Performing (Un)forgiveness: The Psychomachia of Recognition and the Return of the Colonial Repressed in 21st Century Settler Gothic Drama Andrew Frederik Harmsen Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of PhD. Arts September 2018 Department of Culture & Communication and The Victoria College of the Arts (VCA) University of Melbourne, Victoria For Code: 101AA PhD. Arts Abstract This project explores recent Australian plays that deploy the Gothic as a representational strategy that critiques the nation’s recent Reconciliation project. In these Gothic dramas, non-Indigenous characters and their audiences witness the return of colonial violence and are confronted by the ways in which it continues to influence and shape contemporary Australian culture. This dissertation will argue that the Australian Gothic, as a theatrical mode, is used by non-Indigenous playwrights as a way of representing a kind of Lacanian ‘psychomachia’ – a psychic allegory that dramatises a crisis of moral excess in the formation of identity. This project – a theoretical dissertation and practice-led creative component – is an attempt to recognise and theorise the emergence of a distinct, historically situated, and uniquely national mode of theatrical representation that is, as yet, not fully recognised in Australian Theatre Studies. 1 Declaration This is to certify that: i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the degree of PhD. Arts except where indicated, ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, iii) the thesis is 87 304 words as approved by the RHD Committee. _________________________________________ Andrew F. Harmsen 2 Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisors, Professor Denise Varney and Dr. Raimondo Cortese, for their patience, support, and expertise. I would also like to thank the folks at the University of Melbourne’s The Australian Centre for their vital work and their support for this project and for their PhD Top-Up scholarship program. I would especially like to thank my partner, Ailish Lydon, for her support and for tolerating all the sleepless nights and distressed nocturnal mutterings that took place over the course of writing it all down. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 1 Declaration 2 Acknowledgements 3 List of Figures 6 1. Introduction: Australian Gothic Drama, Colonial Repression, and Cultural Rupture 1. Project Overview 9 2. Colonial Gothic Fiction 14 3. Postcolonial Gothic Fiction 16 4. The Gothic and Australian Theatre Studies 18 5. The Return of the Repressed 24 6. Context: Reconciliation, Recognition, and Relevance 28 7. Imagined Identities 30 8. Approaching Australian Gothic Drama 35 i. Psychomachia as ‘The Mirror’ for the Lacanian Subject 36 ii. Paradiastole 41 iii. The Uncanny 43 iv. The Abject 44 v. Melancholia 45 9. Chapter Outlines 48 10. Creative Component 50 2. Chapter One: 4 (Un)Consensual Spectacles: Gothic Melodrama and Metaparody in Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset 53 3. Chapter Two: (Dis)Placement: Inheritance and Madness in The White Earth 98 4. Chapter Three: Thresholds: Amnesia, Madness, and Failure in The Flood 144 5. Chapter Four: Intervention: Trauma, Tyranny, Bureaucracy, and Neo-Gothic Enthralment in The Dark Room 186 6. Bridging Document: Forgotten Quarantines: An Introduction to Long Shadows 221 7. Creative Component: Long Shadows: An Australian Gothic Melodrama 225 8. Conclusions and Implications (ii.): (Un)Forgiveness: Imagined Identities, the Future, and the Australian Settler Gothic Drama 340 Works Cited 356 5 List of Figures 1. Fig. 1 Suellen Maunder as Lady Constance Drinkwater in Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, The Studio Theatre, 2007. (Photo courtesy of JUTE Theatre Company). 2. Fig. 2 Christopher Glover as Hope and Elle Watson-Russell as Fortitude in Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, The Studio Theatre, 2007. (Photo courtesy of JUTE Theatre Company). 3. Fig. 3 Suellen Maunder as Constance Drinkwater and Daniel Cunningham as Fortitude in Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, The Studio Theatre, 2007. (Photo courtesy of JUTE Theatre Company). 4. Fig. 3 John du Feu as Crabbe (rear left), Jason Chong as Hop Lee (rear right), Christopher Glover as Angelico (centre), and Daniel Cunningham as Fortitude (right) in Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, The Studio Theatre, 2007. (Photo courtesy of JUTE Theatre Company). 5. Fig. 4 Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, The Studio Theatre, 2007. (Photo courtesy of JUTE Theatre Company). 6. Fig. 5 Jason Chong as Hop Lee and Christopher Glover as Angelico in Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, The Studio Theatre, 2007. (Photo courtesy of JUTE Theatre Company). 7. Fig. 6 Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset, The Studio Theatre, 2007. (Photo courtesy of JUTE Theatre Company). 8. Fig. 7 Anthony Phelan as John McIvor, Kathryn Marquet as Elizabeth, and Steven Tandy as Daniel in The White Earth, Roundhouse Theatre, 2009. (Photo: Justin Walpole). Image Courtesy of La Boite Theatre Company. 6 9. Fig. 8 The White Earth, Roundhouse Theatre, 2009. (Photo: Justin Walpole). Image Courtesy of La Boite Theatre Company. 10. Fig. 9 Katharine Marquet as Veronica and Stace Callaghan as William in The White Earth, Roundhouse Theatre, 2009. (Photo: Justin Walpole.) Image Courtesy of La Boite Theatre Company. 11. Fig. 10 Veronica Neave as Harriet and Anthony Phelan as John McIvor in The White Earth, Roundhouse Theatre, 2009. (Photo: Justin Walpole.) Image Courtesy of La Boite Theatre Company. 12. Fig. 11 Anthony Phelan as John McIvor in The White Earth, Roundhouse Theatre, 2009. (Photo: Justin Walpole.) Image Courtesy of La Boite Theatre Company. 13. Fig. 12 Steven Tandy as Daniel McIvor in The White Earth, Roundhouse Theatre, 2009. (Photo: Justin Walpole.) Image Courtesy of La Boite Theatre Company. 14. Fig. 13 Stace Callaghan as William in The White Earth, Roundhouse Theatre, 2009. (Photo: Justin Walpole.) Image Courtesy of La Boite Theatre Company. 15. Fig. 14 Shirley Cattunar as Janet Ball in The Flood, La Mama, 2012 (Photo: Finucane & Smith Productions). 16. Fig. 15 Maude Davey as Dorothy (left), Caroline Lee as Catherine (Centre), and Shirley Cattunar as Dorothy Ball in The Flood, La Mama, 2012 (Photo: Finucane & Smith Productions). 17. Fig. 16 The Dark Room, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2009. (Photo: Gary Marsh). Image Courtesy of Black Swan Theatre Company. 18. Fig. 17 Will O’Mahony as Stephen in The Dark Room, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2009. (Photo: Gary Marsh). Image Courtesy of Black Swan Theatre Company. 7 19. Fig. 18 Arielle Gray as Grace and Jacinta John as Anni in The Dark Room, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2009. (Photo: Gary Marsh). Image Courtesy of Black Swan Theatre Company. 20. Fig. 19 Tom O’Sullivan as Craig (Left), and Kazimir Sas as Joseph (Right) in The Dark Room, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2009. (Photo: Gary Marsh). Image Courtesy of Black Swan Theatre Company. 21. Fig. 20 Arielle Gray as Grace, Jacinta John as Anni, Tom O’Sullivan as Craig (Left), and Kazimir Sas as Joseph (Right) in The Dark Room, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2009. (Photo: Gary Marsh). Image Courtesy of Black Swan Theatre Company. 8 Introduction Australian Gothic Drama, Colonial Repression, and Cultural Rupture Project Overview In the last ten years, ‘Australian Gothic’ has become an increasingly popular way for critics, publishers, playwrights, and the companies that produce their work to describe Australian plays that are dark, disturbing, perhaps morbid, or menacing. This dissertation will look at four recent plays that have all been referred to as ‘Australian Gothic’ dramas. They are: Stephen Carleton’s Constance Drinkwater and the Final Days of Somerset (2006), Stuart Charles and Andrew McGahan’s The White Earth (2009), Jackie Smith’s The Flood (2012), and Angela Betzien’s The Dark Room (2009). While each of these plays has been described as ‘Gothic’, what constitutes ‘Australian Gothic drama’ remains mostly untheorised in Australian theatre studies. Given the recent profusion of explanations of Australian Gothic fiction and cinema, an exploration of it as a dramatic form is long overdue. The near-decade long period of theatrical production that this dissertation is interested in has produced many grim theatrical representations of Australian culture and its European history. This dissertation asserts that these four particular dramatic works constitute a brief but representative body of plays that exemplify the range of narratives, theatrical styles, and forms these dark visions can take in the theatre. The focus of this dissertation is on how these plays present a Gothic version of the way non-Indigenous Australians represent colonial history and its legacy in the present. One of the clichés of Gothic drama is that, as theatre scholar Marybeth Inverso argues, it ‘pulverizes any sense of a morally operative universe, instead substituting a radically amoral one in which the innocent perish alongside the wicked’ (1990:2). Furthermore, the ‘sweeping 9 annihilative activity of the Gothic is exerted upon physical as well as moral and political certitudes’ (Inverso 1990:3). While these are general statements, the plays up for analysis will confirm this aspect of the Gothic drama. Moreover, and of particular interest to this project, we will also see a sustained and intertextual annihilation of several key moral assumptions