The Feminist Spectator As Critic by Dolan Jill;

Author:Dolan, Jill;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Fantasy as Liberation: Lesbian Performance and Sexuality

The structure of desire, by necessity, differs across sexual preference. Pornographic narratives or any kind of performance for sexual partners of the same sex construct a different relationship between performers and spectators on the basis of gender roles. In lesbian performance, the representation of desire is often startling because of this difference. Lesbian sexuality is given voice and imaged in theatre, where heterosexual male desire has historically reigned in the form of the male gaze.

The kind of lesbian performance discussed below must be distinguished as one variety of lesbian theatre. Performances at the WOW Cafe take their cues from work which took place in club settings in Manhattan's East Village from 1982 to 1984.33 The club performances were characterized by a mix of styles and conventions, ranging from stand-up comedy to camp genre parodies, all marked by a distinct lack of polish with regard to script construction, acting, directing, and scenic values. Although many of these lesbian performance pieces are now being presented in more conventional theatre settings, they are antithetical in both form and style to lesbian theatre which remains in the well-made play tradition, of which the work of the late playwright Jane Chambers is perhaps the most well-known example.

In the lesbian performance context, playing with fantasies of sexual and gender roles offers the potential for changing gender-coded structures of power. Power is not inherently male; a woman who assumes a dominant role is only malelike if the culture considers power as a solely male attribute. Creating a stage motivated by different kinds of desire allows experimentation with style, roles, costume, gender, and power, and offers alternative cultural meanings. Lesbian performance foregrounds the subversion of the dominant culture's gender-polarized images of sexual power in the context of lesbian desire. Lesbian performers, writers, and directors often parody dominant cultural images of gender to deconstruct gender-specific conduct and codes.

Lesbian performance in Manhattan's East Village is housed primarily at the WOW Cafe, which now occupies a floor in a nearly-abandoned warehouse building on East 4th Street, across from LaMama. When the Cafe opened in 1982, it offered a place for mostly lesbian women to meet, to drink coffee or buy beer from an impromptu kitchen, and to be entertained by informal performances. For a time, lesbian performers based at WOW also performed at other East Village performance clubs, which made for a theatre experience not unlike a progressive dinner for their audiences. On any given weekend night, spectators could see an 8:00 P.M. show at WOW and travel en masse to the 11:00 P.M. show at Club Chandalier or 8BC. There, farther into the remotest reaches of the lower East Side, spectators could watch WOW performers work in a different space, for an audience somewhat more mixed across gender roles and sexual preferences.

Performances at WOW are now offered at 8:00 P.M. and 11:00 P.M., drawing their audiences by word of mouth from the established East Village lesbian community. In a sense, as Lois Weaver, one of the WOW founders, recently remarked, it is a “community built around a theatre.

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