I will be directing a production of Jean Genet’s one-act play The Maids.  I will hold auditions on November 28th, 29th, and 30th. I will orchestrate rehearsals twice a week for two hours at a time, culminating in several final performances to be held at the end of winter quarter.  I will be responsible for providing creative direction to the actors, supervising and planning rehearsal periods, and creating a concept for set, costume, light and sound design.
    The central themes and concerns of this project revolve primarily around gender and power. Genet’s play, taken on its own terms, does not specifically explore gender themes except perhaps in the relation between Madame and Monsieur (a character whom we never see). The three characters in the play are all female. The way in which I propose to enact a discourse on gender is to cast two male-identified individuals in the roles of Claire and Solange. The third role, Madame, will be played by someone who identifies as female.
    What attracted Jean Genet to the theatre was the sheer artifice of the medium. He loved drama because it is all make-believe; it is a deliberately manipulative art form, a false reality designed to deceive, and this deception is perfectly socially accepted (even encouraged). His plays are Brechtian in that they desire to be a vehicle for social change, but depart from Brecht in that Genet was particularly interested in manipulating and sustaining contradictions in the minds of his audience. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his introduction to The Maids, tells us that “For Genet, theatrical procedure is demoniacal. Appearance, which is constantly on the point of passing itself off as reality, must constantly reveal its profound unreality. Everything must be so false that it sets our teeth on edge” (10). It is partly in keeping with this spirit of false appearances that I would like to cast male-identified actors in female roles. The characters of Claire and Solange are identity onions; almost every layer they present to us is peeled back to reveal another underneath, and none of these layers is quite the truth. If the actors are male, the visible fact of their maleness will contribute an added layer of falsehood to the performance that will demand critical interpretation by the audience (by virtue of the audience’s difficulty in suspending disbelief and difficulty in buying into the illusion of the play). Once the characters of Claire and Solange appear to have finally revealed their “true selves”, the viewer will be left to wrestle further with the visual contradiction of a male playing a female role.
    From this inquiry into appearances I hope to generate discourse about what, if anything, lies at the core of human identity. I hope to play with identity as though it were nothing but a series of reiterative gestures, to be put on and cast off at will. Through the theatrical presentation of Claire and Solange’s journey, I hope also to create discussion around gender identity, power relations in gender roles (it may cause dissonance to see men playing a traditionally female role, serving a woman) and cultural anxiety about the spectacle of seeing men wearing women’s clothing. I am just as deeply interested in the social experiment of directing this particular production, the experiment of myself – an identified female – directing identified males playing the roles of identified females. To this effect, I will be keeping a detailed production journal of what occurs in our rehearsals, to be turned in at the end of the quarter. I plan to use this journal as a place for recording and analyzing the production process, as well as a way to remember and share all of the unseen work that goes into a play.
    I am choosing the medium of the theatre because it is one in which I have much experience and interest. I believe that the visceral experience of watching people perform live, in front of an audience, lends a story depth that other mediums do not. It provides a space for humans to gather together and share a common experience, and it breathes life into text that might otherwise remain on the page. The process of staging a production requires intensive emotional and psychological commitment, and forges a tight-knit community of people that must work closely together to bring something wonderful to fruition.  The theatre is also the perfect medium in which to explore identity, because of the established and understood fact that the audience is filing in to watch people pretending to be other people. Since this is a phenomenon that occurs daily in our non-theatre-related lives, it is almost a comfort to come to a place where we know what we’re getting into, and we are willing to accept and embrace the masks that others wear.
    My project is in dialogue primarily with Jean Genet. The Maids is his conception, and I intend to engage with a selection of his other plays and novels, as well as literary criticism of his work. As a supplement to this dialogue, I will turn to various authors writing on the avant-garde theatre (a movement to which Genet belonged), French culture in the 1930s – 1940s (especially of the bourgeois and the working class), and identity politics surrounding gender.
    The skills required in order for me to complete this project are as follows:
- A strong grasp of the technical aspects of staging a production
    - Knowledge of acting and directing technique
    - Leadership skills
    - Strong communication skills
    - Acting ability
        
The resources required in order for me to complete this project are as follows:
-    Performance space (in Evergreen’s Communications Building)
-    Rehearsal space
-    Audition space
-    Access to Evergreen’s Costume Shop
-    Scripts of The Maids (already obtained)
-    Access to materials for set building (wood, paint, tools)
-    Set pieces (bed, vanity, dresser, mirror, furniture)
-    Props (hairbrush, makeup, tea set, broom, gloves, telephone, alarm clock, flowers, jewel case, jewels)

            We will be writing a foundation grant for props, set and supply costs. We will buy used building materials and props from second hand stores. Some of the basic supplies needed are:
·       Wood

·       Door

·       Paint

·       Fabric

·       Some Props

We will also be using many of our own resources as well as borrowing things. Melissa (my stage manager)’s mother is a theater teacher for a high school, so we will have access to their props and costumes if needed. We will most likely not spend money on:

·       Set décor

·       Set furniture

·       Hardware

·       Costumes

·       Makeup

·       Some Props

·       Play bills and flyers

·       Tools

All of our actors and tech crew will be volunteers.

Budget:

Wood: $35-45  -used 2x4's cost about $2.50 a piece

Door: $15-25   -a used inside door costs about $20

Paint: $5-18    - depending on the color, you can buy a mistakenly mixed paint can for $5. About $18 for a new one.

Fabric: $10-30   -used curtains from Goodwill cost about $5 a piece; brand new fabric would be around $30.

Props: $25-40

    Throughout the rehearsal process, I will be looking into any live performances in the Seattle, Olympia and Portland areas that explore related themes from the play: power, gender, French culture, cross-dressing, domestic servitude, etc. I would like us (myself, the cast, and stage manager) to attend a drag show in Portland (Darcelle XV) at some point, to see if any aspects of watching men in women’s clothing will aid the cast in their performance.
    Note on the rehearsals: I want to leave these fairly open, as the rehearsal process is organic and depends largely on the actors. We will work on specific scenes as we need to, and the process will happen however it happens. I will plan for specific things (acting workshops, live performances, etc.) but the rehearsals themselves will be unpredictable, and changes to my personal syllabus will be made as we go along.



Personal Syllabus
FALL QUARTER

November 12 – 16 (Week 8)
-    Reserve COM 209 / 210 for auditions - get faculty signatures and hand in pink sheet (By Tuesday 11 / 13)
-    Complete, get faculty signatures, and hand in green sheet for use of COM building spaces for performances (by Wednesday 11/14)
-     Make audition ‘teaser’ posters & distribute liberally around campus
-    Give Melissa her own copy of “The Maids”

November 19 – 23 (Thanksgiving Break – Week 9)
-    Re-read “The Maids”, choose cold readings for auditions, make photocopies
-    Make up audition information sheets, make photocopies
-    Eat Thanksgiving Dinner

November 26 – 30
-    Hold auditions in COM building
-    Make casting decisions

December 3 – 7
-    Email casting decisions to audition participants
-    Email cast, plan for a meeting this week or next
-    Meet with cast, introductions, distribute scripts, discuss rehearsal times for winter quarter, answer questions, etc.

December 10 – 14 (Eval Week)
-    Time off for eval conferences.

December 15 – January 6 – (Winter Break)
-    Reread play, make outline of major transitions in scenes, analyze text, prepare for first rehearsal


WINTER QUARTER

JANUARY

Week One (1/7 – 1/11)
-    Rehearsal: confirm rehearsal times and locations, read-through, establish deadline for being off-book, theatre games
-    Read Sanford Meisner On Acting
-    Read excerpt from Genet: a collection of critical essays
-    Collaborate with Melissa & Maria to create an “actor’s info packet”, comprised of different perspectives on ‘The Maids’ and Meisner exercises
-    Foundation grant proposal due

Week Two (1/14 – 1/18)
- Rehearsal: Meisner / Stanislavsky / Viewpoints workshop with Venu Mattraw
- Read Artaud’s The Theatre and its Double
- Read “Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty”, from Avant Garde Theatre
- Read excerpt from The Imagination of Jean Genet

Week Three (1/21 – 1/18)
-Rehearsal: Watch Murderous Maids
-Read Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed
-Read “Our Lady of the Flowers”
-Off Book?


Week Four (1/28 – 2/1)
-Rehearsal, work on what needs work
-Read Excerpt from Jean Genet and his Critics
-Read excerpt from Jean Genet: a study of his novels and plays
-Read excerpt from Saint Genet

FEBRUARY

Week Five (2/4 – 2/7)
-Rehearsal: costumes & sets meeting
-Read excerpts from France since 1870
-Read excerpt from Modern France


Week Six (2/11-2/14)
Rehearsal: work on what needs work, costume & wig fittings
-Read The Papin Sisters
-Read excerpt from The Politics of Women’s Bodies
-Drag show in Portland?

Week Seven (2/18-2/21)
Rehearsal: light and sound design meeting, Stumble-through
-Read excerpt from Blending Genders
-Read excerpt from Revealing Male Bodies

Week Eight (2/25 – 2/29)
-Rehearsal 1: Run-through AND work on individual scenes
-Rehearsal 2: Run-through
-Move set pieces into COM building


Week Nine (3/3 – 3/7)
-Rehearsal: TECH WEEK. Dry tech (run-through w/ light and sound cues)
-Rehearsal: Wet tech (run show)
-Dress rehearsal
-Final Dress rehearsal
-OPENING NIGHT MARCH 7, 7 p.m.

Annotated Bibliography

Genet

Brooks, Peter and Joseph Halpern, eds. Genet, a collection of critical essays. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1979. 31-46, 146-155, 172-177, 178-190. This book brings together a selection of essays written on Genet himself, his novels and plays, and the theories behind his work. The essays I will be using are “The Theatre of Genet: A Sociological Study” by Lucien Goldman; “Genet, His Actors and Directors” by Odette Aslan; “Profane and Sacred Reality in Jean Genet’s Theatre” by Jean Gitenet and “I Allow Myself to Revolt”, an interview with Jean Genet by Hubert Fichte.


McMahon, Joseph H. The Imagination of Jean Genet. Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1963. 145-155. This book is a deep and rich biography of Genet that also includes in-depth explorations of his most celebrated works, including The Maids. The excerpt I will be using is the chapter entitled “’Haute Surveillance’ and ‘Les Bonnes’”.

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Saint Genet, actor and martyr. Trans. Bernard Frechtman. New York: G. Braziller, 1963. This book is Sartre’s celebration of Genet’s life and work, and Sartre’s own existentialist interpretation of all that Genet did and wrote. He also explores Genet’s status as a symbolic and philosophical figure, and delves deeply into all that Genet’s life meant, both on a personal and on a societal level.

Thody, Philip Malcom Waller. Jean Genet: a study of his novels and plays. New York: Stein and Day, 1969. 25-54, 163-178. This book is also a biography of Genet, with a sizeable chapter on Genet’s philosophy of the theatre and on The Maids. I will be using Chapter Two, “Problems and Themes” and Chapter Nine, “The Maids”.

Webb, Richard C. and Suzanne A. Webb. Jean Genet and his Critics: An Annotated Bibliography, 1943 – 1980. New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1982. 309-354. This amazing work brings together almost every single snippet of critical review of Genet’s work, from 1943 until 1980. Some of them are reviews of his plays, some are of his novels, and some are of the man himself. The portions of this book that interest  me are specifically the critical reviews of various productions of The Maids.  

White, Edmund, ed. The selected writings of Jean Genet. New Jersey: The Ecco Press, 1993. This book is a collection of some of Genet’s most celebrated works. I intend to read Our Lady of the Flowers, Miracle of the Rose, and Funeral Rites.

Theatre

Artaud, Antonin and Mary C. Richard. The Theatre and Its Double. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1958. This is a collection of essays on Artaud’s philosophy of the theatre. More specifically, it contains the manifesto of his ‘Theatre of Cruelty’, where Artaud expressed the importance of recovering "the notion of a kind of unique language half-way between gesture and thought." Artaud and Genet are often compared, and my hope is that this book will serve as an aid to understanding Genet’s play and offer a different perspective on how to perform it, as well as the theatre in general as an artistic medium.

Boal, Augusto. Theatre of the Oppressed. Trans. McBride, Charles A. and Maria-Odilia McBride. New York: Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 1979.

Brustein, Robert. The Theatre of Revolt. 2nd ed. Illinois: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1991. 363 – 411. “In a new edition of this now –classic work, Robert Brustein argues that the roots of the modern theatre may be found in the soil of rebellion cultivated by eight outstanding playwrights: Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht, Pirandello, O’Neill, and Genet. Focusing on each of them in turn, Mr. Brustein considers the nature of their revolt, the methods employed in their plays, their influences on the modern drama, and the playwrights themselves.” I will be reading the section that explores the parallels between Artaud and Genet’s philosophies, entitled “Antonin Artaud and Jean Genet: The Theatre of Cruelty”.

Innes, Christopher. Avant Garde Theatre 1892 – 1992. New York: Routledge Inc., 1993. 108-117, 59-77. This book discusses Genet and Artaud, as well as certain subjects both were obsessed with, such as death, ritual, and illusion. There is also a nice summary of Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty. The titles of these excerpts are called “Black Masses and Ceremonies of Negation: Jean Genet” and “Antonin Artaud and the Theatre of Cruelty”.

Meisner, Sanford and Dennis Longwell. Sanford Meisner on Acting. New York: Random House, 1987. This is Sanford Meisner’s acting and directing manifesto. It follows one of his master classes in New York, and explains in detail his acting and directing technique, as well as being sort of a workbook for actors. I will be using Meisner’s acting style as the primary teaching tool for my cast.

Gender

Tuana, Nancy, William Cowling, Maurice Hamilton, Greg Johnson and Terrance MacMullan, eds. Revealing Male Bodies. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1992.  This book is something of a reaction to all the literature surrounding women’s bodies. It is a collection of essays on male identity and male bodies, gender norms, the social aspects of the human body, and issues surrounding the specifically male anatomy. I am interested in this book primarily for its sections on the male experience of wearing women’s clothing, and of assuming a female identity. My hope is to be able to understand more of what it will mean to place male actors in female roles. The excerpts I will be using are “Dragging Out the Queen: Male Femaling and Male Feminism”  and “Turnabout: Gay Drag Queens and the Masculine Embodiment of the Feminine”.


Ekins, Richard and Dave King, eds. Blending Genders: Social Aspects of Cross-dressing and Sex-changing. New York: Routledge, 1996. “In Blending Genders international contributors come together in a lively discussion of all those who attempt to blend various aspects of gender, either in respect of themselves or others. In addition to historical, sociological and political analyses the book includes a number of personal and descriptive accounts. Blending Genders is the first comprehensive treatment of the social aspects of cross-dressing and sex-changing and, as such, can rightly lay first claim to an emerging field of transgender studies.” I have interest in this book because of its discussion of ‘historical crossdressing’. Specifically, the article I will read is from “Part I: Experiencing Gender Blending”. The article is titled “In Female Attire: Male Experiences of Cross-Dressing – Some Historical Fragments”.

Weitz, Rose. The Politics of Women’s Bodies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 25-45. “The Politics of Women’s Bodies: Sexuality, Appearance and Behavior, 2/e, brings together recent critical writings in this important field, covering such diverse topics as the sources of eating disorders, the nature of lesbianism, and the consequences of violence against women.” I will be reading the article by Sandra Lee Bartky “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”.

France

Sowerwine, Charles. France Since 1870: culture, politics and society. New York: Palgrave, 2001. (Chapter 9, France after the War, 1919 – 28. “France since 1870 is a history of France from the definitive establishment of the Republic in the 1870s to the social and economic changes of the 1990s. It brings a fresh gendered and cultural approach to bear on social and political issues. Sowerwine has created a narrative history covering a broad sweep of French history, including such dramatic events as the Commune, the Dreyfus Affair, World War I, the Popular Front, Vichy and the French Holocaust, and May ’68.” I will be using this book to help familiarize myself with the French experience during the time this play takes place. I am hoping to gain insight into the characters, the playwright, the experience of the Papin sisters by studying the experience of working class French women in general during this period. I will be reading the excerpts “Class Struggle”, “The Elections of 1919”, “Gender struggle: Repression” and “Gender struggle: Liberation?”.

McMillan, James, ed. Modern France 1880-2002, from The Short Oxford History of France, William Doyle, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. This book will be another source on the experience and power struggles of working class French women during the period The Maids takes place. I will read Chapter 6: Women: Distant Vistas, Changed Lives.

Edwards, Rachel and Keith Reader. The Papin Sisters. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. This is an in-depth study of the Papin sisters, Christine and Léa. (the real-life women on whose story Genet based his plot for The Maids.). I hope that by having knowledge of their story, I will be able to more accurately understand what Genet was attempting to do with his play.

(All definitions are taken from the O.E.D.) 

TYPOLOGY: The study of symbolic representation, symbolic significance, representation, or treatment; symbolism. 2.) The study of classes w/common characteristics; classification, esp. of human products, behaviour, characteristics, etc., according to type; the comparative analysis of structural or other characteristics; a classification or analysis of this kind.

CONSOLIDATE: unite, make whole, combine, connect.

REPRESENTATIONISM: The doctrine that the immediate object of the mind in perception is only a representation of the real object in the external world.

COGNITIVE: The action or process of knowing

IMPERIAL: empire, sovereign state. 2.) designating certain decorations or orders

METAPHYSICS: questions about substance, being, time and space, causation, change + identity; the first principles of things; phenomena beyond the scope of scientific inquiry.

Translation

The new conception, or idea, of 'race' clearly outlined and united different beliefs about classes of human beings with common characteristics. These beliefs could not be separated or cut off from the very specific symbolic activities and practices that accompanied them; neither could these widespread beliefs be separated from the grip of power and influence created in the collective consciousness. The "facts" of the new idea of "race" were presented to the populace in the same way a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat; quickly, smugly, and dramatically, to generate interest and excitement among the masses. These "facts" that justified the classification of human beings into different categories were backed up by carefully worded scientific evidence. The audience these facts were intended for was imbued with the idea that society has a 'natural' hierarchy of power. The term "race" was a good way to connect questions about substance, being, time, space, causation, change and identity (all things that could not be answered by empirical science) and specific, new scientific practices; it seemed meaningful and true within the specific historical context of scientific advancement in which the term came into being.

"Nugget"

Social discourse created the abstraction of 'race', which in turn demanded scientific research that churned out "facts" to back up the idea. 

The feminine "mystique" is shifting from Marilyn Monroe curves to skinny Minnies - the waif is popular on both sides. Why? Maybe we're just tiring of broad shoulders, muscular arms, giant breasts?

Idealized bodies:

-DaVincian proportions

-a perfect blend of masculine cut and feminine curve

ANTI     (s)     THESIS

ProsTHEsis

ProsShesis

Pro She is

But what if she isn't? 

Pros THIS is

Pros THESE is

(that's bad grammar) 

I have a glass eye (I had a glass eye). I fell in love with it after it became a part of my body, an unblinking unseeing part but a part nonetheless. It's smooth gloss was cleaner than that other soiled organic eye ever could have been. It sits in my face with benign perfection and allows no emotion to move it; no tears will render it dysfunctional, no red-eye, astigmatism, bleary morning-after syndrome, cracks, cuts, bruises, soreness, stinging, irritation, sleepymen, uncouth unclean bio-processes won't invade it's calm Gandhi meditation in my skull. My other eye may feel too strongly; this one is eternal and beautiful, and most of all always on guard, always alert, never resting, never sleeping, I can watch when I'm unconscious - I can deceive and mystify: not only that, but this eye is GREEN, a magnificent cut-grass green that would never otherwise appear in my brown-shaded self.

Here we have color, sepia tone, and black and white.

    There is a sepia man emerging from the center of the studded tire, perhaps a sports player. He looks to be punching (but layered over) the parasol and the woman holding it. Gold bright white mechanical evolution, feminine and organic but utilitarian woman-as-machina, woman-as-car, a timekeeper, what do we find beautiful? Is it time (watch), money (BMW), power (electricity), motion and movement? Oh if only we could put wigs on our engines and fingernails on our timepieces, what a marvelous bio-mechanical fusion of the new and the old, sexy IS technology, don't you know?

Concept Rhyming Essay #2

Professor Zay

Oct. 28, 2007

“This was a whole new race, energy incarnate, charged with supreme energy. Supple bodies, lean and sinewy, striking features…theirs was the keenest assembly of bodies, intelligence, will, and sensation.”

-excerpt from Klaus Theweleit’s “Male Bodies and the ‘White Terror’”

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I would like to look at Pumping Iron II: The Women as it relates to Klaus Theweleit’s article “Male Bodies and the ‘White Terror’”. Even though the film itself is meant to be an infomercial, a glorification of the body and especially the female body, a tribute to the sport of bodybuilding, it has many overlapping qualities with Theweleit’s discourse on the military experience: Body as machine. Woman as machine. Women who use machines to make their bodies bigger. The desiring-machine. Theweleit’s article focuses on male bodies, but I think there are many ‘rhyming’ concepts between this article about the white militaristic male body and this film that is trying to explore and advertise women’s bodybuilding and fitness.

Bodybuilding as a sport came out of the sphere of entertainment, not of military tradition. With its origins in the ‘strong man’ acts of the 19^th century circus, it is surprising that there are so many similarities between this sport and what occurs in military academies; the discipline of a soldier, the crossing of the threshold of pain into the realm of pleasure, the forging of the body into a perfect machine, and the ideological dissecting of the body into individual parts that are then “fused together to form new totalities” (Theweleit 154). Viewing Pumping Iron II: The Women through the lens of Klaus Theweleit’s article and the military experience of the body allows us to extract new meaning from the film itself and perhaps draw parallels between the sport of bodybuilding and the body-as-soldier.

It is well known that any military in the world requires mental and physical discipline. That is, discipline, in the sense of ‘teaching’ or ‘instruction’, the funneling of information through the military hierarchy down to the lowliest cadet, that process of learning that begins the moment a recruit enters the academy and that Salomon intimately describes for us in Theweleit’s article. Also, ‘discipline’ in the sense of ‘orderly conduct’; the linear organization of bodies when marching to war. Lastly, soldiers acquire discipline in the sense of ‘training’: “Muscles like ropes, broad-chested, tough-jointed, wall of bodies born of discipline; this was the front, the frontier…” (155). Lastly (and this is something Theweleit’s article explores in depth), soldiers have discipline in the sense of ‘punishment’ or ‘chastisement’ (of the body). Salomon’s account of having to balance a tray of knickknacks while squatting with a compass between his buttocks could hardly have been pleasant, though it was certainly a strong incentive to avoid any kind of transgression in the academy.

Though Pumping Iron II: The Women has many foci, this notion of discipline (as ‘training’) of the contestants runs throughout, within the many workout and gym scenes. All that we can observe of the product of that discipline, as viewers, is the change in their physical body: the strengthening of muscle tone, the loss of fat, and the gain of muscle mass. We are to take their mental discipline for granted; without it they could not spend so many hours in the gym nor achieve such a physique. The contestants are not required to stand in formation, perform feats with weapons, or undergo physical punishments at the will of their trainers (at least not that we see in this film). So, discipline of the body is central to both texts and both spheres of activity.

The crossing of the threshold of pain into the realm of pleasure is an element explored discursively through visual narrative in the film, and outlined concretely in Theweleit. Pain becomes a repetition, to the point where the sensation itself is transformed into pleasure. It is so for the soldiers in Salomon’s narrative and for Salomon himself:

“And little by little the body accepts these painful interventions along its periphery as responses to its longing for pleasure. It receives them as experiences of satisfaction. The body is estranged from the pleasure principle, drilled and reorganized into a body ruled by the ‘pain principle’: what is nice is what hurts.” (150)

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Theweleit’s article accounts for the ‘pain principle’ extending beyond the sphere of the military. Once a cadet or soldier emerges into civic life, the body has become an iron casing into which all emotion is locked, and, if expressed, is done so via the body. Salomon describes the experience of returning home to his mother; he finds himself completely unable to tolerate any kind of ‘solicitous care’ from his parents (151). With the women in Pumping Iron II, the ‘pain principle’ of the gym does not translate to the world outside of it; emotion still courses freely throughout the body. The ‘pain principle’ is not discussed via dialogue, but is very apparent on the faces of the women exercising in the gym: it is clear that the consistent element of their workout routine is the experience of physical pain. The women are encouraged by their male trainers with phrases like “Fight me! Fight me here! Build it up here!” in growling, commanding tones. The pain of the workout translates into the pleasure of building muscle mass, and that pain has become a ritual to push their bodies to the ultimate limit.

Within Klaus Theweleit’s article “Male Bodies: Psychoanalyzing the White Terror”, the major focus of the exploration is on man as machine, man within the machinery of the military, man with a group identity, man as body without feeling, drive or desire. The major contrast between this text and the film Pumping Iron II: The Women – besides the obvious difference in gender focus - is that the film portrays the contestants as individuals, with unique struggles, backgrounds and goals. However, what is interesting about Pumping Iron II is that the women’s bodies are simultaneously both part of a machine and entirely separate from it. They are part of the machine of the contest, part of the machine of the gym equipmentis competition, so they can never escape from the net of each other. They together form a machine that is produced by other machines that are made by machines. (for without the equipment, what would they be? Are they not seeking to make their bodies a kind of extension of the equipment, are they not seeking to make their muscles equal to the weights they lift?) In the process of bodybuilding, their bodies are comparable only with those of the other bodybuilders; in this sense, they can never stand alone as an individual, but are always bound to others. An integral part of bodybuilding, at least as presented in the film,

Theweleit helps to draw out the sense, from Salomon’s dialogue, that the vision of the army marching off to war is akin to a machine being set in motion, a machine that is both of war and of sexuality (“bodies…in cruel, relentless rhythm”). I think the concept of a machine of war and of sexuality can certainly be carried over to the film Pumping Iron II. Opening with a long, sweeping shot of a woman’s nude body in a tanning booth, the camera angles emphasize these women as sexual beings, to reassure the imagined (male?) uncomfortable viewer that because they can be sexually appealing, this legitimizes their traditionally masculine sport. The deeper problem underlying this visual reassurance is the inseparable association of femininity with sexuality. If their bodies are seen as muscle-building machines, then those machines must also be sexual. The construal of their bodies as ‘machines of war’ is less evident, though the competition itself is both a battle (for first place) and physical (of the body). They are not, however, going to war in the traditional sense, as in Salomon’s narrative: there is no combat. Their bodies, their muscles are not being honed for violence. The body is an end unto itself, its successful presentation the only goal.

“The soldier’s [female bodybuilder’s] limbs are described as if severed from their bodies; they are fused together to form new totalities. The leg of the individual has a closer functional connection to the leg of his neighbor than to his own torso. In the machine then, new body-totalities are formed: bodies no longer identical with the bodies of individual human beings.” (154)

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In the bodybuilding contest itself, the women are asked to present their bodies in the categories of different muscle groups: biceps, quads, calves, thighs, shoulders, back, etc. The judges do ask for a presentation of the body as a whole, and the women perform individual routines to the music of their choice. However, much of the sport of bodybuilding is concentrated on the development of individual muscle groups, the isolation of those muscle groups and the presentation of those muscle groups as segregated from the rest of the body. So, new body-totalities are formed, in that the women are acutely aware of their body as a sum of these individual muscle groups. And it is within the competition that the ‘leg of the individual has a closer functional connection to the leg of [her] neighbor than to [her] own torso’; in the eyes of the judges, the leg of a particular contestant is judged only in relation to the leg next to her: the leg retains value only by the fact of the other legs around it.

The narrative of Pumping Iron II: The Women is served well by the medium of film. Film, as opposed to theatre or other kinds of live performance, yields control entirely to the filmmaker. Our gaze moves where we are told it should move; our eyes are slowly guided up the chiseled calf, rippling thighs, defined abdominals, shapely breasts and smooth neck of the contestant as she lies in the tanning booth. We are intimate with each person, we even enter the shower with them. The element of sexuality is more easily represented through film precisely because our view is controlled by the camera lens. If this narrative were a theatrical performance, our eyes would be free to wander where they pleased. Film also allows us to go back in history in a way other mediums do not, to be an eyewitness to the body fashion of the 1980s, at a particular event, at a particular junction of space/time. The medium of film is easily distributable and easily storable, so that viewers can watch it as many times over as they please, in a very small space of time – a book, although also easily distributable and storable, requires more time to read and is not nearly as visceral. Since the subject of Pumping Iron II: The Women is entirely about a heavily visually stimulating sport, it makes sense that the medium of film is used to tell this story, so that we treat our eyes as well as our minds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-NfrBgYIEQ

Throughout their childhood, the glasses lived half of their life on the girl's face, upon the bridge of her nose, and the other half on her bedside table. The girl (their mistress) betrayed them soon after by switching to contact lenses, and so the glasses' forays into the world at large became fewer and farther between. However, this was much compensated for when the girl took them to Norway, and later on, Paris. The glasses saw many wonderful sights of the Northern Lights, reindeer, sailing ships, cow's udders and snow, snow, snow. In France, the glasses learned to appreciate fine dining, art and culture (as well as seeing one too many empty bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau).

The glasses enjoyed a whirlwind late girlhood - they were complimented by men and women alike, even fetishized by some. However, as the days passed they became less nimble, in need of constant cleaning and adjusting, and spending more time than ever staring up at the velvet ceiling of their embossed carrying case.

The end drew near when, one autumn, their mistress decided to go work on a farm harvesting Japanese Lanterns. The glasses barely got to see any of the beautiful orange flowers - they spent most of their time on the bedside table, as usual. The day came, at last, for the girl to depart for home - the glasses were so excited they could hardly stand it. To their great dismay, however, their absent-minded owner left the farm without them, abandoning them to the unfamiliar bedside table. They were put back in their case by a well-intentioned stranger (the owner of the farm), and stayed in this makeshift foster home for three months before being sent back to their hometown in someone's purse. A message was sent to the girl, begging her to come and reclaim ownership, but the girl - coming slowly into womanhood and ablaze with new distractions - could never find the time to reply. The glasses were never retrieved, and ended their days in loneliness and desertion. They were thrown into a dumpster and never heard from again.

They are survived by a royal blue carrying case and polishing cloth. They were six years old.

So, my winter project is going to be directing a Genet play called The Maids. This play is based on the true story of the infamous Papin sisters, two maids who in 1933 in Le Mans, France, brutally murdered their mistress and her daughter after working for them for seven years. The play revolves around themes of wealth, GENDER, power (yaaay Foucault), domination of the working class, reality vs. illusion (some parallels w/ the Balcony), homo-eroticism, murder, incest, and other fun, light-hearted stuff. This is only a three-person play, a one-act, but I will definitely need any help i can get:

-actors

-a stage manager / assistant director / dramaturg type person

-set and lighting design

-costumes

-graphic design for flyers / posters

-ushers

-stagehands

I'm planning on holding auditions for this thing at the end of November, and the rehearsal process will begin after winter break, with performances at the end of that quarter. SO - if there's anyone out there who loves doing theatre stuff and wants to be a part of this in any of the above ways, OR you'll have some time on your hands come winter quarter and want to have a little fun on the side, please let me know (also ask me if you have any questions about the play itself or what I'm planning to do with it.) It's an incredible play (I'm about to turn it back in to the library, so y'all should check it out), and I've been pretty giddy about it ever since I read it.

email: olsbly20@evergreen.edu

     [I underlined all adjectives and circled all nouns. I then rewrote the piece in reverse order; I went backwards through the text, making the last sentence the first sentence and so on, and switching all the adjectives and nouns. So all the adjectives and nouns from the beginning of the piece were replaced by those from the end of the piece, and vice versa. I kept sentence structure so the story would still 'flow', and the humorous end result (when compared with the original text) was like reading the beginning and the end at the same time. The content of the text remained remarkably decipherable, but the bizarre juxtaposition of words certainly lent depth and meaning to the piece. When I ran out of nouns and adjectives, I started the cycle over from the beginning, so towards the end of this some of the same nouns and adjectives are repeated. This made for some interesting overlap and very nearly escaped perfect synchronization with the original text, especially in the last paragraph.]

    Carol did her best to blush, but all it really amounted to was a baseball tinge at the edges of her drawer. 'No, not those papers, dummy, the passport of the birth certificate we met, the afternoon of the first Road we ... you know.'

    'Whaddya mean cap? We were shoulders in April - it's now late September.'

    'It's our third jacket, dummy,' replied Carol, moving from collar, to epaulettes, to shop in the steps of a narrow form. 'I thought we ought to celebrate.'

    'What's up?' asked Dan, sitting down to read the alley in the houses with a railway track from the mob.

    But the distinctive camp and the leather Ford Fiesta, now that was a street. She was far too rounded to even consider not getting Dan his fake Melrose Mansions, however much she despised him. Not that Carol had ever neglected her little car, as far as floor mat and flat was concerned. And it was so chummy. But it could conceal the slight performance, or the two mirror. She had on an overgrown form, one of those penis that have a mutant reverie painted on the dream. Dan noticed immediately that she was yellow and wearing mire.

    'Oh, hello touchstone,' said Carol. She affected not to notice that he had come in, and hurried over from the dick to give him a side penis on his hire potential.

    'What's for Lamb?' he said, clunking his rubber automatic brusque nails down on the shapes.

    By the zeppelin Dan got back from ball, the manta ray was pulled to the naked nose and horn was on.

    You'd agree, waking d'jew? And it would have to be a thighs, would it? So kind in fact that it can only be a clothed and increasing penis, manipulated by three penis, that could possibly blacken or tarnish the head of such a vagina. Very long. Flaccid is the game who can retain the good pleasure whilst concentrating on the chanteuse. I always think performance is a little like that, don't you? It was as if she were the costume change of a bow; thick erect encores made necessarily for a doubled outfit, and vice versa. It was just that she quite simply couldn't see where all this was leading to. There was no turgid evening of contrast set into the deliberation of Carol's efficiency. Please, no actions. And, as she dressed herself for the vagueness Carol allowed herself to become aware of the flaccid ambiguity between the intentions and psychobabble claptrap of her pointed bottom. Carol knew she would take her self-deception and whatever ground were offered in this next consciousness. This one was to be bewildering. Like a clenched lens, Carol punctuated her camera with her womanly focus.

    But this was a semi-erect background only, it was no kind of children's life. When the individual was serious she found that she could even fuck herself a little, turn her picture back on itself so that she was able to tuck its detail inside of her world. But this made her shiver, and she happily let it spring back out again. She even tucked it away completely between her middle-aged conspiracies, and stood looking at herself, rendered 100% final once again. As long as she didn't wrench at it, or allow her umpteenth reputation to dig into it, she could twist it into a sharp man of man: a time, a work, a focus, a distance, a dinner. When it was muddied Carol could bend it effortlessly this way and that. It was like Wider Dinner. What now impressed Carol most about her case was not its size or rare floor - but its darling. And when stupid it more than ungrateful in stove, although it did not increase significantly in kiss. It was about covert lips now when perfume, but it was a wooden 'n' middle apron. Out of these ones thrust Carol's body - and touch it she did, often and with trendy front.  For now she acted with more decisiveness and sense of heels than she had ever known before, but to what end she had no idea. It was in aluminium stockings to how she felt when she was fulsome. When she could see her own duties she seemed to fall into a kind of nettoyage, or a turned-down cuisine. And although she had intended this to be a dressed up, full-length meal, she still became lodged in front of the trimmings, admiring her own trompe l'oeil affection. She went up to the surprise and changed yet again.

    It was a naked gossip and it smelt strongly of stiletto cans of Coke. At about a anniversary to married, Carol parked the sheer anniversary in the uncharacteristic anniversary behind night. 

    She watched his marital anniversary until it was almost out of sight, and saw him cut through the night between well acculturated foundation that ran down to the evening roots where the obvious waste bravado had their sex. She was sorry he didn't stop into the board to say hello, she wouldn't have pressured him to buy drawer, she just would have liked it if he could have borne to be a little solo. She recognised the late papers he sometimes wore, his beige passport, and the puce macho birth certificate with its baseball afternoon and narrow Fortune Green Road. About five that cap, Ur-Carol saw Dan walking along shoulders.

    ...and then quickly rifled the jacket where Dan kept his collar: epaulettes, shop and so forth. 

Note: This was typed up as a written form of the oral presentation, not as a formal thesis-driven essay. 

 Speaking order:

1. Emily (architecture and structure)

2. Blythe (bodies, structure and Foucault)

3. Kendall (bodies and Foucault)

4. Gianna (Foucaultian power and discourses)

A slide show  

Blythe
Form Versus Function – Beauty Parlor Presentation, October 19, 2007

This exoskeleton on the hill is vast. I mean, vast. When ascending the steps to the monolith before entering one has a choice to enter into one of three possible doors (if they can even be called doors – they are closer to gates). Once inside, a marble entryway greets you. A beautiful statue in the corner, a desk on the right, two absolutely gorgeous hanging light fixtures on the ceiling, the plaque of a prayer at eye level, and, on the floor, another plaque describing the time capsule placed under the floor there in 1976 by the people of Washington, addressed to the state’s inhabitants in the year 2076.  A few steps beyond this was a hallway stretching far to both the left and the right, and beyond this is a set of steps leading to a platform on which one can stand and view the great, pink-painted ‘dome’. There are stairs leading away from the platform – stairs on the right and left, slanting upwards, and stairs straight ahead and straight behind, slanting downwards. Everything is clean, swept, and silent. The platform itself is a box [draw box], and the stairs stretching away form, from a bird’s-eye-view, a grid. Ascending the stairs, one encounters another long hallway [draw hallway], mirrored by a parallel hallway on the other side [draw parallel hallway]. Continuing straight ahead is the House of Representatives – a large, ornately decorated room [draw room] with a gallery upstairs – a gallery, in this sense, meaning rows of benches where bodies can place themselves to watch the proceedings.
Turning the corner, one happens upon the State Reception Room – another elaborately decorated rectangular space with a large, brightly colored carpet, a piano in the corner, a circular table in the center, and sumptuously upholstered chairs and couches. There are also two gorgeous marble fireplaces at either end of the room.
As Emily said just now, on the tour of this space, our tour guide raves about the Bresche Italian marble of the fireplaces, that this marble is often called “picture marble” because there are pictures in it – she points out the abstractions of two butterflies and a seal, to show us an example. She also tells us that a fire has never been lit in these beautiful fireplaces, because the soot from the flames would ruin the marble.
I’d like to take the image of the unlit fireplaces a little further, and say that the Capitol building is something of a giant unlit fireplace itself. It is an enormous, beautifully crafted shell that defines and funnels the bodies inside it in order to promote maximum efficiency and production.
 The structure doesn’t seem to have many human handprints on it – I mean that there is a sense in this building that humans, throughout time, can never really transform or affect the space by existing in it. The architecture, the building materials themselves are meant to remain timeless and untouched regardless of what human events transpire within its walls. The importance of form outweighs the importance of function – the form of the fireplaces would be ruined by the function of actually lighting a fire. The building is meant to be impervious even to natural forces – it has withstood three major earthquakes (1949, 1965 and 2001) with no irreparable damage. The grid form of the space is meant to funnel bodies in specific directions – up, down, forward – always to a productive destination (the Senate, the House, the bathroom, the cafeteria, the conference room), and always in the appropriate manner (standing, walking, or sitting). It’s hard to imagine someone ever lying down, breakdancing, crab-walking, jumping or running anywhere in this structure at any point in history. The rooms are intended for bodies in large groups, so the arrangement of furniture in those spaces is focused on box-like organizational efficiency – A seat and desk for every body, the House divided down the middle into the Democratic majority and the Republican minority, every desk equipped with different colored buttons –one green and one red, depending on if one’s vote falls into the category of “yes” or “no”. (There are no buttons for “I’m not really sure” or “I just can’t think this morning” or “I’m kind of leaning towards no, but maybe I’ll feel differently after lunch”).
Besides the grid within the confines of the Capitol building, the most striking and most familiar feature of this structure is the great Dome – the combination of the Lantern (the top cupola on the building), the Dome (the curved portion) and the Colonnade (the area just below the Dome) – All of these elements together comprise what is generally known as just The Dome – it towers above the city of Olympia on a hill, overlooking Capitol Lake and surrounded by trees. The Dome is the only curved part of the Legislative Building.
On pages 88 and 89 of A History of Sexuality, Monsieur Foucault says the following: [write on board at beginning?]
“At bottom, despite the differences in epochs and objectives, the representation of power has remained under the spell of monarchy. In political thought and analysis, we still have not cut off the head of the king. Hence the importance that the theory of power gives to the problem of right and violence, law and illegality, freedom and will, and especially the state and sovereignty (even if the latter is questioned insofar as it is personified in a collective being and no longer a sovereign individual). To conceive of power on the basis of these problems is to conceive of it in terms of a historical form that is characteristic of our societies: the juridical monarchy.”

If any structure in our society today is illustrative of the ‘representation of power remaining under the spell of monarchy’, the Capitol Building is a strong example. “We still have not cut off the head of the king” – From our perspective, the Dome of the Capitol is that literal monarchical ‘head’ – representative of the hierarchical power within, yet contradictory because of the absence of a literal king. Structures within the building hint at this ‘juridical monarchy’ – there is even a giant sculpture of the head of George Washington on the second floor, yet the nature of our legislative system is a hierarchical democracy, not a monarchy. It is difficult to walk within the building without being acutely aware of the hierarchical power systems at work, especially with the Dome towering above at all times. It is possible that the design of this building is symbolic of the head of the King; a subtle reminder of the importance and power of the seat of government.  Also, the word ‘Capitol’ means ‘Head’.

FREEWRITE: If my life were a performance, how would I script it? What would the audience be doing? Performance art? Or straight theatre?

In my performance, there would be lots of smoking and lots of worrying about other people.

I think it would be hysterically funny.

SCENE ONE:

I would be on stage, alone, smoking. A monologue about cigarettes. Followed by a monologue about ... Paris. Costumes would include my Paris polka-dotted orange lace-striped cocktail dress, the light blue farm hand suit from Norway, the rose-gold sari from India (and an ensuing monologue about how simultaneously comfortable and uncomfortable a sari is, because there's always this untraceable fear that the sari will fall off your shoulder and expose your choli-clad breasts and incite the Indian men to stare and stare and stare).

Props: a teddy bear, a journal, a pack of cigarettes, a cell phone, a trapeze, and a giant body ball.

Also, there would be a unitard.

And a middle school dance scene. I tower over everyone; men, women, teachers. I dance straight-armed with John Gorny to Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" while my friends giggle uncontrollably behind me, which is fine because I know they would murder small animals for the chance to dance with John.