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Clamorous voices: Shakespeare's women today
Book Reviews
outlawing dowry, allowing female inheritance, training midwives, providing health clinics. However, laws can only be enforced by handing “out bribes in all directions to get any action” and threatening the marriageability or life of one’s daughter in the process (p. 61). Government health provision is rarely free, requiring bribes for service and the provision of bandages and medicines. Partly as a result from talking to the authors, the number of married women using contraception rose from less than 10 to 58, between 1982 and 1986. The authors note the inherent dangers of contraceptive methods available to these women, choices additionally limited by the need to hide their actions from husbands in some cases. The Fkh Don’t ‘IbIlkAbout the Water would benefit immensely from some ruthless editing. In its present form it reads as a cross between a Ph.D. thesis and a report. perhaps in part because it grew out of a research project on the effects of the development process on women in Sri Lanka. However, the reader who wades through or simply by-passes the first three chapters will be amply rewarded by the analysis in the last two. The gravaman of Risseeuw’s title is: “Those elements in human relations which seem too obvious to name and are in fact left unsaid, have a more far-reaching effect than one reahzes initially” (p. 5). She argues that gender relations in Sri Lanka from the time of British occupation to the present form part of what Bourdieu calls the “doxa,” the “self-evidence of the commonsense world,” as opposed to the orthodoxy (manifest censorship) and the heterodoxy (which opposes the orthodoxy, but draws its analyses from questioned elements of the former doxa). Class exploitation has become part of the contested terrain of the orthodoxy and heterodoxy, but gender relations are considered as “natural.” In fact there is some slippage in Risseeuw’s analysis, because she also claims that gender powered relations are a “coerced doxa” (p, 197). in that women will accept them publicly and in front of men but also have alternative womenonly discourses as well as strategies for resistance. Based to some extent on property-owning and kinbased power in pre-colonial Sri Lanka, women have more autonomy here than in Uttar Pradesh. While boys are both physically and emotionally nourished more than girls (to prevent their infertility-p. 272), and a woman who is menstruating or giving birth is impure, there is also a fear of women’s polluting power. Some women are beaten by husbands, but men do more household chores than in northern India. There are prevalent stories of foolish men bullied by wives, while men do not control (or even know the extent of) women’s earnings in the female-dominated coir industry (processing the white ftbre of coconut husks). A wife may resist her husband’s power by refusal to cook special dishes, refusal to speak to him, setting children against him, public abuse or ridicule, and committing adultery (pp. 281-282). Just as the researchers in Uttar Pradesh influenced the lives of women by sparking the greater use of contraceptives, Risseeuw became involved in a project to undermine power relations in Sri Lanka, an initiative by a group of hitherto isolated coir workers to form a workers’ co-operative. She outlines the delicate manouvres by which the women gained a sense of collective interest and overcame the resistance of local political leaders. The friendships formed in the co-operative encouraged the women to support each other in domestic disputes. However, the whole project was founded on the hetero-
113
doxy of class. Gender was so much a part of the doxa that women were unable to produce a heterodoxy of gender relations. Thus the “fish” of her analysis did not really learn to talk about the “water”: sex-based dominance. However they did learn to swim to freer stream, to command more economic resources for themselves and build stronger female networks. CHI~U BULBECK ciRIIwTHuNlvERsITY NATHAN,QUEENSLAND, 4111, AUSTULU
CLAMOROUS VOICES:SHNCESPEARE’S WOMENTODAY, by
Carol Rutter with Sinead Cusack, Paola Dinisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson, and Harriet Walter, edited by Faith Evans, 158 pages. Routledge (A Theatre Arts Book), New York, 1989. Feminist critics of Shakespeare frequently remind us that the“patriarchal bard” wrote for a theatre comprised entirely of men. Until 1660 when the first English actress appeared in Othello, even the female roles were portrayed by young men. What we tend to forget, however, is that the contemporary theatre-except for the occasional woman writer or director-is still dominated by men. Actresses who aspire to the highest challenges-at least in the English-speaking world-must play Shakespearean roles. But when they do, they are usually subject not just to Shakespeare’s patriarchal assumptions but to the suppositions of male directors, designers, customers, not to mention the male actors with whom they share the stage. Clamorous Voices shows us what happens in this patriarchal environment before the curtain rises: how the director chooses a cast, how set design affects actors’ choices, how costuming impacts a role and, most important, how women actors struggle to assert their conceptions of character. lhte to its title, Clamorous Voices makes us hear the words of five experienced Royal Shakespeare Company women actors who tell us about the roles they have played and the choices they made playing them. The actresses-Sinead Cusack, Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson, and Harriet Walter-are in their 30s and 40s. Having grown up with the British women’s movement, they see Shakespeare’s female roles from a different perspective than the great actresses of earlier generations. They readily admit that the choices they make on stage are political, for in reinterpreting Rate of The Zi5ming of the Shrew or Isabella, the harassed novice in Measure for Measun?, they subvert traditional stereotypes of female behavior. Moreover, their choices are public, made before thousands of spectators. Such voices are clamorous indeed. The book’s method is straightforward. The text is divided by print font between Carole Rutter’s guiding commentary and the actresses’ responses and reflections. The chapters focus on specific Shakespearean heroines: Rate (The i’bming of the Shrew), Isabella (Measure for Measure),_ Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Helena (All’s Welt That Ena3 Well)). Imogen (Cymbeline), and Rosalind (As You Like It), If two women have performed a particular role, they compare notes; sometimes only one woman speaks. Each chapter begins with the actresses’ reflections on their preparation for the part and the decisions that shaped their interpretation. Once
114
Book Reviews
sity Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1989. the character is established, the actresses trace her develUS%29.95 cloth, $9.95 paper. opment through the play, showing why she does what she does. It seems logical that science fiction would not have an Sometimes the actresses’ choices differ. For example, important role in achieving the goals of the feminist Chapter 2 reveals Paola Dionisotti and Juliet Stevenson movement. After all, men dominate the genre. Men as two variations of Isabella. They agree on the basics of most often create, publish, and read science fiction. The the text: Isabella is manipulated and betrayed by a succharacters, predominately men, act within imaginary cession of men. Unlike the men around her whose power worlds that often contain the same patriarchal system as lies in legal institutions, wealth, and class, Isabella finds our own society. Science fiction rarely presents strong, power in her integrity and in her sensual nature. Paola’s independent female characters, nor does it deal with Isabella was troubled and confused, partly because her lines were heavily cut. Even worse, the director wanted a women’s issues. The themes, values, and ambitions of the genre are those commonly associated with men rathhappy ending when Paola couldn’t find it in the text. er than women- the privileging of science and technoloJuliet Stevenson’s Isabella was less cerebral, more vivagy, the conquest of new worlds and people, and the cious. In contrast to Paola, she chose not to wear the traditional nun’s habit throughout the play. Intelligent pioneering of open space and nature. Moreover, many women of the 198Os, both Paola and Juliet are aware of readers question the ability of science fiction to effecinstitutionalized authority’s power to coerce women into tively comment on any serious issues-including femichoices against their interests. It is not surprising then nism -in the real world because it creates unfamiliar that both actresses see the play’s comedic conclusionsocieties that seem separate and distinct from our own. the Duke’s proposal of marriage and Isabella’s ensuing So, could anyone be so bold as to claim that the genre silence-as problematic. holds enormous potential for contemporary feminist Harriet Walter’s reflections on Helena reveal the kind writers? Regardless of the evidence against her, Sarah of tension created when the director and actor disagree Lefanu is just that bold. In Feminism and Science Fiction, Lefanu asserts that on the role. According to Harriet, director Bevor Nunn feminists could use science fiction to explore the familiar saw the heroine as a redeemer, “a woman whose faith (the problems here on 20th century planet Earth) and integrity would save Bertram [the hero] from his through the unfamiliar (fantasy societies that explore callowness” (p. 88). Harriet believed the choices Helena new gender relations or ridicule systems of gender inmade- to follow Bertram, to marry him, and to have equality). When the norms of our society are thus deintercourse with him without his knowledge-comprofamiliarized by replicating them in an alien world, it mised her. Harriet speaks, “I couldn’t make redemption out of the messiness” (p. 88). becomes easier for readers to reasonably access these Besides its reinterpretations of six Shakespearean traditions. The distance between reality and fantasy makes the process of self-analysis less threatening than heroines, Clamorous Voices offers a candid look at how actors approach their craft. Literary critics may be horwould a direct confrontation. Male science fiction writrified that the actresses discuss these characters as real ers have been utilizing this technique for years. The works of such authors as Robert Henlien (Stranger in a people. They must remember that while the question, Strange Land) and Frank Herbert (the Dune series) show “How many children had Lady Macbeth?” may strike a that addressing the common through the uncommon traditional male critic as absurd, Sinead &sack needed can be effective. Lefanu feels that the feminist writer can an answer to portray the role. That does not mean these do the same. To assert her feminist views, the author can actresses disregard Shakespeare’s text, for the need to relate her new world to our own in such a way to highstick to the words is a leitmotif throughout Clamorow light desirable or undesirable contemporary gender relaVoices. As Juliet Stevenson observes, “the language tells tions. you who the character is moment by moment, word by It is also Lefanu’s contention that science fiction ofword” (p. 43). fers a level of stylistic and structural freedom which can Clamorous Voices is feminist not just in the perspecbe found in no other genre. Fiction structures, forms, tive it provides on acting; it is feminist in method and and characterizations can more freely be utilized, igstructure. The book is presented as a cooperative enternored, or inverted in science fiction because a traditional prise by a group of women who support each other, style is not as firmly entrenched in this genre as it is in learn from each other, and care for each other. Carol others. Science fiction readers expect, in fact, demand, Rutter’s commentary is like the shuttle for an ornate the new and the unexpected. The feminist writer, theretapestry: she steadily keeps the threads of discussion moving, weaving the colors of each voice in and out fore, can create whatever world she wishes; the conuntil a delicate pattern is formed. Thus Clamorous Voic- straints of realism or publisher demands need not hinder the free flow of imagination. Lefanu discusses contemes has value for us, both teachers and students, for more porary women science fiction and fantasy writers such than its ideas; it is a wonderful example of what feminist scholarship ought to be. as James Tiptree Jr., Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzy McKee VIRO~NIA MASONVAUG~L~N Charnas, and Joanna Russ to provide positive and negative examples of how the genre can be liberating as well CLARKUNIVERSITY, MA USA as open to feminist goals. Lefanu carves out a space for the modern feminist writer by placing her within the tradition of past women science fiction/gothic writers-Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Perkins Gilman-and by asserting the possibilities of her future by revealing contemporary FEMINISM AND SCIENCE FICXON, by Sarah Lefanu, 231 achievements of women in the field. Her discussion of pages. The Women’s Press, London and Indiana Univer-
outlawing dowry, allowing female inheritance, training midwives, providing health clinics. However, laws can only be enforced by handing “out bribes in all directions to get any action” and threatening the marriageability or life of one’s daughter in the process (p. 61). Government health provision is rarely free, requiring bribes for service and the provision of bandages and medicines. Partly as a result from talking to the authors, the number of married women using contraception rose from less than 10 to 58, between 1982 and 1986. The authors note the inherent dangers of contraceptive methods available to these women, choices additionally limited by the need to hide their actions from husbands in some cases. The Fkh Don’t ‘IbIlkAbout the Water would benefit immensely from some ruthless editing. In its present form it reads as a cross between a Ph.D. thesis and a report. perhaps in part because it grew out of a research project on the effects of the development process on women in Sri Lanka. However, the reader who wades through or simply by-passes the first three chapters will be amply rewarded by the analysis in the last two. The gravaman of Risseeuw’s title is: “Those elements in human relations which seem too obvious to name and are in fact left unsaid, have a more far-reaching effect than one reahzes initially” (p. 5). She argues that gender relations in Sri Lanka from the time of British occupation to the present form part of what Bourdieu calls the “doxa,” the “self-evidence of the commonsense world,” as opposed to the orthodoxy (manifest censorship) and the heterodoxy (which opposes the orthodoxy, but draws its analyses from questioned elements of the former doxa). Class exploitation has become part of the contested terrain of the orthodoxy and heterodoxy, but gender relations are considered as “natural.” In fact there is some slippage in Risseeuw’s analysis, because she also claims that gender powered relations are a “coerced doxa” (p, 197). in that women will accept them publicly and in front of men but also have alternative womenonly discourses as well as strategies for resistance. Based to some extent on property-owning and kinbased power in pre-colonial Sri Lanka, women have more autonomy here than in Uttar Pradesh. While boys are both physically and emotionally nourished more than girls (to prevent their infertility-p. 272), and a woman who is menstruating or giving birth is impure, there is also a fear of women’s polluting power. Some women are beaten by husbands, but men do more household chores than in northern India. There are prevalent stories of foolish men bullied by wives, while men do not control (or even know the extent of) women’s earnings in the female-dominated coir industry (processing the white ftbre of coconut husks). A wife may resist her husband’s power by refusal to cook special dishes, refusal to speak to him, setting children against him, public abuse or ridicule, and committing adultery (pp. 281-282). Just as the researchers in Uttar Pradesh influenced the lives of women by sparking the greater use of contraceptives, Risseeuw became involved in a project to undermine power relations in Sri Lanka, an initiative by a group of hitherto isolated coir workers to form a workers’ co-operative. She outlines the delicate manouvres by which the women gained a sense of collective interest and overcame the resistance of local political leaders. The friendships formed in the co-operative encouraged the women to support each other in domestic disputes. However, the whole project was founded on the hetero-
113
doxy of class. Gender was so much a part of the doxa that women were unable to produce a heterodoxy of gender relations. Thus the “fish” of her analysis did not really learn to talk about the “water”: sex-based dominance. However they did learn to swim to freer stream, to command more economic resources for themselves and build stronger female networks. CHI~U BULBECK ciRIIwTHuNlvERsITY NATHAN,QUEENSLAND, 4111, AUSTULU
CLAMOROUS VOICES:SHNCESPEARE’S WOMENTODAY, by
Carol Rutter with Sinead Cusack, Paola Dinisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson, and Harriet Walter, edited by Faith Evans, 158 pages. Routledge (A Theatre Arts Book), New York, 1989. Feminist critics of Shakespeare frequently remind us that the“patriarchal bard” wrote for a theatre comprised entirely of men. Until 1660 when the first English actress appeared in Othello, even the female roles were portrayed by young men. What we tend to forget, however, is that the contemporary theatre-except for the occasional woman writer or director-is still dominated by men. Actresses who aspire to the highest challenges-at least in the English-speaking world-must play Shakespearean roles. But when they do, they are usually subject not just to Shakespeare’s patriarchal assumptions but to the suppositions of male directors, designers, customers, not to mention the male actors with whom they share the stage. Clamorous Voices shows us what happens in this patriarchal environment before the curtain rises: how the director chooses a cast, how set design affects actors’ choices, how costuming impacts a role and, most important, how women actors struggle to assert their conceptions of character. lhte to its title, Clamorous Voices makes us hear the words of five experienced Royal Shakespeare Company women actors who tell us about the roles they have played and the choices they made playing them. The actresses-Sinead Cusack, Paola Dionisotti, Fiona Shaw, Juliet Stevenson, and Harriet Walter-are in their 30s and 40s. Having grown up with the British women’s movement, they see Shakespeare’s female roles from a different perspective than the great actresses of earlier generations. They readily admit that the choices they make on stage are political, for in reinterpreting Rate of The Zi5ming of the Shrew or Isabella, the harassed novice in Measure for Measun?, they subvert traditional stereotypes of female behavior. Moreover, their choices are public, made before thousands of spectators. Such voices are clamorous indeed. The book’s method is straightforward. The text is divided by print font between Carole Rutter’s guiding commentary and the actresses’ responses and reflections. The chapters focus on specific Shakespearean heroines: Rate (The i’bming of the Shrew), Isabella (Measure for Measure),_ Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Helena (All’s Welt That Ena3 Well)). Imogen (Cymbeline), and Rosalind (As You Like It), If two women have performed a particular role, they compare notes; sometimes only one woman speaks. Each chapter begins with the actresses’ reflections on their preparation for the part and the decisions that shaped their interpretation. Once
114
Book Reviews
sity Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1989. the character is established, the actresses trace her develUS%29.95 cloth, $9.95 paper. opment through the play, showing why she does what she does. It seems logical that science fiction would not have an Sometimes the actresses’ choices differ. For example, important role in achieving the goals of the feminist Chapter 2 reveals Paola Dionisotti and Juliet Stevenson movement. After all, men dominate the genre. Men as two variations of Isabella. They agree on the basics of most often create, publish, and read science fiction. The the text: Isabella is manipulated and betrayed by a succharacters, predominately men, act within imaginary cession of men. Unlike the men around her whose power worlds that often contain the same patriarchal system as lies in legal institutions, wealth, and class, Isabella finds our own society. Science fiction rarely presents strong, power in her integrity and in her sensual nature. Paola’s independent female characters, nor does it deal with Isabella was troubled and confused, partly because her lines were heavily cut. Even worse, the director wanted a women’s issues. The themes, values, and ambitions of the genre are those commonly associated with men rathhappy ending when Paola couldn’t find it in the text. er than women- the privileging of science and technoloJuliet Stevenson’s Isabella was less cerebral, more vivagy, the conquest of new worlds and people, and the cious. In contrast to Paola, she chose not to wear the traditional nun’s habit throughout the play. Intelligent pioneering of open space and nature. Moreover, many women of the 198Os, both Paola and Juliet are aware of readers question the ability of science fiction to effecinstitutionalized authority’s power to coerce women into tively comment on any serious issues-including femichoices against their interests. It is not surprising then nism -in the real world because it creates unfamiliar that both actresses see the play’s comedic conclusionsocieties that seem separate and distinct from our own. the Duke’s proposal of marriage and Isabella’s ensuing So, could anyone be so bold as to claim that the genre silence-as problematic. holds enormous potential for contemporary feminist Harriet Walter’s reflections on Helena reveal the kind writers? Regardless of the evidence against her, Sarah of tension created when the director and actor disagree Lefanu is just that bold. In Feminism and Science Fiction, Lefanu asserts that on the role. According to Harriet, director Bevor Nunn feminists could use science fiction to explore the familiar saw the heroine as a redeemer, “a woman whose faith (the problems here on 20th century planet Earth) and integrity would save Bertram [the hero] from his through the unfamiliar (fantasy societies that explore callowness” (p. 88). Harriet believed the choices Helena new gender relations or ridicule systems of gender inmade- to follow Bertram, to marry him, and to have equality). When the norms of our society are thus deintercourse with him without his knowledge-comprofamiliarized by replicating them in an alien world, it mised her. Harriet speaks, “I couldn’t make redemption out of the messiness” (p. 88). becomes easier for readers to reasonably access these Besides its reinterpretations of six Shakespearean traditions. The distance between reality and fantasy makes the process of self-analysis less threatening than heroines, Clamorous Voices offers a candid look at how actors approach their craft. Literary critics may be horwould a direct confrontation. Male science fiction writrified that the actresses discuss these characters as real ers have been utilizing this technique for years. The works of such authors as Robert Henlien (Stranger in a people. They must remember that while the question, Strange Land) and Frank Herbert (the Dune series) show “How many children had Lady Macbeth?” may strike a that addressing the common through the uncommon traditional male critic as absurd, Sinead &sack needed can be effective. Lefanu feels that the feminist writer can an answer to portray the role. That does not mean these do the same. To assert her feminist views, the author can actresses disregard Shakespeare’s text, for the need to relate her new world to our own in such a way to highstick to the words is a leitmotif throughout Clamorow light desirable or undesirable contemporary gender relaVoices. As Juliet Stevenson observes, “the language tells tions. you who the character is moment by moment, word by It is also Lefanu’s contention that science fiction ofword” (p. 43). fers a level of stylistic and structural freedom which can Clamorous Voices is feminist not just in the perspecbe found in no other genre. Fiction structures, forms, tive it provides on acting; it is feminist in method and and characterizations can more freely be utilized, igstructure. The book is presented as a cooperative enternored, or inverted in science fiction because a traditional prise by a group of women who support each other, style is not as firmly entrenched in this genre as it is in learn from each other, and care for each other. Carol others. Science fiction readers expect, in fact, demand, Rutter’s commentary is like the shuttle for an ornate the new and the unexpected. The feminist writer, theretapestry: she steadily keeps the threads of discussion moving, weaving the colors of each voice in and out fore, can create whatever world she wishes; the conuntil a delicate pattern is formed. Thus Clamorous Voic- straints of realism or publisher demands need not hinder the free flow of imagination. Lefanu discusses contemes has value for us, both teachers and students, for more porary women science fiction and fantasy writers such than its ideas; it is a wonderful example of what feminist scholarship ought to be. as James Tiptree Jr., Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzy McKee VIRO~NIA MASONVAUG~L~N Charnas, and Joanna Russ to provide positive and negative examples of how the genre can be liberating as well CLARKUNIVERSITY, MA USA as open to feminist goals. Lefanu carves out a space for the modern feminist writer by placing her within the tradition of past women science fiction/gothic writers-Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Perkins Gilman-and by asserting the possibilities of her future by revealing contemporary FEMINISM AND SCIENCE FICXON, by Sarah Lefanu, 231 achievements of women in the field. Her discussion of pages. The Women’s Press, London and Indiana Univer-