73 Feminine Destruction and Masculine Protagonism: Notes on Gender, Iterability, and the Canon

ABSTRACT KRISTINA HAGSTRÖM-STÅHL

Tis article refects on my experiences directing Henry Purcell’s Dido and Kristina Hagström-Ståhl is PARSE professor of performative arts at the Acad- Aeneas at the Royal Opera in Stockholm in 2014, and August Strindberg’s emy of Music and Drama, Gothenburg University, and also a freelance director. Miss Julie at Scenkonst Sörmland, one of Sweden’s regional theatres, in 2012. She works at the intersection of critical theory and performance practice, with Both productions were part of a larger (ongoing) research project concerning research interests in feminist performance, cultural and psychoanalytic theory, gender, performance and canonical works. Exploring critical gender perspec- and interdisciplinary collaboration in the arts. She has held appointments as a tives and norm-creativity in performance practice, I have been investigating researcher and teacher at Stockholm University of the Arts, Lund University, the possibility of developing at once an acting technique and an overarching California College of the Arts, and the University of California, Berkeley. performance aesthetic grappling with questions of performativity and iterability. Between 2010 and 2015 she was a member of the Swedish Research Council’s In this, my main concern has been structures or patterns of iterability in the Committee for Artistic Research. Kristina has a PhD in Performance Studies performance of canonised works, as well as notions of authenticity—particularly from the University of California, Berkeley. what is deemed acceptable or believable when it comes to character portrayal, gender(ed) performance, and mise en scène. In these refections, the question of subjectivity and gender as connected to dramaturgy and what I call protagonism surfaces in particular ways, casting light on some of the problems I faced and with which I grappled in my directorial work. As such, my original notes on these two research and production processes have been reframed as a refection on dramaturgy, and on the coerciveness of gendered and aesthetic ideals. 74 PARSE JOURNAL

Indeed, every deep experience wants repetition, return, insatiably, to the end of all things. Walter Benjamin1

It is always necessary for a woman to die for the play to begin. Hélène Cixous2

Prologue opera stages a tension between the two directions or tendencies in which repetition and citation tend to As I sat down to refect on my process of directing operate—either to confrm, stabilise and re-iterate, Henry Purcell’s baroque opera Dido and Aeneas or to point to the instability and fexibility of signs (1689) and August Strindberg’s chamber play Miss and signifcation. Te action staging and signifying Julie (1888), I became aware of certain points of the death of the woman can be carried out, that is to connection between these two works, authored two say performed, in many diferent ways, settings, and centuries apart and separated by context, geography situations, and for various reasons. However, does its and genre, which I had not noticed while I was signifcation really change? It is the “thing” to which working on each production (in 2012 and 2014, theatrical performance always returns, “insatiably”, respectively). Beyond the dramatic structure of the to borrow Walter Benjamin’s word. Peggy Phelan individual work, I began to discern a correlation has suggested that theatre and performance not only pertaining to protagonist status, point of view, and enact disappearance, but also “respond to a psychic ultimately the stakes of subjectivity in the relation- need to rehearse for loss, and especially for death.”3 ship between plot and character development. I had However, the rehearsal of this particular loss, the planned to write a text describing my attempted destruction of the woman as embodied symbol of incorporation of theories on iterability and (gender) femininity, seemed to me to fll a slightly diferent performativity (primarily those of Jacques Derrida function. I could not separate it from the matter of and Judith Butler) into my mise en scène. Because dramaturgy, nor from the question of subjectivity notions of repetition and iterability in particular as it is theorised but also enacted on stage. In what ways become central to the performance (history) follows I try to consider these varying and various of canonical works, I have chosen to approach the takes on performance, iterability, and gender, practice of “staging the canon” through critical by refecting on my own dramaturgical (rather discourses on repetition, iteration and citational- than hands-on directorial) experience through a ity. Tis has had efects on my understanding of framework of critical theory. the notion of a canonical work, and it has also informed my way of working with the embodied performance and enactment of character and plot, One including the actors’ technique. However, as I considered the two works as well as their rehearsal As is well known, both Dido and Aeneas and Miss and production processes together, a sense of recog- Julie pivot on the (self-)destruction of the female nition brought me instead to think about a diferent protagonist. Dido and Aeneas climaxes in Dido’s point of iteration and citation, having to do with the lament, one of the most beloved and canonised seeming inevitability of the death of the woman. arias in the history of opera, in which Queen Dido Tis standard trope of nearly every classical play or mournfully prepares to die at her own hand. In KRISTINA HAGSTRÖM-STÅHL 75

Miss Julie, considered one of the most Both male characters have a moment 1. Walter Benjamin quoted in Rainer Nägele. Teater, signifcant works of Western theatrical in the plot to expunge themselves; their Teory, Speculation: Walter modernism, the ending builds seemingly destiny was never to become the husband Benjamin and the Scenes of relentlessly towards the suicide of Miss of a woman they seduced out of wedlock. Modernity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Julie. Te last line of the drama, a stage Tey are both driven by a conviction that Press, 1991. p. 61. direction, describes Julie exiting the they are destined for greater, more remote 2. Cixous, Hélène. Aller à la stage resolutely, razor in hand. Both things, to obtain which they will need to mer.Trans. Barbara Kerslake. protagonists, according to their own travel. Tis is not to say that Aeneas and Modern Drama 24. no. 4. dramaturgical logic, “have” to take their Jean, the characters in question, enjoy 1984. p. 546. lives because, against better judgment fulflling their protagonist trajectories; 3. Phelan, Peggy. Mourn- and each in their separate context and on the contrary, they are tormented, ing Sex: Performing Public Memories. New York, NY: narrative arc, they have fallen in love anguished and at times regretful as to Routledge. 1997. p. 3. with, and given themselves to, a man for the seemingly inevitable turn of events various reasons deemed inappropriate in which they are participating catalysts. for a woman of their position. Addition- Tey do, however, fulfll this trajectory ally—and perhaps worse—they have despite their apparent empathy with both given themselves to a man who their female counterpart/adversary. And, also betrays them, and for whom a joint signifcantly, their empathy, which they existence with the female protagonist in are given time and space in the plot to question was never the goal. develop before encouraging or allowing the female character to come to the reali- In both cases, upon closer inspection one sation that it will be impossible for her realises that these women are after all to go on living (abandoned, unhappily in perhaps not the protagonists of their own love, having forsaken her social position stories. In fact, their stories, as presented and her values etc.) strengthens the in these canonical works, ultimately audience’s sympathy with the men—not position them as object/counterpart to the women—as point of identifcation, or another subject, another protagonist, identifcatory ideal. Suddenly (or maybe namely the men who betray them, in not so suddenly), the death of the female whose life narratives they are but an protagonist seems not only acceptable but episode. Tese two works, which appear even desirable, necessary for the narrative to be “about” the women for whom they and the dramaturgy to “work”. are titled, really take as their point of identifcation the men for whom the Certain smaller yet signifcant details conquering—and discarding—of these pertaining to the dramaturgies of Dido women is intrinsically bound up in their and Aeneas and Miss Julie also seem to self-realisation. In this, they function support this insight: in both works, not only as individual men, but also as the female protagonist makes her entry symbols of a notion of ideal masculinity, and utters her frst line only after being as “hero” of the plot at hand. Although introduced to the audience via another the age of baroque opera difers from character. Additionally, the fnal lines that of literary and dramatic naturalism of both works are spoken or sung by in many other regards, this ideal appears characters other than the presumed remarkably consistent. protagonist. She is neither the frst nor 76 PARSE JOURNAL

4. Derrida, Jacques. Limited, the last thing we see. Or rather—as ity of the sign (and with it the variation Inc. Gerald Graf (ed). Trans. Samuel Weber and Jefrey directorial choices rather than textual/ on the possibilities of meaning) is con- Mehlman. Evanston, IL: dramaturgical structures determine what stitutive of the sign’s ability to signify— Northwestern University audiences actually see on stage—in the what shapes the notion of normality. For, Press. 1988. p.9. drama, for the audience, she is neither Derrida asks rhetorically, “What would a 5. Derrida, p. 12. the frst nor the last point of attention. mark be that could not be cited? Or one

6. Derrida, p. 9. Technically, dramaturgically, it isn’t whose origins would not get lost along 5 obvious that she should be considered the way?” 7. Jackson, Shannon. Profess- the protagonist. Her “own” drama works ing Performance: Teatre in the Academy from Philology to against her. When dealing with the Western Performativity. Cambridge: theatrical and operatic canon as perfor- Cambridge University Press. 2004. p. 37. Tis more or less covert transferral of mance tradition, I have found the process protagonist status, what I am tempted to of repetition, citation, iteration to pull 8. Enquist, Per Olov. Strind- call masculine protagonism—in which a in a near-opposite direction; through berg. Ett liv; Tribadernas natt; Målet mot Fröken Julie. female character, despite being indicated repetitive enactment and afrmation, Stockholm: Norstedts. 2012. as the drama’s point of identifcation signifcation risks becoming overdeter- p. 395. (for example through the work’s title), is mined, nearly petrifed. Certain tropes 9. Enquist, p. 419. positioned as antagonist/counterpart to occur repeatedly in the composition (or something that “happens to”) a male and dramaturgy of the work; addition- 10. Price, Curtis. Dido and Aeneas in Context. In character—I want to argue constitutes ally, approaching a canonical work as a Purcell: Dido and Aeneas: An one form of iterative pattern among the director means facing tradition, expec- Opera. Curtis Price (ed). London: W.W. classical tragedies of the stage. tation, anticipation, even desire. Te Norton & Company. 1986. “timeless” quality of canonical works pp. 3-8. is often invoked as justifcation for Two 11. Harris, Ellen T. Henry including them in the repertoire—that is Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. to say the notion that there is an original Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1987. p. 148. In its most basic defnition, iterability meaning to a work, which can speak to indicates the capacity to be repeated in its audience across time, location and diferent contexts. Derrida’s neologism, setting, and to which creative practition- intended to problematise claims to ers are expected in various ways to be authenticity and singularity in signifca- faithful. Te faithful audiences of these tion, points to the many potentialities works—or so widely held assumptions and the multiple contextualities in which suggest—come to the theatre to have a given sign (or an utterance) may take their expectations and desires fulflled, on meaning, signify, have bearing. Tat not challenged. Iteration thus risks a sign be repeatable and its signifcation becoming reifcation. At the same time, transformed in the process of repetition the challenge—and the fascination— and recontextualisation, Derrida argues, for creative practitioners often resides is no abnormality or exception to the precisely in the potential new meanings way that language works (moreover, he that canonised works, scenes, phrases suggests that these “traits” are gener- can acquire/inspire when they are uttered alisable to all systems of signifcation, and performed in changing contexts— even to notions of experience, being and that is to say, when the known and presence).4 On the contrary, the iterabil- anticipated encounters a new framework, KRISTINA HAGSTRÖM-STÅHL 77

or a new way of looking. In opera it sometimes tionally, the seduction of the young Julie, which is seems as though both these tendencies are working supposedly what necessitates her suicide, is barely at once: the directorial concept should challenge and hinted at in the Danish translation that preceded recontextualise the thematics and/or spatial/scenic the Swedish publication of the play in 1888.9 Even dimensions of a work, while the vocal and musical in the Swedish edition, the central acts—sexual performances should reproduce, in as much detail encounter and suicide—are merely intimated, never as possible, a centuries-old ideal. As a director and actually confrmed. Similarly, the origins of Purcell’s researcher I have found inspiration in the challenge canonical opera are uncertain. No complete score to stage encounters between these two patterns. exists, and moreover, baroque scores were notated so as to be open to a certain amount of interpreta- If the traits that Derrida discerns in writing can tion and embellishment by singers and musicians. be generalised to include all experience, then Te libretto is adapted from Book IV of Virgil’s Te obviously they can also be said to characterise the Aeneid, and thus itself part of an iterative structure canon. Its “essential iterability” may as well be dating back to the Punic Wars. Te context of the described by way of the anti-essentialist construct inaugural performance, given in the non-profes- “repetition/alterity.”6 Tis “fexible essentialism” (a sional context of a school and performed “By Young term I borrow from Shannon Jackson, who uses it Gentlewomen”, is indicated on the cover of a libretto to describe how theatricality and performance can presumably distributed to the audience at the often be found on both sides of an essentialist/anti- premiere and preserved today in a single copy, but essentialist divide7) allows one to assume a sense of information is incomplete, and the opera appears not permanence, stability, unity, self-identity required to have garnered much critical attention or appre- to make recognition and repetition possible. ciation at the time.10 Productions of the opera were Meanwhile, closer consideration will inevitably scarce until the late nineteenth century, when its reveal patterns of alterity. modern performance history can be said to begin.11

Above all, one quickly comes to the realisation that Te process of excavation related to my own and although a work like, say, Miss Julie, which is the others’ attempts to grasp the canonical framework most frequently and internationally staged play in of these two works is the subject of a separate essay. Strindberg’s body of work, carries with it a series of However, it seems safe to say that what defnitive expectations and demands related to its canonical meanings these works appear to harbour arise out of status, it is hard to come up with an “original” the very process of repetition, citation, re-enactment performance or interpretation that would have to which they have been subjected in the course of given rise to these specifc notions of authenticity. their canonisation. Despite the claim to a standard Certainly not its inaugural production, scandalous or rule (the most basic defnition of the term yet seen by few and largely undocumented. Further, “canon”), even superfcial scrutiny reveals alterity, as Per Olov Enquist shows, Strindberg’s authorial absence, fragmentation and contradiction in place of intentions with Miss Julie may seem obvious but any essential notions of authenticity, origin, or even upon closer inspection are difcult to discern. singularity of meaning or interpretation. Tellingly, Te famous Preface, composed after completion despite this knowledge as a director I worried of the script, appears to rationalise Strindberg’s constantly that I was either betraying the work or choices pertaining to dramatic form as well as plot, failing to live up to its standards. character composition, and style. However, the text of the play follows no such logic, Enquist writes, but can be interpreted “in any which way”.8 Addi- 78 PARSE JOURNAL

12. Derrida, pp. 14-19. Three limits itself to the verbal expression of

13. Derrida, p. 18. the characters, or even the actors. Te Derrida’s notion of iterability, introduced event of a theatrical performance and the 14. Butler, Judith. Per- as part of a critique against the work undertaken by actors as part of such formative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in seemingly essentialist usage of context performances consist of verbal as well as Phenomenology and Femi- and intentionality in J.L. Austin’s non-verbal utterances on several levels, nist Teory. Teatre Journal 40. no. 4. 1988. pp 519-531. theory on performative utterances, is including gesture, gaze and physical/ in some ways from the outset bound spatial relationality. Some of these may 15. Butler. p. 519. up in theatricality. Taking issue with not be wholly intentional.

16. Butler, Judith. Bodies Austin’s separation of the authentic, Tat Matter: On the Dis- ordinary, normal uses of language from Te bodily aspect is taken up by Judith cursive Limits of ”Sex”. New York, NY: Routledge. 1993. the inauthentic and “parasitic” forms Butler in her early essay “Performative pp. 12-15, 15. associated with poetry and theatrical Acts and Gender Constitution”, in which performance, Derrida instead suggests she argues for a performative under- that so-called ordinary uses of language standing of gendered subjectivity and for presuppose a form of citationality of the an iterative model of bodily utterances, kind that Austin excludes from consid- subject to interpretation and transfor- eration.12 Te success of a performative mation.14 Following Derrida (although utterance, Derrida writes, depends on in this context it is to John Searle and its conformity with an “iterative model”, not Derrida that she refers) she demon- which, while it doesn’t by necessity strates how bodily utterances—“a stylized include theatrical performance, doesn’t repetition of acts”15 that in diferent ways exclude it either. Likewise this iterative signify or express gender (including model takes into account the intention(s) those deemed natural or authentic)— of the uttering subject as well as the constitute citations within a larger context of utterance, but simultaneously iterative structure. Butler’s early work on allows for the possibility that intentional- performativity likewise entails a critique ity (and with it a sense of authenticity) of intentionality, which is sharpened in “will no longer be able to govern the later writing; in response to misconcep- entire scene and system of utterance.”13 tions of her argument in Gender Trouble, in Bodies Tat Matter she clarifes that the While it is no impassioned defence of acts to which she refers are not singular, theatricality or the actor’s speech act, performed by a pre-existing/choosing Derrida’s argument does however posit subject, and they are not primarily that words spoken from a stage or in a theatrical, but rather identifcatory heightened/poetic context, rather than be processes which “enable the formation of considered false, inauthentic, or parasitic, a subject”.16 should be seen to have the transforma- tive potential that Austin accords to Working with canonised texts and performative utterances. However, one characters, I have attempted to explore a thing Derrida does not account for—but category of bodily utterances that I would which follows, inevitably, from his larger perhaps call “social” so as to diferenti- argument—is that the potential perform- ate them from the volitional and singular ativity of theatrical performance hardly acts conventionally associated with KRISTINA HAGSTRÖM-STÅHL 79

theatricality and theatrical performance (“acting”). In this sense, every (hetero-)normative and cis- Tese include (the actors’) bodily habits that express conforming performance of gender, as undertaken and confrm conventions of gender, but also the by an actor in character, is explicitly and felicitously kinds of coded gestures and patterns of behaviour performative by Austinian standards. Tis is because that convey relational systems of power. Examples the stakes of signifcation, or of the perception of might include the choice or refex to direct one’s authenticity and believability, lie in the actor’s per- gaze toward or away from the other character while formance not of “character” but in the performance they speak, the quality of listening as expressed of gender. Te character operates within the realm through stance and direction of attention, the space of the theatrical “as if”, or what is commonly termed and focus that an actor takes up through bodily the audience’s suspension of disbelief; its gender, in pose, and, for example, the distance between the this setting, instead operates in terms of authenticity, actor’s feet and knees while standing or sitting— believability, and on the basis of self-identity. Tis things which, while they might not be explicit or is something that is so taken for granted that most fully intentional statements, still aid the audience in audiences hardly refect on the many assumptions their interpretive process. In my mind it would be that are made about the (fctional) character based erroneous to assume that only those verbal, gestural on (“real”) gender conformity. Were contemporary and bodily utterances that the actor produces inten- productions of Dido and Julie cross-cast (i.e. with tionally and by volition would constitute meaning- non-confrmity regarding the gender of the character making or signifcation for an audience or spectator and the performer, which most likely was the case regarding gender, sexuality or other aspects of with Dido and Aeneas’s inaugural performance), that identifcation and experience. choice would afect nearly all levels of interpretation and would itself be considered a re-framing of the Rather, a critical performance practice problematises work, hardly included in the suspension of disbelief the enactment of gender onstage; if verbal language (the way that, for example, the obviously inauthentic and utterance can be said to have a generative or suicide acts of both Julie and Dido are). transformative efect, likewise theatrical perfor- mance inevitably goes beyond a mere refexive Tis view of gendered subjectivity and perfor- function to suggest possibilities for signifcation. As mance has critical bearing for character enactment such, the performative function of theatrical per- if we position canonical characters in relation to formance lies not in the fact that it performs, but in iterability and patterns of repetition and signifca- its iterative and embodied enactment of utterances, tion. Miss Julie and Queen Dido are subject to the which, in context and relation to a widely construed same fexible essentialism as the larger concept of audience/public, participates (by generating, the canon; they are the object of much desire and confrming, challenging) in the normative processes projection, from within the drama, in the audience and systems we experience as social life. Very rarely encounter, and in their canonical legacy—identi- would the performative utterance in a theatrical fcation less so. Teir suicidal acts are so bound up performance be located within the fctitious world of in the realisation of the drama and anticipation of the play, or in a character’s lines or even a soliloquy cathartic release that considerable amounts of energy (although, following Derrida, I’ll allow that it could and desire are invested into this moment as an happen); rather it is within the complex interaction expression of their character—would they really “be” of performer and spectator, where a performance is Dido or Julie if they did not self-destruct? Te death somehow perceived by the spectator as believable and of the woman tends to be positioned or justifed as in some sense generative, perhaps “authentic”, that it an outcome or efect of the plot; however, as Cixous has the possibility of being deemed “successful”. suggests, perhaps it is rather to be considered a 80 PARSE JOURNAL

17. Rokem, Freddie. Strind- prerequisite for the performance, for on the space and event of the dramatic berg’s Secret Codes. Norwich: Norvik Press. 2004. p. 24. theatre itself, to work. action, by creating multiple simultaneous points of view. Interestingly, this is what 18. Freud, Sigmund. During the rehearsal process with actors Strindberg strives to do with his aesthetic Mourning and Melancholia. In Te Standard Edition of the it is my objective to complicate and in Miss Julie (at least if we are to believe Complete Psychological Works problematise the iterative patterns of his Preface); however, as a spectator I of Sigmund Freud, Vol. XIV. Trans. James Strachey and character (re-)enactment. Tis pertains have rarely, if ever, felt encouraged to Anna Freud. London: Te in particular to gendered relations as view performances of the play that way. Hogarth Press. 1957. pp. expressions of power and subjectivity, 243-258. and it operates on the level of dramaturgy Moreover, this approach to character 19. Weinbaum, Alys Eve. as well as in corporeal (re-)presenta- and dramaturgy also means interrogat- Ways of Not Seeing: (En) gendered Optics in Benja- tion. If Julie, as Strindberg explicitly ing (hetero-) normative gender ideals min, Beaudelaire, and Freud. states, was raised as a boy, why would (for the drama, for the ensemble, for In Loss: Te Politics of Mourn- her body language betray no resistance the audience). For despite numerous ing. David Eng and David Kazanjian (eds.). Berkeley, to or difculty with conventions of examples of characters acting and CA: University of California femininity? Similarly, if Dido is a skilled desiring otherwise, and of playwrights Press, 2003. p. 399. political ruler and strategic thinker, why and librettists suggesting otherwise, 20. Virgilius. Aeneiden. is her character so often presented as works in the canon tend to be construed Trans. Ingvar Björkeson. altogether driven by emotion? Further- around the fexibly essentialist drama of Stockholm: Natur och Kul- tur. 1988/2012. p. 82. more, why would the perceived value and heterosexuality and heteronormativity. self-esteem of two principal characters, Tis drama stages the fctional coherence who each in their own way have been of genders as well as normative desires raised to assume leadership and who and ideals. And in this drama, masculine on several occasions have shown excep- identifcatory ideals often turn out to be tional independence given their social more cherished and consequently more circumstances (rejecting previous suitors, fragile than their feminine counterpart. among other things), rely so heavily on As a possible efect of this fragility, which the commitment and approval of these needs to be counteracted and compen- men? I pose these questions not to reject sated for, both Jean and Aeneas are often any such interpretation of character, projected as essentially stable and self- but to point to the tacit agreements that identifcatory characters—as experiencing seem to render Dido and Julie compre- confict and inner turmoil due to events hensible and recognisable as characters. in the plot, certainly, but rarely as consti- It has been pointed out that Julie is a tutively fraught or contradictory fgures. character created by and under a male gaze.17 Is it possible, within the repetitive Perhaps this is in part because they are process of theatrical performance, to destined by their creators to survive and enact a form of resistance to that gaze, or prosper. An analogy to the dramaturgy at least make the gaze visible, palpable, of grief as developed in Sigmund Freud’s to the audience? Can the drama enact “Mourning and Melancholia” comes to its plot and character trajectory while mind:18 for the male character/protago- simultaneously questioning its own nist it is necessary that the object of loss premises? It would entail inviting the lie outside of himself. He may grieve his audience to develop a double perspective loss but that loss must, precisely, be and KRISTINA HAGSTRÖM-STÅHL 81

function as an object; his mourning (construed as a performance are concerned; the ambition was to process of gradual detachment) must be successful emulate convention while simultaneously undermin- if he is to “move on” the way it is written into his ing the sense of coherence upon which it relies. character that he will. For this to work, a complete identifcation becomes necessary between the female Aeneas, in our reading (which is supported by character and loss. She must be the lost object; she passages from Te Aeneid), becomes uncomfortable always (already) is. Julie and Dido will both fulfl with the heroism projected onto him on account their character arc through suicide, and they must of his participation in and survival of the Trojan fnd themselves on this teleological path from the War. Like the young soldiers that Freud encoun- outset of the onstage action. A penchant towards tered and observed during and after World War instability and destruction is therefore in some way I, he is haunted through dreams and visions by inscribed into the character. Tis constitutive faw the traumatic memories of his experiences. In his leaves the character—and the actor—with less to approach to Dido he is cautious, hesitant, and when uphold and defend, and paradoxically that entails he leaves Carthage it is not only in pursuit of the less danger, less fragility. (Also, we don’t mind (Roman) empire he is destined to found, but also in viewing women as victims or sites of loss. It doesn’t fight from the impending invasion of Carthage by hurt or arouse empathy the way a loss of masculine their neighbour, Iarbas. Aeneas cannot force himself status, or masculine destruction, would. Because we to face another war. At the same time, he cannot don’t put ourselves in her place. On the contrary, I reconcile with the emasculated image projected onto argue, her loss, meaning the loss of her, enables our him by rumours in Carthage and beyond; as mere cathartic release.) husband of Queen Dido (a “woman’s slave” in Ingvar Björkeson’s Swedish translation20) he has relin- If Jean and Aeneas were represented as less stable, quished his role as leader and manly ideal. His inner more dependent on the approval of the women, confict, caused by his desire and inability to emulate more capricious, less self-composed, more willing an ideal, which he simultaneously fnds coercive and to please, would they still be recognisable as Jean, as even oppressive, thus becomes a strongly motivating Aeneas, within the larger dramaturgy that neces- factor for his betrayal of Dido. sitates a certain form of character development? How would this afect their position of subjectivity? In order to explore this question, together with the Four actors playing Aeneas and Jean in their respective processes, I sought ways for them to fail to live up to In many senses, psychologically and materially, the notion of ideal masculinity guiding the character. it is illogical for Dido and Julie as characters to In both productions I used as a point of reference view suicide as the only option. In both rehearsal the following thought by Alys Eve Weinbaum: processes, we struggled to motivate this determina- “the objectifcation of woman in the male feld of tion to die. In both cases, I felt resistance toward vision has often served as the ground for securing acquiescing to what I perceived as coercive dramat- coherent masculinity. (…) I modify this formula- urgies, and I wondered to what degree I could stage tion and suggest that masculinity is a construct best this resistance as part of the mise en scène. A strong characterised not so much by control, mastery or motivation was to allow the female characters to prowess, as by the momentary loss of all three.”19 re-emerge as protagonists of sorts, or, if not that, Enacting masculinity as (momentary) loss of control then at least as subjects—while simultaneously rec- and mastery means moving into largely unchartered ognising and admitting their objectifcation within territory where conventions of theatrical and operatic the work and its dramaturgy. 82 PARSE JOURNAL

21. Butler. Bodies Tat Mat- Part of my interest in exploring theories are equally coercive when it comes to the ter. p. 15. of performativity and iterability as a male characters; however, their position 22. Strindberg, August. basis for performance practice lies in is privileged in terms of the dramatic Miss Julie. In Selected Plays, the question of what is at stake in the universe and vis-à-vis the audience. Volume I. Ann-Charlotte Gavel Adams and Anna emergence of the subject in a social as Westerståhl (eds.). Trans. well as theatrical context. Re-interpreta- One strategy I used to “re-privilege” Evert Sprinchorn. Stenport MN: University of Minne- tions of canonical works and potentially the position and point of view of the sota Press. 2012. p. 220. heteronormative-misogynist scenarios women was to refunction and reshape the easily construct subject-object relation- dramaturgical arc of each work, through 23. Strindberg, p. 275. ships in which subjectivity appears a method of framing. Creating a circular desirably coherent, stable and self-same, dramaturgy in lieu of the linear, tele- invested with agency and self-determi- ological narrative arc (and in the case of nation, and diametrically opposed to Dido, even a circular performance space positions of objectivity. (In other words, enveloped by 360-degree video projec- what theories of deconstruction and per- tions) I hoped to indicate the repetitive formativity critique.) It may be tempting act of staging the canon (indeed, the in these scenarios to reverse the situation repetitive act of theatrical performance) and the subject-object relationship; and as well the reiterations of becoming however, such inversals do not alter the subjected and situated as Dido, as Julie. binary status quo, and above all they do I created for each production a version not interrogate the category of the subject. of a preface/overture set in the present here and now of the onstage/audience As Butler shows, becoming subject encounter. Te opera, of course, has an (“subjectivation”) entails being subjected, overture, which became the site and a process of identifcation with regulatory occasion for a return to the past, from norms and ideals; “these identifcations”, the vantage point of the present. For Miss she writes, “precede and enable the Julie, we created a musical and flmic formation of a subject, but are not, strictly overture, introducing the events to come. speaking, performed by a subject.” And while the subject may “have” agency, it is Tus, when my version of Dido and Aeneas “as a reiterative or rearticulatory practice, starts, Dido is already dead. Aeneas and immanent to power and not a relation of Belinda (Dido’s aide and confdante) are external opposition to power.”21 Relating on stage to greet the audience, and in the this notion to dramatic character course of the musical overture proceed (allowing myself to invoke the fctional to reconstruct, literally and physically, world as a site for performative enactment the setting for the events that constitute without problematising this move), it is the tragedy of Dido and Aeneas. In a obvious that neither Aeneas nor Dido, slight change of order, the frst musical neither Jean nor Julie, could appear as number as listed in Purcell’s score, in subjects in an autonomous sense, but which Belinda energetically encourages that they need to be portrayed as subject Dido to “Shake the cloud from of your to the regulatory norms and ideals that brow” is replaced by the second, Dido’s govern their emergence as characters. more melancholy response, ”Ah! Belinda, As such, the dramaturgies in question I am pressed with torment”; in this way KRISTINA HAGSTRÖM-STÅHL 83

the opening scene is dedicated to Dido’s perspective, action, Jean exits clutching Julie’s father’s boots which also has the efect of bringing Belinda from (which he has spent the play polishing), although the present world of the overture into the past, to it remains untold whether this is to return to the relive the memory of Dido. Count’s service or don the boots and depart, leaving the oppressive social milieu of the mansion behind. Te overture to Miss Julie is a flm, accompanied by Julie remains onstage, alone in the spot where she live music. When it ends, the screen, which doubles stood at the play’s opening, razor in hand and gazing as stage curtain, is lifted to reveal Julie standing once again at the audience, as if to ask: is there really alone on stage with an excerpt of Strindberg’s no other way for it to end? Preface projected onto her body and the surrounding on-stage space. Holding her razor, she gazes at the Tis open-ended closing scene seemed possible (and audience and proceeds to read the excerpt out loud, plausible) in Miss Julie precisely because Strindberg using Strindberg’s voice to describe her character situates the suicidal act ofstage and technically and postulate the scientifcally proven inferiority after the end of the play, thus casting doubt about of women to men. Only after this opening does whether it really does happen—or whether in fact Jean burst on to the scene with his famous opening it needs to happen for the play to conclude. With line, “What a night! Miss Julie is wild again! She Dido, death cannot be avoided as the opera cannot is absolutely wild!”22 As Jean and Kristin (the third dispense with Dido’s lament (in which Dido relieves character, who unfortunately barely gets a mention those around her of responsibility for her fate), and in this essay) act out the frst scene of the play, in this aria concludes with her dying. Te closing which they describe Julie as capricious, unsuitably scene in Dido and Aeneas consists of a chorus in turn sexually adventurous, beautiful yet unhappy, Julie lamenting the death of the queen. remains onstage, semi-hidden in a corner, observing her servants as they shape the audience’s image In order to problematise Dido’s ultimately beautiful, of her, and gazing intermittently at the audience. gentle and cathartic disappearance, we inserted On her cue to start speaking, she simply enters the a short passage spoken by Aeneas into the fnal scene. In this manner, the audience is encouraged to chorus. Tis passage paraphrases an excerpt from develop a double perspective on the events at hand, Book VI of Te Aeneid, which recounts how Aeneas, as the gaze relates to the onstage action in a manner having descended into the lower world of Dis to that is at once direct (with the audience positioned search for his father, encounters the spectre of “inside” the drama) and externalised (approaching Dido. He begs her forgiveness, but she turns away the premises of the play and watching the unfolding and refuses to speak to him. In our staging, upon scene from Julie’s perspective). completion of Aeneas’s words, in the fnal musical sequence, Dido rises from the bed in which she Similarly, for the ending, in a modifcation of the has lain dead, and walks very slowly across the closing scene that Strindberg imagines, Jean delivers stage, away from Aeneas (and Belinda) and into his closing line—“It’s horrible! But there’s no other the ofstage shadows. Aeneas and Belinda are left way for it to end”23—to the audience rather than in the onstage positions they had at the opening, to Julie, thus providing meta-commentary not only with Dido gone as she was when the performance on the plot but also on the iteration of this ending began. Te intimation is that Aeneas and Belinda throughout the past century. Te direction of his could attempt a repeated excavation of the tragedy of delivery also underscores Jeans own perceived Dido, but that it seemingly inevitably would end the helplessness before the events of the play. However, same way. Tus, although Aeneas utters the closing instead of Julie walking ofstage to complete her phrases of the drama, followed by one last chorus 84 PARSE JOURNAL

24. Halliwell, Stephen. Te sung by Belinda, the fnal (open-ended) mainly through the necessary and the Poetics of Aristotle: Translation 24 and Commentary. Chapel action is yet performed by Dido. She probable. Hill, NC: Te University of refuses, albeit silently, cathartic release North Carolina Press. 1987. either to her audience or to him. Te character faw exhibited by the pp. 45-48. men has to do precisely with an error in judgement that is relatable and Five probable—underestimating a rebellious young girl, marrying a foreign woman Is there really no other way for it to end? (a reading which positions Medea as a Or, to speak with Cixous, is there no xenophobic play), trusting a deceitful other way for it to begin? I can ofer no wife. Tey do not knowingly break the defnitive answers or redemptive solutions. law, commit infanticide, or harbour— I ofer only this, my measure of resistance. and act upon—incestuous desires (as Julie won’t go. Dido won’t forgive. And do the women). Secondly, it is with neither end will be over her dead body. the men that the audience remains at the end of the drama, these men who endure great loss and towards whom we Epilogue feel empathy while we simultaneously experience a desire to distance ourselves I traced the pattern of male protago- ever so slightly, at least from their fates. nism to the classical tragedies upon Tinking, as Aristotle would have it: which Western drama is founded, as I lesson learnt, I’m glad it’s not me. considered the relationship and exchange between Antigone and Creon in Te women of the plays’ titles instead Sophocles’ Antigone (441 BCE), Medea vanish from the scene. Antigone and and Jason in Euripides’ Medea (431 Phaedra, like Julie and Dido, commit BCE), and also Phaedra and Teseus in suicide. Medea, as an exception, exits on Seneca’s Phaedra (54 CE). Te position a chariot drawn by dragons. However, of the men fts the Aristotelean ideal of a this is rendered possible and logically high-ranking character whose downfall probable through a case of the Deus ex is caused by an error in judgement (in machina, of which Aristotle disapproves. turn caused by hubris); this cannot be Tere is nothing to learn from these equally said for the women. Granted, women. And while neither Miss Julie they too make errors in judgement, nor Dido and Aeneas aspire to Aristo- and they are also of high social status. telean dramaturgy (although Strind- However, Aristotle’s recommendation berg’s construction of plot, character and regarding character is that the audience thought indicates a preoccupation with, be able to identify with the protagonist’s and desire to challenge, such dramatic position and trajectory; the “terror and principles), this refection, as well as this pity” that the drama should elicit in dramaturgical construct, remain for me the audience relies on a combination of a frame of reference for interpreting the admiration and identifcation, brought lack of subjectivity and protagonism about by the fact that the character is granted the female characters. good yet relatable, and also constituted