Overland: Scenes from a radical theatre

Taylor & Francis, Routledge, 2014

On the question of structure, form and rules Singer and Walker write: ‘Like the drag queen or the hermit crab, we borrow our shapes and shells to find a space our bodies fit’. By examining two scholarly works – ‘Scenes from a Radical Theatre’ and ‘Ethics, Writing, and Splinters in the Heart’ this paper seeks to examine the question of form when making creative scholarly works by drawing on the interdisciplinary domain of nonfiction studies. Here, we are thinking of not just defining what form is being employed in any one piece of writing – i.e. the ‘how’ of the work – but how the how – this shape, this raison d'etre – comes into being on the page to direct/fashion/influence and/or define and communicate meaning. It is a way to think expansively or differently about our scholarly practices, an occasion to get under the skin of what we do, to experience ‘lateness’, and ‘after thinking’: what might invention look like; what are the risks, the challenges. In presenting this paper, I want to dare myself too. Learn lessons from this study. See if I can write it in a way that is contiguous with my thinking.

What role did identification play in the motives, processes, and products of select post-colonial authors who "wrote back" to William Shakespeare and colonialism? How did post-colonial counter-discursive metatheatre function to make select post-colonial adaptations creative and critical texts? In answer to these questions, this dissertation proposes that counter-discursive metatheatre resituates post-colonial plays as criticism of Shakespeare's plays. As particular post-colonial authors identify with marginalized Shakespearean characters and aim to amplify their conflicts from the perspective of a dominated culture, they interpret themes of race, gender, and colonialism in 'Othello' (1604), 'Antony and Cleopatra' (1608), and 'The Tempest' (1611) as explicit problems. This dissertation combines post-colonial theory and other literary theory, particularly by Kenneth Burke, to propose a rhetoric of motives for post-colonial authors who "write back" to Shakespeare through the use of counter-discursive metatheatre. This dissertation, therefore, describes and analyzes how and why the plays of Murray Carlin, Aimé Césaire, and Derek Walcott function both creatively and critically, adapting Shakespeare's plays, and foregrounding post-colonial criticism of his plays. Chapter One analyzes Murray Carlin's motivations for adapting Othello and using the framing narrative of 'Not Now, Sweet Desdemona' (1967) to explicitly critique the conflicts of race, gender, and colonialism in 'Othello.' Chapter Two treats why and how Aimé Césaire adapts 'The Tempest' in 1969, illustrating his explicit critique of Prospero and Caliban as the colonizer and the colonized, exposing Prospero's insistence on controlling the sexuality of his subjects, and, therefore, arguing that race, gender, and colonialism operate concomitantly in the play. Chapter Three analyzes 'A Branch of the Blue Nile' (1983) as both a critique and an adaptation of 'Antony and Cleopatra,' demonstrating how Walcott's framing narrative critiques the notion of a universal "Cleopatra," even one of an "infinite variety," and also evaluates Antony as a character who is marginalized by his Roman culture. The conclusion of this dissertation avers that in "writing back" to Shakespeare, these authors foreground and reframe post-colonial criticism, successfully dismantling the colonial structures that have kept their interpretations, and the subjects of their interpretations, marginalized.

This thesis offers an evolved methodology of practice that acknowledges and utilises difference in performance, and offers a potential way forward for theatre practice. This methodology is addressed primarily to directors and teachers in both training and professional theatre environments, and therefore offers specific guidance on rehearsal room practice. In 2016, state funded theatres in the United Kingdom and Australia (the territories in which I locate this thesis) are still largely monocultural, both in terms of the people on stage and the people watching the work created. While there are theatres that serve varied communities and engage with international and intracultural arts, there is still an imbalance whereby cultural representations reflecting society’s diversity are not seen on a consistent basis. The pace of change remains slow. Why is it that theatre has not yet moved beyond a homogenous world view to presenting a world that more accurately reflects society’s heterogeneity? I have developed a methodology for directors, teachers and actors that seeks to speak back to these discriminatory practices by opposing the idea of ‘neutral’; in which actors’ differences are stripped away and “the assumption of a shared universality” (Bharucha, 2000: 35) is favoured. After all, the category of ‘neutral’ more often than not overlaps with the identity of the cultural authority, and so is not in fact politically neutral. The methodology described in this thesis offers a pathway to step beyond notions of identity as “fixed” and instead engage with identity as something that is fluid and ever changing. For individuality to flourish, teachers and directors need to develop an understanding of how to embrace and play with difference on the rehearsal room floor and move their focus away from a “one approach fits all” mentality. The methodology outlined in this thesis offers teachers and directors the skills and freedom to work courageously with multifarious personalities and diverse historical narratives as a rich resource in the realisation of work for performance.