Yes, this is supposed to be a travel blog BUT this was too good to pass up. This eloquently beautiful post was written by my friend Emily who studies at the University of Minnesota, you can access the original copy by going to her blog: http://emilykolb.tumblr.com/post/38457142905/acting-while-female
Acting While Female
This past November I performed the role of June Talley in Lanford Wilson’s 5th of July. This performance necessitated my forgoing my usual participation in No-Shave November, the one month a year a eschew my more conforming and lazier act of shaving (yes, lazier. It is such that not-shaving is the more exhausting choice) and play with the other side. Shaving as a feminist is an idea think about, I never know where I fall. Basically, I don’t have any vehement ideas one way or the other. I am, in a sense, indifferent. Sometimes I shave, sometimes I don’t. This instance of my shaving I think is particularly interesting because I had to, for the sake of the play. An actor necessarily sacrifices their full freedom of expression for the sake of temporarily donning a different kind of expression. And, I think, it’s worth it. Male actors would agree, should you come across a male actor in a full-beard, I dare you to ask if he’s working on Chekov. 2$ says he is. We lose control over our bodies in order to act as vessels.
None of that suggests much contradiction. And that’s why this case is particularly interesting. If you were familiar with the play (…anyone?) you would know that June Talley is 32-year old women in 1976. She went to Berkeley in the early 60s. She was a militant anti-Vietnam protester. From that information we can conclude she would be well-versed in Feminist theory. Furthermore, at the time of the play, she is single. Suffice it to say, a very strong argument could be made for this woman not being a woman who shaves. And yet, I did, not because I wanted to, but for the sake of portraying a character that would not have shaved. It seemed natural. I didn’t think about it so much then as I am now (I never brought the idea up in rehearsal, I didn’t even think to). But my eyebrow is raised and it just won’t go down. That logic doesn’t hold up. If I didn’t do it for the sake of the character, the usual answer for why an actor would transform in some way for a play, then why did I do it?
The answer is that it would have been distracting. This obviously says loads about our perspectives on women’s body hair, that we take for granted that a woman is hairless… when… uh… she isn’t. But, to me, it says even more about what it’s like to be a woman in the theatre. As a woman in the theatre, I want my body wanted. Literally. That’s not buried somewhere in my sub-conscience. It’s obvious. I walk into an audition hoping they want my body. That I fit their image of the character. That I will look “right” on-stage. I hope that my body will not be objectionable, offensive. The “need” to fit in some standard, a need that exists for all women, is magnified for the actor.
At a different point in my life, this wouldn’t necessitate being physically attractive, this isn’t an expectation put on Lady Bracknells, but as a “pretty” according to conventional standards (white, able-bodied, young, cis-gendered) actor, I am supposed to make myself as pretty as I can. The more desirable I am, the better. One needn’t be an actor to know this feeling, it is, however, different for the actor because of the expectation of body-modification, the sense that one’s body is not one’s own, that the playwright and director have a say in what that actor’s body should be for the sake of the play. That, in and of itself, is not problematic, but it becomes problematic when combined with the expectations placed upon women’s bodies in general. To be a woman in 2012 is to carry and sense of obligation to be as physically attractive as possible. Self-expression comes after the base work of making herself look as attractive as possible. The self-expression of choosing a shade of lipstick comes only after the process of foundation and powder made to belie a woman’s flawedness. The expression of the character takes second seat to the woman’s fitting whatever box she most approximates (often virgin or crone). Sure, it can be an expression of character to fit a woman into either one of these boxes, but often these types come before character. Ultimately, not serving the play, but rather serving damaging and unprogressive expectations of women.
The reason I shaved even though my character wouldn’t shave is the result of the expectation that the woman on stage, her body even more up for consumption than when she walks down the street (it is ulta-commodified, being bought for the price of the ticket), has a responsibility to be as pleasing as possible. In this case, I felt a requirement to be sexually pleasing, in other instances, that pleasure comes from a woman fully physically expressing the grotesqueness of the crone. In the latter case, the pleasure is a pleasure of comfort. No matter what, we expect our female actors to conform forcefully because of the extent to which their bodies are being consumed. The actor’s body is being evaluated, ostensibly on just its ability to transform and inhabit, but also more generally. All women’s bodies are up for consumption, for evaluation of how well they fit, for the female actor this relationship is more meticulous and magnified.
But, perhaps some roles are “worth it.” More often than not, they aren’t.
Female actors are often required to step in to roles of women unlike them, women they don’t admire. Tiny, weak, submissive women. And yes, all actors have to portray people different than themselves, the art of this art is the ability to transcend one’s own being, including one’s individual perspective on the world. But this happens more forcefully for women. Because we often are voicing the opinions of men. Some men write great women, but all too often a woman is being asked not just to embody the perspectives of a different being, which is understandable, but rather a perspective of women from a voice that is archaic (literally, when looking at the classics) and unprogressive. In the hands of men, women are not so fully drawn (there are exceptions, I will point to my favorite, John Patrick Shanley). This is my experience, as a white woman. I wouldn’t be surprised if the situation were not similar for actor of color (my inclination is that this blog post will not be widely read, but I’d love to hear the perspectives of actors of color! And other women, and men).
So, the answer is women writers (also, writers of color), yes (as well as supporting the John Patrick Shanleys of the world). Unfortunately, they are few and far between. Not a single play of the Guthrie (the first, and arguably the most important, regional theatre in the United states)’s current season isn’t written by a white man (One play, The Servant of Two Masters, was adapted and translated by women, but this production is so fully improvised that there isn’t much of these women’s words left, mostly what’s left is the plot and characters, designed by a male playwright. 2 woman are in the cast of 11 players (4 actors of color, 1 in a non-speaking role, if you were interested)) … this is what 2012 looks like.
So, the bearded man playing Chekov, yes, he is sacrificing his right to shave, to express his personal desires on an individualized level, but he is not being asked to sacrifice his view of the competency of his gender. Women actors are asked to contradict themselves. Shakespeare, for all his wonder (for the record, I LOVE Shakespeare) and even for all the baddassery of his women, considering his context, probably would not agree with me that women are as capable and intelligent as men and that gender is largely a social construct.
One of my dream roles is Rosalind. A truly fantastic amazing woman, one of literature’s strongest, smartest, most interesting women, she still utters this gem, “Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak.” Now, the audience are not idiots, they know the context of Shakespeare’s time. Yet when the actor is still being asked to contradict herself, the context doesn’t help much, it still an expression of a “once-held” (we like to pretend) belief that was incomprehensibly damaging to women, and still is. That line of thinking still accounts for why women are not taking seriously in politics and leadership roles.
The women in Shakespeare often have incredibly rich and beautiful words, but one doesn’t get the sense that Shakespeare is ever expressing his own voice in these women. The women of the plays are not an extension of Shakespeare’s self, they represent something else. And then audience is not asked to identify with these women. This separateness is a necessary condition for a character’s lack of depth (if not separateness, then poor writing. Not the case with Shakespeare, I think we can agree). And it doesn’t only happen with Shakespeare. As a woman, I am used to identifying with male characters. The ubiquitous-ness of the male hero requires it. The same is not asked of men. As a result, many (most) male writers today harbor the same separateness from their female characters as Shakespeare. Some of them can transcend, most do not. The result is the female actor will spend her career playing women filtered through the limited scope of a man’s brain which, no fault of his own, often fails to comprehend a woman’s full humanity. The female actor too often spends her career contradicting herself, giving voice to characters that reinforce a patriarchal society that damages her (and, by the way, everyone).
So, why do I act? If, more often than not, it’s “not worth it” why do I act? Well, firstly, this is the first time in my life where I am consistently playing female characters. Before I went to college, because of my tallness and the broadness of my shoulders, I often played men. So, I fell in love with acting while playing men.
Also, male writers often come close, giving a female character beautiful lines of poetry or wonderful arguments and yet only get 80% the way to a complete, fully drawn human being. It’s possible that a woman can simultaneously be happy and self-contradicting. In spite of my problems with Shakespeare, you’ll never see me turn down Lady Macbeth. Because it is incredible literature. If I refused to ingest the work of male writers who, if they were writing today, would be called misogynists, my bookshelf would be bare and I’d be worse for it. But this metaphor doesn’t extend all the way. The reading of written word is far more passive than the speaking of a line. So this literature I love and want to survive and exist (by way of speaking the lines) creates a problem not for society, therefore there is nothing unethical about my playing these parts, but it is still self-contradicting. I can still want to play parts that mean my self-contradiction.
Furthermore, and this is the most hopeful reason why I still act, I have fantastic female playwright friends and a belief that others exist. I hope we are on the cusp of a sea change after which this self-contradicting for the female actor is the exception rather than the rule.
