Bits and Bumps: Understanding gender in contemporary physical comedy Bridget Boyle BA Drama (Hons) QUT PhD Candidate Creative Industries Drama QUT Exegesis In partial completion for the award of Doctor of Philosophy Queensland University of Technology Creative Industries, Drama 2015 Abstract This research project investigates how gendered bodies perform physical comedy. According to the late Christopher Hitchens (2007) women are too concerned with the seriousness of their reproductive responsibility to make good comedy. If, as slapstick film director Mack Sennett once declared, the body of mother is too serious for pratfalls (Dreiser 1928), then the female body in the public realm is often situated as a trivial simulacrum: “[s]he might be a Booker Prize winning author, politician, scholar, miner or comedian, but let’s cut to the important question: what does she look like”(Goldsworthy 2013, 22). This study, located in the field of practice-led research, challenges these notions of gender and comedy by producing a new theatrical physical comedy that features the work of both a female and a male performer, crafted so that the female performer is not merely a prop, but enjoys an equal share of the punch-lines. This project makes an original contribution to knowledge by formulating a new method of understanding how the body operates in physical comedy. This method works by identifying five key registers in which the comic body can be situated in physical comedy. Further, the study identifies how gender challenges the operation of these registers. Most significantly, the research develops and demonstrates a three-tier process for a writer/director to manage the challenges of gender in a mainstage context. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the extraordinary support of Dr. Sandra Gattenhof and Dr. Bree Hadley, who combined to make a supervisory super-team. I would also like to acknowledge the creative work of all the artists who collaborated with me over the life of this project: Louise Brehmer, Leon Cain, Liz Skitch, Helen Cassidy, David Megarrity, Josh McIntosh, Tim Cummings and Robert Kronk. Thanks also go to Allen Laverty for invaluable assistance in producing The Vaudeville Hour, to Ange Leggas and Lukas Davidson for wonderful photographic documentation and to Stephen Maxwell of Markwell Presents for filming the live performance. I would also like to acknowledge the support of producing partners: debase productions, La Mama Theatre and the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Art, particularly Lewis Jones. The project would not have been possible without the generous support of Arts Queensland. Rachel Rolfe’s editing, compositing and design skills are extraordinary and I thank her for her wonderful contribution. I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues in this discipline at two key conferences: Ignite 2012 – the QUT postgraduate Creative Industries conference, and Anything Goes – the Australasian Humour Scholars Network annual colloquium. Their support and rigorous feedback for my paper presentations at these events was instrumental in shaping these papers for publication in eJournalist and Comedy Studies. Thanks and love must also go to my family. QUT Verified Signature Keywords The following is a list of keywords that appear within this thesis or are associated with the topic of this thesis. These keywords have been listed for cataloguing purposes. Clown, feminist humour, gender, gendered bodies, new vaudeville, physical comedy. TABLE OF CONTENTS Key Terms ........................................................................................................................ 9 1.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 11 2.0 Contextual review – conceptual framework ............................................................ 16 2.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 16 2.2 Comedy and the body ............................................................................................... 16 2.3 Registers of physical comedy .................................................................................... 18 2.3.1 The grotesque body ............................................................................................ 19 2.3.2 The disguised body ............................................................................................. 20 2.3.3 The body as machine.......................................................................................... 20 2.3.4 The body in relation to inanimate objects ......................................................... 21 2.3.5 The body in the social world ............................................................................... 22 2.4 Challenges of gender ................................................................................................. 23 2.4.1 The neutral fallacy .............................................................................................. 23 2.4.2 The heavy body .................................................................................................. 26 2.4.3 The ideological clash .......................................................................................... 31 2.5 Contemporary practitioners...................................................................................... 34 2.6 Strategies for for overcoming the challenges of gender........................................... 37 2.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 42 3.0 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 44 3.1 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 44 3.2 The interpretive paradigm: feminism ....................................................................... 44 3.3 Practice-led research ................................................................................................. 45 3.4 Research model ......................................................................................................... 49 Table #1: Creative practice cycles ................................................................................... 51 3.5 Position of the researcher ......................................................................................... 52 3.6 Data collection methods ........................................................................................... 53 3.7 Data analysis ............................................................................................................. 53 3.8 Ethical Clearance ....................................................................................................... 54 3.9 Collaborative statement............................................................................................ 55 3.10 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 55 4.0 Preparatory Creative Cycles: ................................................................................... 56 Bits and Bumps Experiment, The Vaudeville Hour, The Furze Family Variety Hour version 1. ....................................... 56 4.1 Creative practice/ research sites ............................................................................... 57 4.1.1 The Bits and Bumps Experiment ......................................................................... 57 4.1.2 The Vaudeville Hour ........................................................................................... 58 4.1.3 The Furze Family Variety Hour version 1 ........................................................... 58 4.2 Consolidated emergent findings from creative investigations ................................. 59 4.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 65 5.0 Major creative practice cycle: The Furze Family Variety Hour, September 2 – 7, 2014. Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts Shopfront .................................................... 67 5.1 Synopsis of the work ................................................................................................. 67 5.2 Analysis of process and product ............................................................................... 67 5.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 80 6.0 Findings of study .................................................................................................... 81 6.2 Qualification of findings/ limitation of the study ...................................................... 82 6.3 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 83 7.0 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 85 7.1 Success of the research project ................................................................................ 85 7.2 Significance of the study ........................................................................................... 86 8.0 List of references ...................................................................................................