Trauma talk: theorizing violence and victimization in contemporary performance

My dissertation explores the relationship between depictions of victimization and the presence of explicit physical violence on the stage. Arguing that the performance of graphic physical violence in the theatre is potentially more disruptive than accounts of theatrical violence usually allow, I question the theoretical discourses of identification and therapeutic effect that are mobilized in aid of justifying or legitimizing representations of violence. I further contend that this disruption is even more problematic when what is at issue is the depiction of violence against women, a representational issue that has been prominent in psychoanalytically informed feminist theories of spectatorship. In developing this argument I consider a variety of performances that have engaged directly with this problematic place of violence on the stage. The first chapter offers an overview of theoretical accounts of violence and argues against an over-emphasis on issues of identification and spectatorial witnessing in approaches to theatrical violence. Addressing the critical and scholarly debates that arose after a staged rape scene in Tomson Highway's Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, my second chapter argues that the controversy elided issues of the depiction of violence and engaged in appropriative discourses of authenticity and victimization. My third chapter looks at several popular theatre projects that address domestic abuse but which eschew the presentation of on-stage violence. Using Marco de Marinis's theorization of closed theatres, I argue that the attention to audience consensus, in addition to the pedagogical and therapeutic aims of these projects, necessitated their avoidance of violence; the performances were well-received and powerful but the avoidance of violence meant that woman abuse and domestic violence were not addressed in any concrete way. In opposition to this elision of violence, my final chapter deals with a shocking and violent play written, directed and performed by Quebec actress Anne-Marie Cadieux. Placing Cadieux's work within the context of violent performance art, fight choreography and feminist theories of bodily presence, I argue that the visceral and proximate presentation of bodily violence in La Nuit troubled audiences because of the problems this violence posed to empathetic identification and the clear-cut designation of victimization.

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