Feminist Theatre

The essay “Locked behind the Proscenium: Feminist strategies in “Getting Out” and
“My sister in this House”” was written by Patricia Schroeder in 1989.
The essay talks about feminist theatre emerging as a strong force in the 1970s.
Schroeder also talks about the difficulty of defining feminist theatre. She gives
examples and says for some the content is enough to call it a feminist drama while for
others like Janet Brown the central agent of the play should be a woman to call it
feminist.
This difficulty of definition arises because women writers work simultaneously
within two traditions – the dominant male one and their muted one. The problem
arises when there is an attempt to define feminist theatre based on its unique qualities
as many scholars have done, as they ignore or reject the feminist possibilities inherent
in traditional forms.
The two plays she uses to define the vastness of feminist theatre, Getting out by
Marsha Norman and My sister in this house by Wendy Kesselman use formal realism
and picture-frame stage structure, and combinations of experimental and realistic
techniques to show the oppressions of their women characters and the consequences
of such confinements, both at a personal and social level.
Getting Out depicts the 24 hours of Arlene Holsclaw after her release from the state
prison. The plays through its stage structure of showing Arlene’s apartment with
tawdry items like a bed, chair etc surrounded by prison cells and catwalk stairs shows
how even if Arlene is free, she is still enclosed. The prison cells stage is used to enact
remembered scenes from Arlene’s prison days but it also functions to symbolise the
restrictions put on her in the outside world. During the prison scenes, the house lights
are on so that even the audience is included as prisoners who must listen and comply
with the instructions.
Through the technique of prison announcements various points are highlighted,
example the announcer informs all the inmates Mrs Fisher giving birth to a baby girl
by saying she would like to “inform all her girls”, thereby equating the prisoners to
infants also he misreads the name for whom a visitor has come. Depicting the loss of
personal identity which accompanies loss of freedom through his slip of tongue.
The linear plot, familiar characters and conventional dialogue, all devices of the
traditional stage realism help to amplify Arlene’s confinement and her limited choices
and agency. Example – the prison guard who drives her attempts to rape her, she is
rejected by her family, she had limited employment opportunities etc. within this
traditional landscape Norman uses experimental techniques like the creation of
younger Arlene, Arlie to see Arlene’s past and her oppression and outbursts which
landed her in prison. This double consciousness shows the duality in which women
have to live in to behave a certain way to survive in patriarchal society while
supressing their true self every second.
In the end Arlie is banished to the prison staircase as Arlene accepts her situation and
try to control them when possible and understands the importance of autonomy and
female friendships. Thus, the play highlights that formal realism cannot show an
escape from imprisonment for women but using flexible realism this can be achieved.
The second example Schroeder uses is My sister in this house by Wendy Kesselman
which is inspired from Jean Genet’s The Maids. In this story, the characters are not
literally imprisoned like Arlene, but the forces of entrapment are even more
persuasive which leads to disastrous consequences for the characters as well as the
society. The central characters here are two sisters Christine and Lea Lutton who
work as servants at the house of Madame Danzard and her daughter Isabelle. Though
the four women live in the same house the class different between them is made
evident by the different spaces they inhabit in the house, which is shown to the
audience by constructing their inhabited spaces parallelly on the stage, which shows
the division of their world through realism with a staircase leading to the Lutton’s
room.
Like Getting out, this play also follows a linear plot line and enmeshes realism and
traditional techniques with experimental methods of theatre. Kesselman uses various
symbolism to show the Lutton’s hopeless condition and the inevitable rebellion.
Example, Madam Danzard uses her white glove to check for undusted spots, the
blanket which their mother sews for Lea when she is an infant but the same blanket is
a source of resentment for Chritstine and a symbol of her denied autonomy and wish.
Here the mother like in case of Arlene is also responsible for their daughter’s
oppression.
Another technique used is of silence. Until the climactic scenes, there is no dialogue
between the Lutton’s and the Danzard’s, the confrontation which leads to rage and
murder. Before that the conversations are strictly intra-familial. Even if all the
characters are on stage, Lutton’s are always quiet in-front of the Dunzard’s. the
silence also highlights the inabilities of the families to communicate. The oppression
and frustration increase day by day. As Scroeder says “for voiceless women
imprisoned by an unjust society, anti-social actions become inevitable”.
The play connects voice with power and with the grizzly ending heightens the cruelty
of it. As even after the murder it is the male voices of the police, photographer, judge
etc. are heard. The Lutton sisters are so broken by the end that even when the judge
asks for them to speak, they remain silent which is what they have learned to do and,
in the end, end up in literal prison. Through all this audience is made to sympathise
with the Lutton sisters and see the true horror of their situation.
Using such fusion techniques and the artistic opportunities which the proscenium
stage offers dramatizing traditional system of enclosure, playwrights were able to
show women’s lives in all its complexity. Through the above mention’s techniques or
other various forms available in contemporary theatre had given female playwrights
new freedom. Now to insist to female playwrights that their play is not feminist
because it does not follow a certain technique or a certain feminist ideology is
completely wrong and misguided and is again an attempt to put new restriction on
female playwrights.
In the end Schroeder appeals to scholars to continue to develop and work on new
forms of theatre in all its diversity without separatism, labelling and characterisation
because that will lead to fewer feminist concerns being dramatized and represented
on stage.