history of theatre and racism

An African-American student is denied entry to a theater. He keeps his hands in his pockets to demonstrate that his protest is nonviolent, 1961.

Writing about Western theatre, I observe such a long and unacknowledged history of racism and patriarchy starting with the first Greek tragedy. This important part of history is perceived as timeless and easily acceptable by theatre makers everywhere, who in turn, are questioning the validity or the necessity of a "leftist" critique. The image above, even if shocking and shameful for American theatre, easily becomes acceptable. I am quite curious how many performance-makers and theatre critics would react to the recent closing of the only Romani theatre in France based on racial reasons. They would probably say (as I heard it before) that it was not that good anyway and the high culture won't suffer because of institutionalized racism. I will follow the reactions and I want to see that I was wrong.

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Dress codes: anxieties and solutions

France is confused about how to make the banning of the burqa legal. A parliamentary commission will soon meet to investigate how they can ban any cloak that covers most of the face of a woman.
André Gerin, a Communist Party mayor of a Lyon suburb with many Muslims from North Africa, began the debates in late June by initiating a motion calling for this parliamentary commission. The French state had to answer his request.

“The burqa is the tip of the iceberg. Islamism really threatens us” he was complaining in a letter to the government for them “to do something”.

Sarkozy responded by saying that “the burqa is not welcome on the territory of the French Republic.” He did not specify how it would be made unwelcome. Guess still working on that part.

French domestic intelligence issued a report saying that only 367 women in France wore a full veil, while recently a woman was refused entry to a bank because employees thought a head scarf was illegal.

To all these anxieties in France, there is one possible answer. It comes from Sudan and the already famous article 152 of the Sudanese Criminal Code.

This article is used by the Public Order Police in Sudan to harass women about their dress code. Article 152 exists in Sudan since 1991. Maybe French government can check also the practicalities and implementation of such an article. It stipulates that any conduct or clothes in violation of public decency (I am sure it can be defined in a more secularized way) should be punished with 40 lashes or a bail or both. France can change some parts, but the control effect can stay the same, because after all is the same concept: best way to police women's bodies.
Thirteen women were arrested on July 3, 2009 in Khartoum under article 152 of the criminal code. The 13 women in question were arrested because they wearing trousers. They have been sentenced to 10 lashes and a bail of $100. Three of the women including a well-known journalist-Lubna Hussien- refused the punishment and asked for a lawyer and a court case. Lubna and the other three women were granted a presidential pardon, which the women refused. They have instead challenged the judge to eliminate article 152 of the criminal code.
The article is vague on what constitutes indecent clothing and stands against the country's Interim National Constitution that came in place after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005. However, it is still being used to harass women in the streets of Khartoum and around Sudan. French authorities can have their exceptions too, no doubt.

There is a petition against article 152 here. There is no petiton against the French parliamentary commission.

Peter Brook, interculturality and women

I am reading lately all these books on Brook, the famous English modernist director, and I am still puzzled by his idea of interculturality. Peter Brook’s well-known focus of intercultural theatre was dealing with East/West connections, mainly by using Asian performance elements and Indian or African narratives for his Paris-based theatre. The intercultural fantasy that he was involved with was very tricky. Gabrielle Griffin said it mildly: it “leaves intact a geopolitical imaginary that distinguishes, in a seemingly unproblematized way, between ‘them’ and ‘us’, between an ‘other’ and a ‘self’”. But on the other hand, what brings in, like in the case of Peter Brook's production of Mahabharatha, was emphasized by the actress Mallika Sarabhai which relates her acting experience in Mahabharatha to feminism:
"The turning point came with Peter Brook’s international version of the Mahabharatha where I played Draupadi. At that time a new wave of feminism was gripping the mind of the younger generation in the west. And for the first time young women were looking into feminist thought and ideology.[...] I had women of different backgrounds, black mamas from Harlem, sophisticated Sorbonne graduates, aboriginal women from the Australian outbacks—coming up to me and saying ‘why don’t we have role models like Draupadi today? She makes sense to us.’ One evening in the Paris Metro two slinkily dressed women came up to me and said, ‘we have stayed away from the feminist movement, things like “bra burning”. But today, after seeing your performance, we feel that is the kind of woman we want to be.’ I came out of the Mahabharata tour with a new perspective toward my art. I felt that if the role of one woman affected women across cultures then my advocacy and my performance had to marry."
Mahabharatha is even today probably one of the most contested Brook productions for his colonial appropriation and decontextualization of one of the most significant Indian texts. His official biographer, Michael Kustow, accused “the chorus of politically correct academics and cultural theorist attacking Brook” of demagogy, because they are not able to see the universalism of Brook’s mise-en-scene and his view on Mahabharata as one work that “carries echoes for all mankind” and is “of the greatness of the works of Shakespeare.” Even by this defense, I can clearly sense the Western standard to which the performance is referred to.
Another problematic episode in Peter Brook’s career as director is the way he depoliticized some powerful plays such as Caryl Churchill’s Far Away in a 2002 performance. David Hare, the British playwright, accused Brook of “draining plays of any specific meaning or context to a point where which became the same play – a universal hippie babbling which represents nothing but fright of commitment.” Brook responded by saying that he no longer believes in ”the value of debates, pamphlets, statements and pseudo-Brechtian speeches.” His theatrical direction for last decades is in search of something “more to life that the rational mind can grasp” with a strong influence of the spiritualist Gjurdieff’s ideas, a highly problematic approach in my opinion, by removing any social context and critical awareness for a “one-size-fits-all mysticism”. This is an important tool in maintaining and pushing a conservative view on theatre, by maintaining an oppressive idea of a forgotten tradition, none other that the colonialist privilege of a misogynist white male that conquers and exploits the feminized “oriental wisdom” (as Brook was talking on several times about his wife). In an Oedipian game, the non-Western culture becomes for Brook object of desire and exchange, a woman that can offer satisfaction as long as she becomes “maternal and domestic” (Brook talking again about his wife).

photo via flickr

Gender roles coming with gendered grammer in French

I found a grammer book for kids from the 1970s with some very telling images. How else can children learn gender in French than through patriarchal gender roles? And they will remember them both: patriarchy and French. Thank you school for facilitating a sexist welcome into the French symbolic order.