ecocriticism and thereby shaping my scholarly path, to Sue- Ellen Case for teaching me critical theory, and, most of all, to Shelley Salamensky for emailing me back at all hours, no matter the question. For their support and encouragement, I thank the following people: Tanya Brown, Tony Fitzgerald, Holly Gibbs, Lindsay Brandon Hunter, Areum Jeong, Linzi Juliano, Yvette Martinez- Vu, Michael Najjar, Farhang Pernoon, Chantal Rodriguez, Genevieve Rowland, Lisa Sloan, and Annika Speer. For always being my constant, I thank my hardworking, loving mother and father, Cathy and John Ryan, and my amazingly supportive spouse, Emmet O’Hanlon. vi VITA 2002-2006 B.A. English and Theater Notre Dame of Maryland University 2007-2009 M.A. Dramatic Arts University of California, Santa Barbara 2007-2009 Teaching Assistant University of California, Santa Barbara 2009-2011 Teaching Associate University of California, Los Angeles 2011-2014 Teaching Fellow University of California, Los Angeles PUBLICATIONS “Puppet Planets and Spirit Soldiers: Staging Ecological Representations in Baby Universe and Forgotten World.” Performance on Behalf of the Environment. Ed. Richard D. Besel and Jnan Blau. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014. 235-58. “Playing with Plants.” Theatre Journal 66.3 (2013): 335-53. Rev. of The Theatricality of Robert Lepage, by Aleksandar Saša Dundjerović. Theatre Journal 63.1 (2011): 143-44. PRESENTATIONS “Multiple Perspectives and Irresolution in Look Left, Look Right’s NOLA.” Comparative Drama Conference. Baltimore, MD. April 3-5, 2014. “Performing in Sidewalk Cracks and Alleyway Gaps.” Plenary. American Society for Theatre Research. Dallas, TX. November 7-10, 2013. “Playing with Plants.” Imagining the City, Performing the Earth Panel. Performance Studies international. Stanford, CA. June 26-30, 2013. “Tracing The Way of Water: Tracking the BP Oil Spill.” Ecology and Performance Working Group. American Society for Theatre Research. Nashville, TN. November 1-4, 2012. “Ecofeminism and Eco-Management in Personal Landscapes.” Cultivating vii Theatre/Ecology Panel. Association for Theatre in Higher Education. Washington, D.C. August 2-5, 2012. “Spacing and Placing the Los Angeles River.” Session Coordinator, Performance and Pause Panel. Earth Matters on Stage Conference. Pittsburgh, PA. May 31-June 2, 2012. “This Here and That There: A Body at Work.” Commercial Dance Working Group. American Society for Theatre Research. Montreal, CA. November 17-20, 2011. “‘Where Are the Keys?:’ Parodic Satire in Ipi Zombi?” Emerging Scholars Panel. Association for Theatre in Higher Education. NY, NY. August 8-11, 2009. viii Introduction For some years now, eco-scholars in various fields have argued that humans and environments are one and the same; we are deeply interconnected with our environment, our world, our planet. From Donna Haraway’s cyborgs and companion species (never one but always becoming many) to Timothy Morton’s ecological thought to Stacy Alaimo’s trans- corporeality, eco-scholars have strived to reveal the permeability of humans, animals, and environments. And, yet, despite such efforts and evidence that we are biologically-linked to our environment—our cells, skin, and organs bearing environmental markers of bacteria and fungi (Haraway, When 3)—we persist in seeing ourselves as separate from it. This artificial divide between humans and environments allows us to continue to disregard our ecological vulnerability and interconnectedness, and, with it, our ecological impact. Through our stubbornly preserved notion of hermetic humans, impenetrable and unaffected by seemingly external environmental changes, we justify our treatment of the environment as alien, distant, out there rather than within us. The question, then, is this: How can eco-theory serve to convince the general public of its ecological entanglement and facilitate interspecies interactions in daily life? Haraway argues that “new practices” are needed to create interspecies connectivity (“Otherworldy” 87), while Anna Tsing suggests that “through naming, we notice the diversity of life” (6). Richard Doyle, meanwhile, posits that people must experience their interconnectivity with the environment rather than simply understand it on an intellectual level (7). I, too, maintain that practical experiences of ecological interdependence are necessary if we are to take notice of our environment and begin to change our role in it, as well as our treatment of it. Rather than propose one ecological practice in this dissertation, though, I advocate for a diversity of 1 situational, improvisational, and multivalent practices that are based on local needs but cognizant of regional and global considerations. While I deploy interdisciplinary theories from environmental justice scholarship, ecocriticism, urban geography, and theater studies, my primary tools of analysis are existing ecological practices at work in movements like guerrilla gardening and food justice and in wide-ranging plays, films, and new media. Through the analysis of such case studies, I consider how performance can create material, ongoing interactions between diverse humans and their shared environments. I suggest that performance—with its emphasis on space, place, shifting temporalities, representation, and framing devices—is highly-suited to stage a dialogue between humans and the environment.