Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2011 (Im)possibilities of Theatre and Transgression: the critical impact of transgressive theatrical practices Christopher J. Krejci Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Theatre and Performance Studies Commons Recommended Citation Krejci, Christopher J., "(Im)possibilities of Theatre and Transgression: the critical impact of transgressive theatrical practices" (2011). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3510. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3510 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. (IM)POSSIBILITIES OF THEATRE AND TRANSGRESSION: THE CRITICAL IMPACT OF TRANSGRESSIVE THEATRICAL PRACTICES A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Theatre by Christopher J. Krejci B.A., St. Edward’s University, 1999 M.L.A, St. Edward’s University, 2004 August 2011 For my family (blood and otherwise), for fueling my imagination with stories and songs (especially on those nights I couldn’t sleep). ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisor, John Fletcher, for his expert guidance. I would also like to thank the members of my committee, Ruth Bowman, Femi Euba, and Les Wade, for their insight and support. Michael Tick, Kristin Sosnowsky, Leigh Clemons, and many other past and present faculty members at LSU also deserve my gratitude. I would not have been able to begin or complete a Doctoral program had the Board of Regents not provided me with a four-year fellowship. Thanks also to my colleagues in the Theatre and Performance Studies Programs at LSU; fellow Association for Theatre in Higher Education LGBTQ Focus Group members; and co-participants at ATHE, ASTR, and MATC for challenging me to better articulate my ideas. I am grateful that George Klawitter turned me on to scholarship and that the Mary Moody Northen Theatre and Master of Liberal Arts faculty at St. Edward’s University provided me with the tools to become a teaching-artist. I am indebted to Celia Hughes for offering me my first paid gig and the folks at Frontera and the Rude Mechs for artistic guidance. Leon Ingulsrud and Jenny Jones Cavenaugh have also helped shape my aesthetic. I tip my hat to my many friends and collaborators in Austin, Baton Rouge, and New York, including Christina J. Moore, Natalie George, Bryan Schneider, Jenny Larson, Todd Henry, Ashleigh Dowden, and Katie Goan, for fielding my questions and correcting my memories. Thanks also to Jason Neulander, Mical Trejo, Ken Webster, Vicky Boone, Daniel Alexander Jones, and Blake Yelavich for taking time to speak with me about their work. This dissertation would not have been possible without a lifetime of support from my immediate and extended family, including my cousin and childhood playmate, Deven Grones; my longtime friend, Summer Woodman McKinnon; my Granny, Barbara Burton; iii my brothers, Kevin and Collin Krejci; and my parents, Kenneth and Suzanne Krejci. And for listening to me, editing with me, and providing me with constructive criticism, helpful advice, and artistic companionship (among other things), I would like to thank my partner, Derek Mudd. iv Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1 ACTS OF TRANSGRESSION: THEATRE, TRANSGRESSION, AND CRITICAL IMPACT .................................................................................................. 1 2 THE STATUS OF TRANSGRESSION: FRONTERA, FRONTERAFEST, AND ALTERNATIVE THEATRE ................................................................................... 44 3 A MARKET OF TRANSGRESSION: NAUGHTY AUSTIN, RONNIE LARSEN’S MAKING PORN, AND QUEER EROTIC PERFORMANCE ............ 87 4 AN ETHICS OF TRANSGRESSION: SWINE PALACE PRODUCTIONS, HURRICANE KATRINA, AND NONTRADITIONAL CASTING .................... 132 5 THE ARC OF TRANSGRESSION: CONCLUSIONS, QUESTIONS, AND AN EPILOGUE ............................................................................................................. 187 WORKS CITED ................................................................................................................. 212 APPENDIX A: LETTER OF PERMISSION, NAUGHTY AUSTIN ............................... 239 APPENDIX B: LETTER OF PERMISSION, SCRIPTWORKS ....................................... 240 VITA ................................................................................................................................... 241 v Abstract While performance practitioners often rely on socially, aesthetically, and politically transgressive practices to critically impact the socio-political climate outside the theater walls, transgression is fraught with contradiction. Historically, acts of transgression have led to both the expansion and suppression of democratic rights. (Im)possibilites of Theatre and Transgression employs a critical lens that takes into account the historical and ideological specificities of individual productions in Austin, TX and Baton Rouge, LA to argue that transgressive theatrical practices both counter and reproduce normalizing discourses and discourses of domination in local and regional culture. This study focuses on the types of aesthetically, socially, and politically transgressive theatrical practices that seek to interrogate and challenge boundaries related to individual and cultural identity—pushing toward a more plural and radical concept of democracy—and are endemic to present day US theatres located on the cultural fringe. It examines alternative theatre practices which prevailed in Austin in the nineties to argue that a transgressive critique of “normalcy” can in fact strengthen regimes of the normal locally and regionally. It looks to an LGBTQ focused company in Austin to underscore the ways in which overtly commercial, exploitative queer erotic performance practices can also serve a positively transgressive, political and identity-affirming function within local and regional culture. Analysis then turns to performances staged in Baton Rouge following Hurricane Katrina to contend that transgressive nontraditional casting practices both facilitate and fail an ethics of tolerance and inclusiveness within local and regional contexts. Finally, (Im)possibilities of Theatre and Transgression suggests that transgression itself achieved significance in the US through currencies of performance at the end of the twentieth century. vi Chapter 1. Acts of Transgression: Theatre, Transgression, and Critical Impact Figure 1. Schematic Diagram: Chapter 1 1.1 “Whose line is it anyway?” “Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.” — John Milton In an essay published in the November 2008 issue of American Theatre, playwright Naomi Wallace trumpets, “Let us transgress together—and by this heat, by the sparks that are generated, make a light to see by for all of us” (102). Titled “On Writing as Transgression: Teachers of Young Playwrights Need to Turn Them Into Dangerous Citizens,” Wallace’s manifesto serves as an ideal springboard for this research project. At once, Wallace’s essay juxtaposes three concepts in which I learned as an undergraduate theatre major at a small liberal arts university in Austin, Texas to place unquestionable faith: theatre, education, and transgression. Like those teaching-artists and scholar-practitioners under whom I studied, I enter the classroom/rehearsal space on a daily basis with a strong belief in the transformative power of performance.1 My ethic is grounded in an 1 There exist several varied performance practices and theories of performance that see theatre as a potential site for cultural, social, political, and personal transformation. Many are associated with artistic movements related to the mid- to late twentieth-century. European artists such as Antonin Artaud (see “The Theater of Cruelty,” The Theater and Its 1 understanding of the pedagogical functions of the medium that encourage performers/spectators to transgress the boundaries of their own lived experiences. Just as they do for Wallace, education and transgression form the bedrock of my ideology. In a post- 9/11, post-Katrina, post-Bush world rife with injustice fueled by blind faith, assumption, however, is a luxury that can no longer go unchecked. Taking a cue from bell hooks, Wallace calls for a pedagogy of playwriting that encourages students to engage in a type of “self transgression” in pursuit of “critical awareness” (Wallace qtd. in 100). “Teaching to transgress,” according to hooks, requires teachers to push students beyond known boundaries of self so that they develop critical- thinking skills that take into account multiple perspectives (hooks 12). Wallace cites a number of playwrights, past and present, who practice “self transgression” and impel Double) and