While the power dynamics between theatre critics and artists are inevitably imbalanced, as the written word reaches a wider audience and lives much longer than does performance, for feminist artists, the stakes in this relationship are heightened due to the disjunction in identity and ideology that often separates them from mainstream reviewers. This study exposes the gendered nature of theatre criticism, examining the dialogue about feminist theatre in which critics, audiences, and artists are engaged, and identifying its consequences beyond the box office.
Case studies are drawn from Nightwood Theatre (1979-present) in Toronto and the Théâtre Expérimental des Femmes (TEF) (1979-1987) in Montreal as well as the work of the TEF’s co-founder Pol Pelletier before 1979 and after 1987 in order to examine key issues in the critical reception of feminist theatre in Canada, including: censorship, the relationship between art and politics, translation, and how artists speak back to their critics. This dissertation argues that the standards employed by mainstream reviewers, while most often not intentionally discriminatory against women, run counter to the central qualities of much feminist theatre. Reviewers’ tendency to separate text and spectacle and their consistent reification of universality and objectivity as critical ideals work in contradistinction to feminist theatre, which has historically placed greater emphasis on performance over written text and foregrounded the particularized nature of identity and experience.
Drawing extensively on archival materials and applying a materialist feminist framework to the study of theatre criticism, this dissertation examines the history of feminist theatre and performance in Canada from a different perspective than it has previously been studied and suggests new ways to understand the relationship between critics, artists, and audiences. Through its case studies emerge several practical suggestions about responsible and ethical critical writing that can be applied beyond the scope of feminist theatre.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/65685 |
| Date | 22 July 2014 |
| Creators | MacArthur, Laura |
| Contributors | Copeland, Nancy |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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