Brooklyn Bedroom: an Ethnodrama on Female Sexuality, Third World Feminism and Performance Ethnography
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses July 2018 Brooklyn Bedroom: An Ethnodrama on Female Sexuality, Third World Feminism and Performance Ethnography Ayshia Stephenson University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Film and Media Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, and the Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Stephenson, Ayshia, "Brooklyn Bedroom: An Ethnodrama on Female Sexuality, Third World Feminism and Performance Ethnography" (2018). Doctoral Dissertations. 1293. https://doi.org/10.7275/11923472.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1293 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BROOKLYN BEDROOM: AN ETHNODRAMA ON FEMALE SEXUALITY, THIRD WORLD FEMINISM AND PERFORMANCE ETHNOGRAPHY A Dissertation Presented by AYSHIA E. STEPHENSON Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY May 2018 Department of Communication © Copyright by Ayshia E. Stephenson 2018 All Rights Reserved Brooklyn Bedroom: An Ethnodrama on Female Sexuality, Third World Feminism & Performance Ethnography A Dissertation Presented By AYSHIA E. STEPHENSON Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________________________ Leda Cooks, Chair _________________________________________________ Anne Ciecko, Member _________________________________________________ Priscilla Page, Member _________________________________ Mari Castañeda, Department Head Department of Communication DEDICATION To my loving mother. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my husband, my sisters, Leda Cooks, Anne Ciecko, Priscilla Page, Martin Norden, Gilbert McCauley, and Willow Cohen. I would also like to thank the UMass Arts Council, Brian Moore-Ward and Performing Fusion Theatre. v ABSTRACT BROOKLYN BEDROOM: AN ETHNODRAMA ON FEMALE SEXUALITY, THIRD WORLD FEMINISM AND PERFORMANCE ETHNOGRAPHY MAY 2018 AYSHIA E. STEPHENSON, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF MA BOSTON M.A., THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF ARTS Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Leda Cooks Brooklyn Bedroom is a performance that interrogates societal perceptions of race and sexuality. I have utilized the writing of the performance as my method; the performance is an act of Third World feminist resistance and liberation. Storytelling is the type of research preferred by many black female playwrights. A type of qualitative inquiry, ethnodramatic work forms a bridge between individual stories and social issues affecting society with the goal of socio-political change. The source of reality for this ethnodrama is the Rose family, their history was a catalyst for the writing of Brooklyn Bedroom. I have explored their stories to investigate the relationships between women, sexuality, desire and healing. This ethnodrama integrates elements of both screen and stage and it is a performance which resists hegemonic representations of sexuality (see video of live performance). This narrative carves spaces for women who have experienced trauma to move beyond pain. The play and its rationale are theoretically rooted in Third World feminism and performance ethnography, including research from the likes of Audre Lorde, Gloria Anzaldúa, Norman Denzin, bell hooks, Jonny Saldana, and D. Soyini Madison, and the creative cultural production of Julie Dash, the women filmmakers of Filming Desire: A Journey Through Women's Cinema (here-in-after Filming vi Desire), Lynn Nottage, Adrienne Kennedy, Ntozake Shange, Zeinabu Irene Davis, Trinh Minh-ha, and Hye Jung Park. vii CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................. v ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER I. BROOKLYN BEDROOM .................................................................................... 1 II. LETTER ............................................................................................................... 65 III. REFLECTION ..................................................................................................... 67 A. Brooklyn Bedroom: An Ethnodrama ............................................................... 69 B. What Keeps Me Up At Night .......................................................................... 72 C. Performance Ethnography & The Call to Narrative ........................................ 79 D. Exploring The Real: Ethnodrama & Cultural Specificity ............................... 83 E. Writing as Resistance & Female Sexuality ..................................................... 96 F. Reflexivity: U.S. Third World Feminists Write Together ............................. 107 G. Liminal Spaces: The Bedroom, Poetry & Film ............................................. 110 H. Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 116 APPENDICES A. STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE .......................................................................... 121 B. BACKGROUND ON THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .......................................... 145 C. LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................... 160 D. MORE ON METHOD ................................................................................................ 198 E. CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIELD ........................................................................... 217 F. CONCLUSION FOR THE PROJECT ........................................................................ 225 G. PRODUCTION CREDITS ........................................................................................ 228 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................... 230 viii CHAPTER I BROOKLYN BEDROOM Setting: Now. A bedroom. Tally's bedroom. There’s a queen-sized bed center stage and a projector screen upstage. There is a dressing screen on the other side of the bed. In some instances, the projector screen is a window to the past. Otherwise the screen is a window that indicates the time of day and passage of time; it shows either an image of the same Brooklyn brownstones during the day, dusk, or night. Characters Tally Rose: Black woman. Dark skinned. 25. Slender. Shoulder length (or longer) afro/natural hair. Puts care into her appearance. Loves pearls, blazers and jeans. Family: Mother: (Josephine), dark skinned. 65, short natural hair, she looks soft and is in shape for her age. She loves to dress comfortably, often wearing color coordinated sweat pants/shirt (that fit her and are never baggy) or a turtle neck and jeans. Lisa: Tally’s sister. Dark skinned. 40. Petite body. Big smile. Likes long wigs/weaves, flashy jewelry. Shows a little cleavage, likes tight fitting clothing. Jacqui: Tally’s sister. Dark skinned. 45. Overweight but shapely figure. Wears dresses, could have big breasts or a large derriere or both, veers to the conservative side (i.e. doesn’t show cleavage) Eric Smith: 32, white, tall, lean, handsome in a Western sense. Worker (in film and live performance): Jamaican. Male. Muscular or stocky build. 19. Man (John): 45, white male, lean/muscular/gorgeous in a Western sense. *The scenes are in parenthesis because they only function as markers, the action in this one-act play should be continuous. ** There is no nudity in this play, brassiere/underwear are fine. 1 (Scene I) The bedroom lights flicker, then go dark. Somewhere a girl is screaming. Light slowly comes up from the center of the screen and expands slowly for a silent film: there’s a little black girl with pigtails laughing, full of joy. She’s sitting at a lunch table with other little girls. They are wearing pink and burgundy uniforms. Fried dumplings are in their hands, they are stuffing it with the salt fish and ackee on their plates. Lights come up on the bed. TALLY is tossing and turning. On screen, the little girl gets up to take her tray to the back of the cafeteria. The rack is full. A kitchen worker calls to her from the side door with his index finger. She walks over. He must be pointing to something and she steps into the small storage room. He locks the door behind her. He pushes her onto the dusty floor. The tray and food in her hand splatter and then we get a close up of her big brown eyes. Screen out. The bedroom lights flicker. TALLY: No! No, please no! (Jumping out of the bed) Beat. It’s night time in Brooklyn. The bedroom door opens slowly. LISA’s head pokes in. MOTHER pushes by her, swings the door open, and turns on the light. The Family rushes to the bed. FAMILY: Tally!! MOTHER hugs TALLY and JACQUI and LISA join for a group hug. TALLY: Heyyy...I must have dozed off (wiping eyes)… Didn’t see you guys when I came in… JACQUI: We were out shopping for you! 2 MOTHER: Damn Jacqui! Get out the way so I can hug my daughter. TALLY: Hi mom! She picks her mother up and squeezes her. MOTHER: Hello! TALLY: How are you? MOTHER: Well,