Women and Theatre

Here are the Holidays. These days we are constantly being reminded to be thankful for what we have and for our close friends and families, and to be aware and thoughtful of those less fortunate than us. Well, I’d like to use this, my last blog posting for the semester, to discuss what I’m thankful for in terms of women and theatre. The course of this semester has brought me to a greater understanding of how women in the business of show (that is, theatre) act and react to one another. I have read and thought about arguments between women theatre artists, playwrights, actresses, and historians, and have come to a rather simple conclusion: we’re all in theatre to say something. My final question of all that I’ve raised this semester is this: what are we trying to say?

I really think that what women in the theatre are trying to say that we count, too. Whether the woman in question is a playwright, theorist, or standard spectator, we’ve had a lot of firsts already, and it’s high time that we be included in the masses. Of course, I’m not advocating for complete submergence into the theatre culture to where we become mere atoms in the theatre universe. Rather, being counted means to be accepted as equals, just as in the rest of the world. As women, we are fully capable of holding arguments with one another that don’t necessarily result in bitchy catfights (an example of an exception would be the lovely words exchanged between Sue-Ellen Case and Holly Hughes) and unnoticed work. The women who have come before us have demonstrated their enormous talent, but it, for some reason, has to have its validity questioned by the men of the canon in order to be considered good, even mediocre. It’s unnecessary proverbial red tape that is blocking women from being counted, and should be discarded.

I’m thankful for the fact that I get to be among this changing of the guard in terms of theatre. I am seeing further advances being made, as well as learning the pasts of the women who have come before me. I am extraordinarily grateful that I am more aware of women writers, because I know that there is something to be said for them, and that is this: despite what the established canon thinks, these women, to me, have a kind of creative genius in them that millennia of men have only been able to dream of and it scares them. These women know themselves and their peers; they probably write men better than men can. An unidentifiable number of men have been trying to write women for at least as long as there have been cave drawings, and they can barely get it right, bless their hearts. I’m thankful that I have a place in the theatre, and that today I am accepted based upon my merit and only a little bit by my gender. To the women whom we have studied this semester: Thank you for helping me to understand that I, too, can be counted among theatre artists. Thank you for writing and performing; for debating over what is right, universal, and canonical; for not giving a damn about what your male peers will say and writing for and about women; for being an agent of change; and for teaching me that I do not belong to the hegemonic ideal of theatre. I’m a woman, I’m different, and sometimes everyone around me should really just accept that, and maybe listen to what I have to say; because what I have to say is damn important.
Cheers,
Patsy