Split Britches is an American performance troupe, which has been producing work internationally since 1980. Academic Sue Ellen Case says "their work has defined the issues and terms of academic writing on lesbian theater, butch-femme role playing, feminist mimesis, and the spectacle of desire".[1][2] In New York City Split Britches have long standing relationships with La Mama Experimental Theatre Company, where they are a resident company, Wow Café, which Weaver and Shaw co-founded, and Dixon Place.[1]
Split Britches was founded by Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, and Deb Margolin in New York City in 1980.[3] Shaw and Weaver met in Europe when Weaver was touring with Spiderwoman Theater and Shaw with Hot Peaches.[4] The company started while Weaver and Shaw were performing in Spiderwoman Theater's performance of "An Evening of Disgusting Songs and Pukey Images”. This was the first time Spiderwoman had presented lesbian content and introduced Peggy as a Spiderwoman performer.[5] During this time in the summer of 1980, Weaver began to write a performance about her 2 aunts and great aunt in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia called Split Britches, The True Story. Split britches is a reference to the type of pants women wore while working in the fields, which allowed them to urinate without stopping work. The name of the company has been said to mimic the “split pants” of poverty and comedy.[6] The performance was originally developed with Spiderwoman performers and was performed at the first WOW (Women's One World) Festival, founded by Shaw and Weaver, in 1980.[7] Following a subsequent run of the performance in 1981, Weaver and Shaw decided to leave Spiderwoman, and one of the Spiderwoman performers they had been working with declined to continue with them.[5] This led them to ask Margolin, who was a writer, to assist with writing the script, and Margolin became a part of the company for many years. The final version of Split Britches was performed at the Boston Women’s Festival in Spring of 1981 and at the Second WOW festival in Fall of 1981.[5] The script was first published in Women & Performance, and premiered on public television in 1988, directed and produced by Mathew Geller in association with WGBH/WNET Television and the NYFA ‘Artists New Works Program'.[1][5]
Early on in the company determined they would not spend time trying to apply for grants to support their performances, and would instead work outside of these systems using their own finances from jobs to support their performance work. This is due to a belief stated by Shaw that, "it's easier to get a job than a grant". This held true for the beginning of the company's existence, but as they became more established they began to apply for grants.[8]
Members
Peggy Shaw (b. 1946) is a theatre artist whose work combines butch identity and dry humor. Her most recent solo show, RUFF (2012), relates her experience having a stroke. The performance was directed by Lois Weaver and toured internationally.[9]
Lois Weaver is a performing artist whose work is recognized as seminal in creating a template for lesbian performance methodologies. Her recent solo work has centered around the persona Tammy WhyNot, a 'former famous country-western singer turned lesbian performance artist'.[10] Weaver is Professor of Contemporary Performance in the Department of Drama, Queen Mary, University of London.[11] Weaver most often acts as the director for Split Britches.[6]
Deb Margolin, no longer a member of Split Britches, is a renowned performance artist, currently a professor at Yale University. She was primarily the wordsmith of the troupe, known for transforming visions into the final script.[6] Margolin worked with Split Britches on Split Britches (1981), Beauty and the Beast (1982), Upwardly Mobile Home (1984), Little Women (1988), and Lesbians Who Kill (1992).[1]
The company engaged in a number of collaborations, including working with Isabel Miller and Holly Hughes to create Dress Suits to Hire (1987), with the Bloolips in Belle Reprieve (1991) and with James Neale-Kennerley in Lust and Comfort (1995).[1]
Impact and Significance
Split Britches has worked with concepts of lesbian, queer, dyke, butch and femme identities and cultures [1] in a context of American feminism and live arts movements which emerged through the 1970s. In Split Britches: Lesbian Practice/Feminist Performance, critic and theorist Sue-Ellen Case aptly sums up the importance of the trio in the development of contemporary lesbian performance: "the troupe created a unique 'postmodern' style that served to embed feminist and lesbian issues of the times, economic debates, national agendas, personal relationships, and sex-radical role playing in spectacular and humorous deconstructions of canonical texts, vaudeville shtick, cabaret forms, lip-synching satire, lyrical love scenes, and dark, frightening explorations of class and gender violence."[12] The troupe uses these performances to create a safe space in which non-normative sexualities and genders can occur in peace,[13] and it is praised for having maintained a theater space for women's artistic endeavors.[6]
Geraldine Harris has placed the work of the troupe in a "postmodern Brechtian tradition", and in an article on this troupe, describes the focus in their work on borders, as they often take on ideas of duality.[2] With concepts of butch/femme highlighted in their work, as are concepts around class, classism, and oppression. Harris also explains that the troupe opposes the gender binary as a mode of political performance. Split Britches also examines the fetishization, objectification, and narcissistic misidentifications that cannot be separated from love, passion, and desire.[2] The shows are often praised for the deconstructive and transformative lenses through which they are written.
Split Britches' work comes from a tradition of performance art that is documented academically by the field of performance studies. Their work is cited as indicative of lesbian art which brings up issues of subjectivity.[14] It has been central to the development of feminist performance theory and distinguishing lesbian critical theory, for example in the pioneering work of Jill Dolan on the feminist spectator,[15] Sue-Ellen Case on butch/femme aesthetics[16] and Alisa Solomon[17] and Kate Davy[18] on feminist performance contexts.
Methodology
In a dissertation by Deanna Beth Shoemaker, Split Britches was said to use games, fantasies, songs, dance numbers, and monologues to address issues including female desire, power, and lesbian identity. The characters in the performances play on gender and sexuality binaries, and explore issues of lesbian femme identity within and without the butch/femme dynamic.[13]
The company begin by exploring a personal obsession or frustration, like Tennessee Williams or Aileen Wuornos, which is often take from popular culture. Shaw has said this is because through popular images they are able to maintain a queer aesthetic while keeping an audience engaged.[19] Weaver and Shaw always try to make reference to a comedy duo from the 1950s or 1960s, which is often Mike Nicols and Elaine May, due to their comedic structure and gender dynamics.[20] Next the company make lists, including a list of things they want to do on stage, current social issues, cultural icons, and stories they want to tell. They then choose characters that are split between good qualities and bad qualities, which Weaver has said is "like loving a part of yourself and your past". Despite playing characters, Weaver and Shaw say they always play themselves, including personal stories and anecdotes. Weaver has said "In the process of making personal performance, lying is always an option and creating truth is the goal."[21] Next they begin collecting found objects, and working on music to incorporate. Finally the company begin rehearsals, weaving together the disparate fragments. Throughout their history Weaver has functioned as the primary director.[1]
In recent years, public engagement and dialogue with the public have become an integral part to the Split Britches creative process. This takes the form of workshops and public conversations, often moderated through formats from Weaver's Public Address Systems project.[22]
Public Engagement
From 2002-2003 Weaver and Shaw designed and ran workshops in four women's prisons in Brazil and the UK as part of the project 'Staging Human Rights', initiated by People's Palace Projects. The workshops intended to use performance to talk about human rights with female prisoners.[21]
Controversies
At the time Split Britches was formed, cross-dressing and drag were popular, so this has become a central part of some of their performances. Some of the performances by the troupe have come under fire for the portrayal of certain characters. Specifically, the coproduction of Belle Reprieve by Split Britches and Bloolips, a group of gay drag performers.[23] In this performance, gender norms are erased, and the binary is played upon. This performance has been critiqued due to the female actors dressing as men. Because most instances of cross-dressing are males dressing up ultra-feminine, this performance was unusual.[23] It was said that this type of performance further holds men to be superior to women. Additionally, it has been criticized that cross-dressing reinforces the gender binary, which so many feminists have worked to eliminate.
Awards
2017: Innovative Theatre Achievement Award
2014: Hemispheric Institute of Performance Senior Fellowship, Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw
1999: Obie, best performer Peggy Shaw for Menopausal Gentleman
1991: Obie, best ensemble, Split Britches and Bloolips, for Belle Reprieve
1988: Obie, best performer Peggy Shaw for Dress Suits to Hire
1 2 3 4 Patraka, Vivian M. (2008). "Split britches in split britches: Performing history, vaudeville, and the everyday". Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory. 4 (2): 58–67. doi:10.1080/07407708908571129.
↑ Memories of the revolution: the first ten years of the WOW Cafe Theater. Dolan, Jill, 1957-, Tropicana, Carmelita,, Hughes, Holly, 1955 March 10-. [Place of publication not identified]: [publisher not identified]. 2015. ISBN9780472121496. OCLC933515943.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
Butch and femme are terms used in the lesbian subculture to ascribe or acknowledge a masculine (butch) or feminine (femme) identity with its associated traits, behaviors, styles, self-perception, and so on. The terms were founded in lesbian communities in the twentieth century. This concept has been called a "way to organize sexual relationships and gender and sexual identity". Butch–femme culture is not the sole form of a lesbian dyadic system, as there are many women in butch–butch and femme–femme relationships.
Femme is a term traditionally used to describe a lesbian woman who exhibits a feminine identity or gender presentation. While commonly viewed as a lesbian term, alternate meanings of the word also exist with some non-lesbian individuals using the word, notably some gay men, bisexuals, non-binary, and transgender individuals.
A soft butch, or stem (stud-fem), is a lesbian who exhibits some stereotypical butch traits without fitting the masculine stereotype associated with butch lesbians. Soft butch is on the spectrum of butch, as are stone butch and masculine, whereas on the contrary, ultra fem, high femme, and lipstick lesbian are some labels on the spectrum of lesbians with a more prominent expression of femininity, also known as femmes. Soft butches have gender expressions of women, but primarily display masculine characteristics; soft butches predominantly express masculinity with a touch of femininity.
Sue-Ellen Case is Professor and Chair of Critical Studies in the Theatre Department in the School of Theater Film and Television at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Meryl F. Vladimer (1951-2022) was an artist, theatrical producer and political activist.
Holly Hughes is an American lesbian performance artist.
Deb Margolin is an American performance artist and playwright. She came to prominence in the 1980s in the feminist political theatre troupe Split Britches, which she co-founded with Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw. Margolin has since created a string of one-woman shows. A compilation of her texts, Of All The Nerve: Deb Margolin SOLO, was published in 1999 by Cassell/Continuum Press. Literary theorist Lynda Hart edited and wrote a commentary on each piece.
Bette Bourne is a British actor, drag queen, campaigner, and activist. His theatrical career has spanned six decades. He came to prominence in the mid-1970s onwards after joining the New York-based alternative gay cabaret troupe Hot Peaches. He then went on to form his own alternative gay theatrical company, Bloolips.
Clod Ensemble is a multi-award winning performance company and registered charity based in London, UK. Founded in 1995 by director Suzy Willson and composer Paul Clark, the company creates performances, workshops and other events in the UK and internationally.
Lois Weaver is a Guggenheim-winning artist, activist, writer, director, and Professor of Contemporary Performance at Queen Mary University of London. She is currently a Wellcome Trust Fellow in Engaging Science. Her work centers on feminism, human rights and possibilities for public participation. Active for over four decades she is the founding member of significant New York theatre companies Spiderwoman Theater (1975), Split Britches (1980) and WOW (1980). Weaver came to London to take on the role of artistic director for Gay Sweatshop Theatre Company in 1992. She lives in New York and London.
Peggy Shaw is an actor, writer, and producer living in New York City. She is a founding member of the Split Britches and WOW Cafe Theatre, and is a recipient of several Obie Awards, including two for Best Actress for her performances in Dress Suits to Hire in 1988 and Menopausal Gentleman in 1999.
She Must Be Seeing Things is a 1987 lesbian feminist film directed by Sheila McLaughlin and starring Lois Weaver and Sheila Dabney. It was the film debut of both Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw. It was controversial when first released.
Spiderwoman Theater is an Indigenous women's performance troupe that blends traditional art forms with Western theater. Named after Spider Grandmother from Hopi mythology, it is the longest running Indigenous theatre company in the United States.
WOW Café Theater is a feminist theater space and collective in East Village in New York City. In the mid-1980s, WOW Cafe Theater was central to the avant garde theatre and performance art scene in the East Village, New York City. Among the artists who have presented at the space are Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, Patricia Ione LLoyd, Lisa Kron, Holly Hughes, Deb Margolin, Dancenoise, Carmelita Tropicana, Eileen Myles, Split Britches, Seren Divine, and The Five Lesbian Brothers.
The Five Lesbian Brothers is an American theater company that focuses on plays and literature on lesbian and feminist topics. Their work has been produced and performed in several cities in the United States, and they have been recognized with several industry awards. Reviewers have described their performance style as being "loosely structured" and "outrageous", more focused on the expression of ideas and themes than on theatrical conventions of the time and genre. Their works are created collaboratively by the troupe, made up of Maureen Angelos, Babs Davy, Dominique Dibbell, Peg Healey and Lisa Kron.
Dress Suits to Hire is a play written by Holly Hughes and originally performed by the Lesbian and Feminist performance group, Split Britches. It premiered in 1987 at Performance Space 122 in Manhattan's East Village. The play is essentially a lesbian love story told in the overheated style of film noir, also drawing upon images from pulp fiction; The show has been revived several times since its premiere, with the original cast of Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver (Michigan) reprising their roles. The show won OBIE Awards for both Shaw and Hughes.
Gina Young is an American writer, director, playwright, songwriter and performer. They are a vocal member of the LGBTQ community and is openly queer and nonbinary, using both she and they pronouns. She is a member of The Dramatists Guild, The Ring of Keys, and The Kilroys. They are a winner of the HUMANITAS/PLAY LA Prize, and the Jane Chambers Award for Playwriting for their play Femmes: A Tragedy. She was previously known for recording and touring with the music and performance art group Team Gina, which disbanded in 2010.
Hot Peaches was a drag theatre company in New York City that would put on one play a week, active from the 1970s-1990s. Hot Peaches was founded by Jimmy Camicia in 1972, who encountered a group of drag queens and began writing work for them to perform. Their work has been described as "political camp, dominated by drag".
Stacy Makishi is a Hawaiian-born performance artist, physical theatre and live art specialist. Her work often involves combining autobiographical experience and comedy with inspiration from fictional sources, such as Hollywood movies or novels. She has been identified by The Guardian as part of a new generation of artists making 'innovative shows [. . .] with and by young people'.
Muriel Miguel is a Native American director, choreographer, playwright, actor and educator. She is of Kuna and Rappahannock ancestry and was born and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. In 1976, Miguel founded the Spiderwoman Theater with her sisters, Gloria Miguel and Lisa Mayo. The Spiderwoman Theater was the first Native American women's theater troupe to gain international recognition, and remains the longest continuous running Native American female performance group. Miguel has directed nearly all of the Spiderwoman Theater's shows since their debut in 1976, and currently serves as its artistic director.
References
Gillespie, Benjamin. "Split Britches" in Noriega and Schildcrout (eds.) 50 Key Figures in Queer US Theatre, pp. 223-227. Routledge, 2022. ISBN 978-1032067964.
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