“Lesbians are not women.” (Monique Wittig).

      Before addressing the nature of feminist lesbian performance directly, it is important to define, or attempt to define, the word ‘lesbian’. If a lesbian is neither a man nor a woman, what is she? In refusing the heterosexual a lesbian rejects the power of the male and essentially refuses womanhood as it is defined by culture- but while the object choice of the lesbian is said to be determined by a typically male desire, according to the rules of the heterosexual matrix, ‘to refuse to be a woman does not mean that one has to become a man.’⁵ In her inability to be neatly categorized in terms of heteronormativity, the lesbian is exiled into a space beyond sex and gender, a space that eludes definition- a ‘not-woman’ as she is described by Wittig. In Sarah Daniels’s ‘Ripen our Darkness’, the character of Rene calls her lesbian daughter a ‘young hermaphrodite’.⁶This is effective in demonstrating how the space occupied by a lesbian is effectively a liminal or ‘in between’ space. It is a ‘queer’ space, one in which the boundaries between homo and hetero are not fixed or impermeable but fluid and mobile, sex gender and sexuality being configured in a multitude of ways without being rooted in the ‘natural’. Stephen Whittle says, in his essay entitled ‘Gender Fucking or Fucking Gender’, that ‘queer’ means to ‘fuck with gender’. It concerns the rejection and deconstruction of sexual labels and a ‘full-frontal theoretical and practical attack on the dimorphism of gender and sex-roles.’⁷

      It is through the ‘queer’ framework that ‘Split Britches’ approach the idea of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’. In their attempt to dismantle notions of the heteronormative as natural or innate, they appropriate the cultural marks of heterosexuality and present them excessively. In feminist lesbian performance, butch-femme role playing is common. Some would argue that the very nature of the butch-femme relationship on stage, whether the intent be to parody the supposedly stable nature of the heternormative frame or not, is damaging to the lesbian feminist agenda in that it succeeds only in the perpetuation of this common imagery and in its maintenance. This might be the case were it two gay men adopting the imagery of heterosexual romance (as male homosexuality could be viewed in its very nature to be inherently misogynistic in its disavowal of the female), but in the case of two women the appropriation of such imagery is effective in subverting and interrogating such culturally constructed ideas through mimicry and parody. As Homi Bhabha suggests in his essay entitled ‘Mimicry and Man’, ‘the colonized subject can subvert the stereotype projected over it by imitating it to the point of excess, in a parodic way, in a type of transvestism that demonstrates its falsehood.’⁸ Such appropriation of stereotype in the mode of intended displacement is exemplified in lesbian pornography, (a medium assumed to be free from male influence or oppression), which borrows from the imagery of heterosexual pornography. If heterosexual pornography exists only to degrade the female with an end to the elevation of male power and prowess, then the appropriation of its oppressive imagery could be seen to reiterate such oppressive structures. Jill Dolan argues that ‘the ‘male forms’ of pornographic representation ‘acquire new meanings when they are used to communicate desire for readers of a different gender and sexual orientation.’⁹ This is a fair assessment in that the image of ‘woman’ and ‘man’, within a model of heterosexual sexual practice, acquires a different meaning when represented by two females. In a sense the exaggeration of both heterosexual stereotypes and the lesbian stereotypes of the butch and femme is effective in foregrounding both stereotypes as unnatural constructions and the categories of ‘woman’ and ‘man’ as being unstable. However, if this subversion is only visible and clear to lesbian and gay audiences then it does little to serve the feminist lesbian agenda or to dismantle the perception of heteronormative imagery and iconography from a heterosexual perspective.

     ‘Anniversary Waltz’, a piece that explores the lesbian relationship of Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw (two of the founding members of Split Britches), features Brechtian techniques of song and role playing as well lengthy monologues. The play opens on the premise that this is an anniversary party for the two women.  Lynda Hart describes: 

As spectators entered the performing space…pink napkins proclaiming ‘Happy anniversary Peggy and Lois’ were offered by ushers…The cabaret tables were adorned with stand up bride and groom paper dolls on which Peggy and Lois’s faces were superimposed…As the lights began to dim, we heard the words of a wedding ceremony in progress- “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together in the eyes of God to witness this man and this woman joined in the bond of holy matrimony”- as Weaver and Shaw emerged in full wedding regalia, Weaver as Bride, Shaw as groom.’¹⁰ 
 

Thus from the very outset, Weaver and Shaw present themselves as ‘static and excessive images of a heterosexual union’¹¹, a heterosexual union that is essentially an institution of power imposed by a male dominated material system as a means by which heterosexual ideology and ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ is perpetuated and maintained. The iconography of heterosexual union, such as the wedding ‘costumes’ and the bride and groom dolls on top of the cake, is called into question when the couple is made up of two females. The most obvious deviation from the heterosexual model of course, is that of the groom being played by a lesbian, the woman playing a role that is typically that of the male within the heterosexual framework. The ‘butch’ lesbian has been a source of great debate for centuries, the image of the ‘masculinized’ female being the lesbian stereotype from a heterosexual point of view. The perception of the ‘butch’ lesbian as being the real lesbian in the eyes of the heterosexual is understandable in that it renders possible the categorization of the lesbian to a certain extent within the oppositional dichotomy of ‘man’ and ‘woman’. The butch is seen, not as a free from the constraints of gender and sexuality as imposed by dominant cultural ideology, but as a ‘woman’ who wants to be a ‘man’. Lynda Hart observes: ‘If subculturally constructed butch-femme role playing is the most visible sign of lesbian, it would seem to be so precisely because it permits the spectator to read gender. Hence it is particularly susceptible to reinscription of the heterosexual contract.’¹² Thus we see that the representation of the butch is essentially a balancing act. From a heterosexual perspective it allows the lesbian to be defined to a certain extent, the heterosexual spectator most likely viewing the butch as simply a cross-dressed ‘woman’, staying faithful to gender essentialism in ignorance of the disruptive nature of drag, and the femme as a ‘true’ and ‘natural’ ‘woman’. The disruptive elements of drag, (its revelation of the performative nature of gender), is only generally visible to a lesbian audience. As Judith Butler asserts: ‘Drag constitutes the mundane way in which genders are appropriated, theatricalised, worn, and done; it implies that all gendering is a kind of impersonation and approximation. If this is true, it seems, there is no original or primary gender that drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original; in fact, it is a kind of imitation that produces the very notion of the original as an effect and consequence of the imitation itself.’¹³ Thus in the same way that Butler asserts gender to have no basis in the natural or genetic, but rather as being produced by ‘a stylized repetition of acts’¹⁴, Weaver and Shaw, in their excessive representation of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, essentially ‘do’ heterosexuality and in so doing reveal it to be inherently performative and learned unconsciously through ‘restored behaviour’. The butch therefore ‘balances uneasily on the divide on the divide between disruption of rigid heterosexual sign systems and assimilation or reification of the heterosexual dyad.’¹⁵ Parodic strategies render possible this disruption in two senses. In addition to the deconstruction of heterosexual iconography (‘the dominant group’s self-generated images of itself’¹⁶), ‘Anniversary Waltz’ also appropriates stereotypical images of the oppressed deviants, in the form of the butch-femme. These images, while providing a certain empowerment for those who know better, confirm gender binaries, and the idea of sex and gender as inherently linked, for the ‘ignorant’ heterosexual spectator.

      The parodic strategies employed by ‘Split Britches’ are most explicit in ‘Belle Reprieve’, which is a parody of Tennessee Williams’s ‘A Streetcar named Desire’. The style of performance is extremely ‘queer’ in that sex plays absolutely no part in the formulation of gender, as is illustrated by the description of the characters: 

         MITCH, a fairy disguised as a man

         STELLA, a woman disguised as a woman

         STANLEY, a butch lesbian

         BLANCHE, a man in a dress¹⁷ 

The use of ‘Streetcar’ is significant in that it has become an icon of heterosexual romance and of over-performances of gender. The character of Stanley, immortalised by Marlon Brando, has become an icon of ‘manliness’ in the popular imaginary. His association with meat and with a type of carnal, primitive, raw sexuality- epitomised by the final scene in which he brutally rapes Blanche- has deemed him representative of an essential masculinity. The character of Stanley is juxtaposed with the character of Blanche, who exemplifies a kind of heightened femininity as the helpless southern belle who has ‘always depended on the kindness of strangers’¹⁸, (men), for her survival. The play is a quintessential example of how the binary opposition of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ is fostered in society, the character of Stella being defined only in relation to Stanley and by their sexual relationship. He inscribes meaning on her body through sexual domination: Stella is the passive recipient of male sexuality, reliant on Stanley to reveal to her, her own body, saying that ‘there are things that happen between a man and a woman in the dark that sort of make everything else seem unimportant.’¹⁹ Jo-ann Fuchs describes how the sexually oppressed female is, ‘from the beginning, not her own sexual being, but becomes her own through being his’.²⁰ In this sense a lesbian is never afforded sexual pleasure in that it can never be bestowed upon her by her male counterpart. This distorted view of female sexuality and ‘womanhood’ is explored in ‘Ripen our Darkness’ when the psychiatrist comes to see Mary.  

MARSHALL: Yes, these people can only rarely achieve any degree of satisfaction, unless one of the two partners has unusually well defined physical attributes. For example, occasionally a woman may have an unusually large clitoris, maybe two or even more inches in length…if the woman concerned happens to be a lesbian and her partner spreads her legs as wide as she can, well, they may be able to attain some degree of penetration…basically they all end up involved in some parody of normal heterosexual intercourse.²¹ 

Marshall’s perception of lesbian sexuality only affords the lesbian sexual pleasure within a phallic economy. Female sexual satisfaction, in his eyes, can only be achieved through heterosexual intercourse. He can only view female sexuality within a heterosexual framework. If then, ‘woman’ only has meaning in relation to ‘man’, according to the basis of linguistics, and that meaning is only afforded to her through the sexual dominance and control asserted by men, then a lesbian is not a woman in that she refuses to accept her identity as it thus defined. She refuses heterosexual intercourse and therefore rejects her identity as ‘woman’ according to dominant systems of belief. She is therefore left displaced and supposedly sexually unsatisfied, without an identity within the heteronormative frame.

      It is this sexual and political oppression, which is deeply expressed in Williams’s play (in which it has come to be viewed as romantic in the popular imaginary), that ‘Split Britches’ seek to expose and subvert. They appropriate the famous imagery and iconography from the film more so than the script. ‘It is as much about the cultural icons established by Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh as it is about the actual characters. Visual images from the film haunt the stage design and the construction of scenes.’²² One important example of this is the recreation of the famous t-shirt pose in which Stanley kneels by Blanche, his head buried in her chest and his t-shirt ripped apart (see figures 1 and 2). The appropriation of such iconography is effective in ‘queering’ traditional representations of masculinity and femininity. The gender binary is further destabilised through excessive representations of supposedly natural masculinity. This is especially apparent in an exchange between Mitch and Stanley.  

STANLEY: I’m gonna eat my car. I’m gonna eat dirt.

MITCH: I’m gonna eat a tree! Eat your whole leg!

STANLEY: I’m gonna eat the sun and then I’ll sweat!

STANLEY AND MITCH: Bite me! Bite me! Suck on me!²³ 
 

This exchange is effective in overplaying gender to the extent that qualities and ideas traditionally associated with essential or ‘natural’ masculinity are denaturalised. Thus, ‘masculinity’, and thereby ‘femininity’ as its counterpart, become slippery signifiers. This deviation from modes of gender performance that constitute the ‘natural’ is observed by Blanche who later says, ‘There’s something about the way he has to prove his manhood all the time, that makes me suspicious…the noises he makes, the way he walks like Mae West…This is calculated sexuality, developed over years of picking up signals, not necessarily genetic is what I’m trying to say’.²⁴ This direct reference to gender as being a learned act constitutes an attack on the heterosexual modes of belief that have been deconstructed by the ‘queer’ gender play in which gender masquerade interacts with ‘real’ gender presentation. If men can adopt the role of women and vice versa then both ‘man’ and ‘woman’ as individual categories are meaningless. Therefore lesbians are not women because there is no such thing. Rather, in the queer mode of belief, gender and sex are both free floating artifices which need not have and direct relation or inherent link.

      Lesbian feminist theatre then, in supposing that the category of ‘woman’ cannot be said to exist, attempts to destabilise heteronormative frameworks and expose them as being socially constructed. Heterosexuality is not ‘natural’, innate, or the general rule. It is something that has been imposed by a patriarchal system that uses male sexual dominance and social institutions as a means to retain control over women. In denaturalising and deconstructing gender and heterosexuality, lesbian feminists seek to eradicate the category of ‘male’ as well as ‘female’, for if ‘man’ disappears so does ‘woman’: ‘there can be no slaves without masters’²⁵. A lesbian therefore is emphatically not a woman. Indeed the very category of ‘woman’ stands in absolute opposition to the agenda and belief system of lesbian feminism. Wittig insists that in even identifying themselves as ‘women’ or ‘men’, lesbians and gay men are guilty of perpetuating heterosexual ideology and instrumental in maintaining the very structures by which their oppression is exerted.²⁶