Fashioning the Body: Versions of the Citizen, the Self, and the Subject

Okay. As previously announced, I am doing a production of Jean Genet's "The Maids" (oh my god.) This will be a pretty all-consuming endeavor. I am: sometimes late to things but very focused upon arrival. I am goal-oriented and passionate about performance. I work best in a relaxed environment (not doing-nothing-and-talking-about-celebrities relaxed, but calm open-minded let's-take-time-to-do-things-well relaxed). Looking for people who would be supportive of and interested in a theatre project, even if they've never done a lick of theatre before. I want a wide range of perspectives (visual art, creative writing, photography etc), but people who would also be really titillated and excited about discussing the play process. Things I would love to explore winter quarter: Jean Genet - as a person, playwright and novelist, more Foucault, French culture esp. as it pertains to power relations (servitude, the experience of the working class, etc), 1930s - 1940s era art and film, the 'performativity of gender', more gender theory in general, as well as performance theory. The thing about this play is that I'm planning on casting male-identified individuals in the roles of the maids, which will be an exciting social experiment in itself - myself as an identified woman, directing identified men on how to play women (who are secretly men anyway, according to Sartre's interpretation of the play). It's ideal if the play itself is also good, but I'm planning on doing a lot of writing about the process, which is why I want to continue to explore gender theory (for instance, how do you teach someone to act 'like a woman'? How can we take the subject [femininity] out of the object [the human with 'female' physical attributes], and eventually make femininity itself just a gesture and a symbol, a coat to be worn by anyone who wants it?). I'm realizing I'm one of the only people in the class doing a performance project, so I will bring a unique perspective to the group. Also, there is a treasure trove of literature about the Papin sisters (they inspired "The Maids") - films, novels, more plays, and even an opera, that would make for fascinating reading and watching winter quarter.