Feminist Theatre in The Glasgow School XXIII (part1)

Pam Gems: 'I think the term 'feminist playwright is absolutely meaningless, because it implies polemic, and polemic is about changing things in a direct political way.'

Quoted in Goodman, Contemporary Feminist Theatres

The rise of 'feminist theatre' in Glasgow could be dated back to the first successes of Nic Green's Trilogy: a graduate of the RSC (then the RSAMD), Green developed the three hour long version over several years, incorporating community engagement, an idiosyncratic critique of Bloody Town Hall (a film in which a variety of feminist thinkers confront an increasingly defeated Norman Mailer) and an appeal to audiences to discover Herstory not History. 

Subsequent years have seen an influx of performers who explicitly identify as feminists, and make work that covers ground familiar from feminist writing ( Leyla Coll O'Reilly's What A Fanny, Jetson and Janssen's celebration of International Women's Day at Tramway and Nick Anderson's graduating piece which explored masculinity through a feminist lens). That many artists graduating from the RCS display an interest in feminism is unsurprising - Green has been a mentor on the course - and its emphasis on an individual creativity encourages engagement with a ideology that sees the personal as political.

Throw in various other apparently feminist productions - such as Dominic Hill's double bill of plays by Caryl Churchill (her very writing style has been described as a challenge to the patriarchal modes of theatre) and performers (Kate E, Deeming's current project is inspired by Virginia Woolf's dictum that an artist must have their own space) - and it seems easy to spot a feminist tradition in contemporary Glasgow performance.

Yet the picture is not that simple. Although Trilogy's impact is hard to overestimate, thanks to its incredible success and longevity, and Green's mentorship of  a subsequent generation of students, explicitly feminist theatre was being made in Glasgow before this year zero. Diane Torr, sometime member of live art supergroup Disband - other members included Barbara Kruger, Ingrid Sischy and Martha Wilson - has been furthering her work as a drag king since the turn of the millennium. 

The Edinburgh company Stella Quines had supported female writers, directors and performers from the 1990s, Alison Pebbles played Elizabeth in Communicado's Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off (1987), which Joyce MacMillan in The Scotsman described as having 'something more important to say... about womanhood and the nation': nearly twenty years later, she would team up with Deb Jones for a work-in-progress Cuff.

'Feminist theatre' has been in the Glasgow consciousness for a long time. The deeper challenge is whether lumping these diverse practitioners together does anything more than dilute the meaning of their individual works.

Old Thoughts on Nudity in Theatre - Still Vaguely Interesting, I am surprised to note

I did not understand quite why Anti-Christ upset cinephiles with its explicit violence and apparent misogyny. Anti-Christ is a movie, and protects its cast with the same trickery as TV does for Derren Brown and 1930s radio for ventriloquists. Hanging out on the cabaret and Live Art scenes, I regularly cheer along as real people pull things out of orifices, cut themselves, run about naked and drink blood. It’s a shame that The Daily Mail lacks an adventurous reporter: then they could have some real “BAN THIS FILTH” headlines. 

The place of nudity in live performance is contested. In Nic Green’s Trilogy, there is a great deal of female nudity that has worried some critics, especially in an avowedly feminist work. And in burlesque, does the majority presence of women as promoters and performers, audience and advocates really avoid the accusations of exploitation? Regulars at Tramway might be disappointed if they go home from a Belgian production without some flash of flesh, but does the status of art protect it from the censorship that governs other media? 

In Trilogy, the nudity is framed so that it deliberately anti-pornographic: similarly in burlesque, the stripping is justified by comedy and rhetoric of self-esteem and inclusion. These could be mere fig-leaves of distraction, hiding the more fundamental tensions that emerge when sexuality and society collide. 

Of course, these productions are aimed at adults, aside from the occasional absurd piece of programming as at Latitude, when Fancy Chance was booked into a daytime slot. It is telling, however, that Chance didn't perform her usual routines in front of the liberal parents and their untamed toddlers. And in London, burlesque nights are being expected to have the same licence as lap-dance clubs, a clear sign that for some bureaucrats, there is little difference. 

Inevitably, I defend the right of performers to undress, even cut themselves on stage. There might be the odd director or actor who is indulging their own exhibitionism, voyeurism or aggressive need to control, but to legislate against them is to exclude those who use nudity as a strategy to provoke and expose. 

At Itsy’s Kabaret, Empress Shah did two acts that could reasonably described as self-harm: pouring molten wax on her stomach and inject a syringe into her arm. Despite the polish and finesse, which distracted from the brutality of these actions, they were part of a serious and profound comment on the nature of passion. When she toasted the audience with her own blood in a champagne glass, it had the symbolic intensity of a nightmare, and nailed the self-destruction that lurks behind so much romanticism.  

Nic Green, on the other hand, takes any erotic bite out of nudity, celebrating the body as shameless: some of the scenes in Bloody Town Hall are all the more innocent because the actors are naked. And many burlesquers recapture a charming sensuality, removing striptease from harsh commercialism and re-inventing it as humorous and sincere. I wouldn’t defend nudity purely on the grounds of its lack of eroticism, however. Nightshade, a production by Victoria that paired strippers and contemporary choreographers encouraged a sexual response, which made the accompanying messages - which varied from critiquing the male gaze through to more direct associations of eroticism with vulnerability or exploitation -  more immediate.  

Theatre can’t use its isolation as an excuse: performance happens in, and impacts upon society. But frankly, when the internet has such an exotic selection of material, and my local newsagent has two rows of magazines that boast SEX HUNGRY BABES, attacking the liberal arts is always going to be a token gesture. Sexual content does have a habit of warping perspectives, which is why it is so valuable as a strategy but also why the debate around it is frequently ill-informed or self-justification masquerading as reason. The relationships between the body, sexuality, consumerism, feminism and social values are endlessly fascinating, and it seems utterly appropriate that performance wants to map them. It does a far better job of it than philosophy or tabloid editors.