Memories of the Revolution collects scripts, interviews, and commentary to trace the riotous first decade of WOW. While the histories of other experimental theater collectives have been well documented, WOW’s history has only begun to be told. The anthology also includes photographs of and reminiscences by Café veterans, capturing the history and artistic flowering of the first ten years of this countercultural haven.
Memories of the Revolution collects scripts, interviews, and commentary to trace the riotous first decade of WOW. While the histories of other experimental theater collectives have been well documented, WOW’s history has only begun to be told. The anthology also includes photographs of and reminiscences by Café veterans, capturing the history and artistic flowering of the first ten years of this countercultural haven.
Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the WOW Café Theater
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Memories of the Revolution: The First Ten Years of the WOW Café Theater
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Overview
Memories of the Revolution collects scripts, interviews, and commentary to trace the riotous first decade of WOW. While the histories of other experimental theater collectives have been well documented, WOW’s history has only begun to be told. The anthology also includes photographs of and reminiscences by Café veterans, capturing the history and artistic flowering of the first ten years of this countercultural haven.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780472098637 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Michigan Press |
| Publication date: | 11/30/2015 |
| Series: | Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance |
| Edition description: | First edition |
| Pages: | 242 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Carmelita Tropicana (Alina Troyano) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and performer.
Jill Dolan is Dean of the College and the Annan Professor of English and Professor of Theatre at Princeton University.
Read an Excerpt
Memories of the Revolution
The First Ten Years of the WOW Café Theater
By Holly Hughes, Carmelita Tropicana, Jill Dolan
The University of Michigan Press
Copyright © 2015 University of MichiganAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-472-09863-7
CHAPTER 1
Section One
Lesbian Camp: Redressing the Canon of 1950s Television
* * *
I loved that we thought we were actually a café back at the old E. 11th Street space, one that served up food and drink to the masses. I loved that we had visual art back then on our tall walls in the skinny storefront. I liked that we had a clubhouse feel. There were many barbeques in the backyard. We would grill on old refrigerator wire shelves salvaged from the 'hood and propped up by a couple of bricks, right on the pavement out back. We drank a lot of beer.
— Moe Angelos
* * *
In her groundbreaking 1997 book Redressing the Canon: Essays on Theatre and Gender, scholar and WOW booster Alisa Solomon explored how theatre companies ranging from avant-garde stalwarts Mabou Mines and Split Britches to the Yiddish theatre, the Ridiculous Theater, and the Bloolips troupe, reworked the canon of western theatre from Aristophanes to Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, tearing down not only the fourth wall but oppressive notions of gender and sexuality in the process. Solomon argued that radical troupes or artists from stigmatized groups might use traditional material for radical, liberatory purposes.
The first generation of WOW artists often pursued a similar strategy — but we had a different canon in mind. Although Deb Margolin, Lois Weaver, and Peggy Shaw were interested in Williams and Shakespeare, many of us wouldn't have known Hamlet if he'd gotten in bed with us. Our canon was pop culture, more Gilligan's Island than Waiting for Godot. Most of us were children in the '60s, when the country was ripped apart by racial tensions, assassinations, and the Vietnam War and then put back together by social justice movements of that time. Most of us were too young to play a part in the radical rebuilding. We ducked and covered as we were told.
And we watched a lot of TV. We couldn't escape the way this new medium was teaching us how to be American, how to be girls. In the midst of that turbulent era, a stream of shows told the same story. White fathers know best. Make room for daddy. When I hear the phrase "heteronormative," scenes from these shows flash through my mind forty years later. But a few shows had a hint of complexity. The couple in I Love Lucy was biracial; the wife chafed at the limitations of being a housewife and almost every show revolved around Lucy's schemes to break into show business. No one had to tell you this was a terrible idea. The Honeymooners gave a glimpse of urban blue-collar life.
Some of the silliest comedies pulsed with undercurrents of subversion. The Addams Family, Gilligan's Island, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, and even Hogan's Heroes were about groups of people who were not necessarily biologically related. If they were — as in The Addams Family — they inhabited a different neighborhood than that of the Cleaver clan. They were weird, but weird was cool.
Weird was better than normal. We learned that not in performance studies or even in feminist groups — we got that from bad TV. Those shows were set in absurd, obviously unreal, sanitized places, from deserted isles to concentration camps to farms or small towns. Each week's show hinged on attempts to break out and return to "real life," but, of course, they never did. Thank god! Life was so much better with the Professor, the movie star, and, of course, Gilligan in their version of a family. What perverse person dared to suggest that life as German prisoners of war was such an endless laugh riot?
These shows' sensibilities were deeply queer. They suggested that life could be organized around something other than a patriarchal family, and their ridiculous comedy implied a critique of white heterosexuality. Perhaps no show punctured the myths of midcentury normal with vivid evocations of anxiety better than The Twilight Zone. Every episode involved a moment when the everyday cracked open to reveal another shadowy, adjacent universe. Sometimes characters leaped into the zone, sometimes they fell; you couldn't always get back to the other side.
WOW artists, like many East Villagers, referenced these shows over and over again to conjure up family values that were subsequently spoofed or smashed, often to the theme of The Twilight Zone, which you could assume everyone knew. We valued humor above all; we loved cheap jokes best of all. We were not interested in merely breaking silence and certainly not in creating positive images of women. We wanted to insert ourselves into the lowliest forms of pop culture and bust up the joint with our messy, undomesticated sexy selves, always entering, always laughing. — Holly Hughes
Split Britches (1981)
Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw, and Deb Margolin
One of the most important plays to come out of the 1981 WOW Festival was Split Britches, a collaboration by Deb Margolin, Peggy Shaw, and Lois Weaver, who later formed a theatre company by that name. Rooted in feminist politics, Split Britches is one of the most renowned theatre companies in the United States and has long had a global reach, presenting work and leading workshops from Europe to the Far East. Both collectively and as individuals, the company has received numerous awards, including multiple Village Voice Obies.
As a trio, Split Britches presented Beauty and the Beast and Upwardly Mobile Home at WOW, as well as solo pieces and work with other collaborators. As senior members of WOW, they acted as mentors and teachers to many of us fledgling thespians and lent their expertise to WOW productions in many ways, most often Lois as director, Deb as writer, and Peggy as performer.
Their signature show, Split Britches, begins with Lois Weaver/Narrator/Cora dressed in layers of clothing on top of her "split britches," explaining that she started this project years ago, basing the story on her relatives, who lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. We then hear the sound of a slide projector, and the women pose to create a tableau vivant, as if the images they create are being projected. The play is a portrait of three poor, older women: Cora (Weaver), the slow one who's never left the farm; Della (Shaw), the lesbian and caretaker; and Emma (Margolin), the philosopher — and possibly senile — third wheel. The play offers a rich portrait of three women living in rural poverty. The characters are eccentric and isolated; the relationships between them defy categories as they create one another's worlds.
In the following excerpt, the troupe uses vaudeville techniques, songs, monologues, and masterful appropriations of coded language to transform the mundane details of these women's lives into vivid theatre. Although the entire script is available in the collection Split Britches: Lesbian Practice/Feminist Performance, which won the 1997 Lambda award in the Theatre and Drama category, the play represents the abiding spirit of WOW and is essential to include here. Many WOW artists note the importance of seeing the play as an inspiration for their own writing.
When I, Carmelita Tropicana, first saw Split Britches, I thought it was Waiting for Godot for women: a terrifically funny play aching with humor, a slice of Americana so foreign and yet so familiar. The final monologue, written by Margolin and delivered by an impassioned Peggy Shaw, about "the fire in my pocket," ignited many a fire in the women in the audience. We may not have known what to do with the fire, but were about to find out at WOW. — Carmelita Tropicana
Split Britches
Written and performed by
Peggy Shaw, Deb Margolin, and Lois Weaver
Conceived and directed by Lois Weaver
with original contributions by Naja Bey, Cathey Gollner, and Pam Verge
Costumes designed by Cathy Gollner
Set design by Lois Weaver
Workshop production with Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, Cathy Gollner, and Naja Bey
WOW Festival
October 1980
Final version with Peggy Shaw, Deb Margolin, and Lois Weaver
WOW Festival
October 1981
Cast
Cora: Lois Weaver
Della: Peggy Shaw
Emma: Deborah Margolin
DELLA: Where you goin', Cora? Where you goin', Emma? Cora Cora!
(Slide 20 appears.)
EMMA AS NARRATOR: In her youth, Della Mae was a handsome woman, and a stylish dresser. She had a job in town, and she drove a horse and buggy to and from her house, also in town. I heard it was an unfortunate love affair that brought her back to the farm.
(Slide goes off.)
DELLA: Go on. Go ahead and leave me here by myself. Go on Emma! Go get your wood. Don't make no difference to me if you're here or if you're not here. I'm the same woman if you're here or not here. I'm a free woman. I do everything anyway. If you were here, I'd have to pick you up and clean under you. Don't make no difference. It gets cold here in the winter. A draft comes through the kitchen and you gotta keep warm. You can't keep the fire too high or it'll burn down the whole house. I got to have my protection. I didn't always dress like this. I didn't always live like this, you know. I got to have my protection. This here (she takes off her coat), this is for the North Wind (she throws it downstage). This here (she removes her apron, and throws it ownstage) is for the fog that comes in over the mountain. (She starts unbuttoning her dress.) This is for all the mothers that thought I was after their little girls. (She takes off her dress.) This is for all the little girls my Mother broke me up with because they was ... Catholic! (She throws the dress at Emma's chair and starts removing next layer.) This is for the time in church my brother was embarrassed because he said I look like a boy. (Finishing the clothing removal.) And this is for the $25 I saved up to go to the prostitute and I walked back and forth all day trying to get up the nerve. (She throws the dress at Cora's cot and removes the last night shirt.) And this is for all the nights I cried myself to sleep. (She throws the shirt, standing only in her long underwear. She goes over to her secret stash of whiskey and takes a long, luxurious slug.) And this is for Amelia. AMELIA! (She sings several verses of a blues song from that period, "Bull Dyke Women," originally sung by Besse Jackson, until Emma interrupts.)
EMMA: Well now! There was an old, blind turkey! I know, because I saw him! I used to know him. And all the animals used to squabble for a place to sleep. Inside. (She pulls an old chair and drags it over to the woodpile.) But he was blind. He couldn't squabble. So he had to sleep outside and the weather was bad. First it rain. And after it rain, it shiver. And after it shiver, it got cold, huh! And when it got cold, he got mad, because ... I know why! Because the cold don't make no noise. Well. He started a singin'. Because the singin' made him less mad. And the singin' attracted all the birds to him. Because. I know why. Because birds is attracted to singin'. Even if it's comin' from an old blind-up old turkey.
(Slide 21 appears.)
(Slide 22 appears, catching Emma between the woodpile and the outdoor wood, from where she will procure a huge tree trunk to drag across the stage.)
(Slide goes off.)
EMMA: Well he heard it. And he thought he had made the stars squeak. How'd he know there were stars? (She thinks.) Well. Everybody knows that. Well, the birds. They started peckin' on him. And he felt it. And he thought it was time for the dancin' to begin. (She begins a long peregrination across the stage with the tree trunk.) And it went that way. He was singin' so they were peckin' and he was dancin'. So they were peckin' and they were dancin' and he was singin' and they were dancin', so he was peckin' and they were singin' and he was dancin' and he was peckin' so they were singin' and they were dancin' ... what the hell was I talkin' about? Oh. There was an old blind turkey. I know, because I saw him. I used to know him. Well, it come to Thanksgivin' one time, and the cook come after him with a knife. And he felt it. And he thought it was time for the dancin' to start. But they killed him. And they opened him up. And when they opened him up there was ... (she sees the bed) a place to live in there. With a bed. With the feathers of two hundred ducks in there. (She faces the table.) And there was a table. With bread. And wine. And 50 turkeys. And 200 country ham. (She sees the chair.) And there was a chair by a window. In the dust. In the light. The dust dancin' in the light. Like in church. The clean dust. Like in church. And there wasn't no bugs. And there were two hundred girls there swattin' the bugs there. Feel my muscle. I built this wall myself. Take a trip to California. Walk on your fingers.
DELLA: (Dressed again.) Emma! You seen Cora?
EMMA: Of course I seen Cora. Who do you think I see around here? I see you. And I see Cora Jane.
DELLA: Cora! Cora!
CORA: (Echoing from the audience.) Cora! Cora!
DELLA: I hear you, Cora! You better get in this house, Cora.
CORA: You better get in this house, Cora!
DELLA: You want me to get the fly swat, Cora? Cora Jane, where are you? You better get up on this porch. Show yourself!
CORA: Show yourself!
DELLA: Cora Jane, I'm going to count to three and you better be up on this porch. One.
CORA: Two!
DELLA: Two.
CORA: Two!
DELLA: Three! (CORA enters from house left and DELLA grabs her by the shirt collar and holds her close.) Where you been Cora?
CORA: I was at the store!
(Slide 23 appears.)
EMMA AS NARRATOR: Cora Jane was considered mentally retarded.
(Slide 24 appears.)
EMMA AS NARRATOR: She was good at needlework, and easy to handle ...
(Slide 25 appears.)
EMMA AS NARRATOR: Until she got into one of her moods.
(Slide goes off.)
CORA: I was at the store!
DELLA: You're too stupid to go to the store!
CORA: I WAS AT THE STORE! It's Thursday. I always go to the store on Thursday. I go to the store on Thursday because Wednesday they deliver the kind of tobacco I always buy on Thursday! I go to the store and I buy two kinds of tobacco! I buy one for Emma and if I have enough money left over I always buy a little candy for myself. I have money to go to the store because when I collect all the eggs and I give Della twelve eggs and I keep one egg until I have my own dozen eggs. And then I go to the store. And I buy two kinds of tobacco. I buy one for Emma and I buy one for me if I have enough money left over I always buy a little candy for myself. And I buy a special kind of tobacco. The kind that's got those little red tags on it. And if I go to the store three more times and I buy two tins of tobacco I'll have enough little red tags to send away and get a cup and saucer like the one I took over to Blanche's house. And I go early to the store on Thursday because I can stop by and visit people. I visit Virginia and I visit Miss Clayter and they give me things. They give me coffee. And they give me cigarettes ... and they give me white bread. And they save me things. They save me the coupons off the evaporated milk container. And if I go to the store two more Thursdays and they give me one coupon I'm gonna have enough coupons to send away and get a salt and pepper shaker made out of a chicken! Just like the teapot is made out of a chicken!
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Memories of the Revolution by Holly Hughes, Carmelita Tropicana, Jill Dolan. Copyright © 2015 University of Michigan. Excerpted by permission of The University of Michigan Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface Watching WOW — Jill Dolan,Introduction Secret WOW — Holly Hughes,
Introduction Liberté, Egalité, Lesbianité — Carmelita Tropicana,
WOW Women in Their Own Words Brave New World — Group Interview by Alisa Solomon with WOW Collective Members (1984),
Song "It's Hard to Be a Dyke in NYC" — Lynn Hayes and Debra Miller's band, the Useless Fems,
Section One Lesbian Camp: Redressing the Canon of 1950s Television,
Split Britches (1981) Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw, and Deb Margolin,
Fear of Laughing on the Lower East Side (1984) Alice Forrester,
WOW Women in Their Own Words Alice Forrester,
Waaay Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1986) Alison Rooney,
Paradykes Lost (1988) Lisa Kron for the Five Lesbian Brothers,
WOW Women in Their Own Words: A Fine Bromance Group Interview by Holly Hughes and Carmelita Tropicana with the Five Lesbian Brothers, Maureen (Moe) Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey, and Lisa Kron (2000),
Hamlet (1989) Scripted after Shakespeare's Hamlet — Deb Margolin,
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same (1992) Madeleine Olnek,
WOW Women in Their Own Words An Interview with Madeleine Olnek by Holly Hughes (June 2000),
Photo Section,
Section Two Dyke Noir,
The Lady Dick (1985) Holly Hughes,
Pickaxe (1986) Ana Maria Simo,
O Darn! The World Is Not a Safe Place for Little Buttercups (1991) Moe Angelos and Dominique Dibbell,
WOW Women in Their Own Words Susan Young,
Section Three How to Write Autobiography with Someone's Hand over Your Mouth,
Memories of the Revolution/Memorias de la Revolucíon (1987) Carmelita Tropicana and Uzi Parnes,
How to Say Kaddish with Your Mouth Shut (1988) Claire Moed,
Threads from the Tailor's Grand Daughters (1989) Sharon Jane Smith,
WOW Women in Their Own Words An Interview with Sharon Jane Smith by Carmelita Tropicana (December 2001),
Feeling Blue (1988) Eileen Myles,
WOW Women in Their Own Words Eileen Myles,
Women and Children First: Outstanding Perk or Tool of Oppression? (1992) Babs Davy,
WOW Women in Their Own Words As the World Turns — Group Interview (2004),
Contributors,
Further Reading,
Acknowledgments,
Footnotes,