Copyright by Jennifer Sue Gunnels 2004 The Dissertation Committee for Jennifer Sue Gunnels Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Let the Car Burn, We’re Going to the Faire: History, Performance, Community and Identity within the Renaissance Festival Committee: Charlotte Canning, Supervisor Lynn Miller Joni Jones Stacy Wolf Miodrag Mitrasinovic Let the Car Burn, We’re Going to the Faire: History, Performance, Community and Identity within the Renaissance Festival by Jennifer Sue Gunnels, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May, 2004 Dedication For all the Rennies and the die hard audiences of Renaissance festivals everywhere. Acknowledgements I would be remiss in not taking the time to thank the many people who helped in the creation of this document. Most important are those festival personnel, especially Coy Sevier, Orvis Melvin, and Jessica Land, who took the time to answer copious questions, sent me helpful material, and let me nose around the backstage areas of their festivals. Thank you also to the many festival performers, both friends and colleagues, who have enriched this study with their thoughts and opinions. I also extend warm appreciation for the audience members who took the time to speak with me and share their love for and experiences of the Renaissance festivals. Finally, I would like to thank Tony Korol, my colleague and fellow Rennie, and Dr. Georg Schuttler I appreciated your tireless cheerleading and support in completing the process. Thank you also to Esther Mes and my mother, who both slogged through the mud to log film and juggle equipment during my field work. Most of all I cannot express my gratitude for my friends and family, especially my husband John. You all kept me sane and reasonably sober. I would also like to thank Bob Penman for his remarkable kindness in helping to rectify errors in the formatting. v Let the Car Burn, We’re Going to the Faire: History, Performance, Community and Identity within the Renaissance Festival Publication No._____________ Jennifer Sue Gunnels, PhD The University of Texas at Austin, 2004 Supervisor: Charlotte Canning Abstract: The Renaissance festival is an interactive venue which utilizes popular and fantastic views of history to encourage audience members to participate in the performance. While these festivals share much in common with living history presentations, the open use of myth and romanticized history at the Renaissance festival, while sometimes criticized, allows the festivals to incorporate people in the performance in ways that other venues cannot. Living histories, usually heritage sites, seek to confirm and validate identity or membership within a specific community. Their methods of presentation leave little room for playing with or questioning these historically predetermined roles. The Renaissance festival, based as it is in a much earlier history and a romanticized one at that, creates more flexible group and individual identification. Because the Renaissance festival encourages the exploration of identity and community beyond those determined by the history of the historical performance, it carries vi the potential to change the ways in which individuals view themselves, performance, history, and community. It does so through encouraging new constructions of identity for the individual as well as new group affiliations based on interpersonal interactions, commerce, and myth. These will be viewed through the use of three case studies of the Scarborough Faire, Texas Renaissance Festival, and Michigan Renaissance Festival. Participation in these performances can encourage a questioning of how community and identity can be built and what they mean. vii Table of Contents The Renaissance Festival: An Introduction ............................................................1 Chapter 1 Stamping Passports and Passing Immigration: Theorizing the Renaissance Festival as a Foreign Country.................................................. 51 Chapter 2 Are You Going to Scarborough Faire?: Using Interpersonal Acting to Build Community and Identity.................................................................97 Chapter 3 Off-the-Rack History and Ready-to-Wear Identity: Commerce as Community at the Texas Renaissance Festival.......................................... 147 Chapter 4 The Spectator with a Thousand Faces: Myth and History within the Michigan Renaissance Festival ..................................................................193 Afterword: You Don't Have to Go Home, But You Can't Stay Here ................. 238 List of Works Cited............................................................................................. 243 Vita ................................................................................................................... 249 viii The Renaissance Festival: An Introduction “I like this place and would willingly waste my time in it.” As You Like It, II iv What is This Place? On almost any weekend, whether it rains or shines, people climb into their cars, modern time machines, and journey to the Renaissance. On one September weekend, a friend and fellow cast member of the Michigan Renaissance Festival saw distant smoke while driving to the site that morning. As he neared the source of the smoke, he saw two men in home- made chain mail shirts walking away from a burning car. Thinking that there could only be one obvious destination for the two individuals, he offered them a ride. As they got into his car, he asked the two if they wanted to stop and phone someone about the accident. Without a backward glance, one replied, “Nah, let the car burn. We’re going to the faire.” Even without car trouble, a long drive often awaits the visitor to more than 145 Renaissance festivals across the United States. One, the Scarborough Faire near Waxahachie, Texas, gives no indication of its existence apart from a small brown sign marking an exit off of Interstate 35 for Farm Market Road 66. The land remains flat and treeless, broken only by the occasional trailer home. As the car bounces along a poorly maintained road, there is no indication that a performance of any sort happens out here. Two or three miles further, flags and pennants marking the parking lot appeared to the left, but nothing emerged to mark anything the size of a Renaissance festival. The front gates and portico demarcating the large performance area only become visible upon entering the parking lot, practically on top of the “village.” Once a ticket has been purchased, for $14.98, people enter the gates where a young woman dressed as a 1 serving wench hands out programs. At this point in the journey, I checked the map of the site inside the program, making an effort to remember where I had parked. There was no parking lot listed. According to the map, my car was on the village commons. Several miles to the southeast of the Scarborough Faire at the Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF), the visitor is greeted in the street in front of the main gates. The costumed actors wonder at and make public comments on the strange clothing, cameras, and sunglasses of the audience-visitors, addressing them “lord” or “lady.” Some audience members seem to feel conspicuous, blushing at the comments of the actors and the attention of other audience members. Visitors can rent costumes at a small shop just outside the main gates, and some do so, entering into the play initiated by the actors outside the entrance. The massive gates, guarded by people costumed as Beefeaters, are set into a huge wall. Joining the line to enter, the visitor emerges into a huge representation of a Renaissance village during the reign of Henry VIII. A program purchased at a cart just inside the gate contains a map of over 250 acres (SCRIBE). A grid showing the time and place of performances lets the visitor know what the stages and street areas offer as entertainment. Asterisks next to some of the performance times denote performances in which the royal court participates. A paragraph at the beginning of the program informs the audience that: The year is 1518. Amazing sights and rambunctious rivalry rule the day! King Henry VIII, Queen Katherine of Aragon and their brilliant court have gathered at the great harvest festival at New Market to award a coveted new title: Admiral of the Oceans and Warden of New Found Lands. The honors are to go to the first intrepid explorer to present solid evidence that he has claimed a fine portion of the mysterious New World for England. And Their 2 Majesties have spent the year since their challenge was issued planning to honor the winner and showcase his exotic New World treasures royally. (TRF Program 2000) The description continues for another page and gives a hint of the scenarios involving the village characters presented during the course of the day. A smaller schedule of performances involving only the royal court and furthering the “story” of this particular Renaissance festival is displayed at the bottom corner of that same page. Similar explanations are presented at other Renaissance festivals, contextualizing the historical timeline for the audience. The Michigan Renaissance Festival (MRF) explains that the year is 1564, and the monarchs Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots are present to celebrate the signing of a peace treaty between England and