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Suppressed Desire: Inscriptions of Lesbianism in the British Theatre of the 1930s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Helen Freshwater
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Abstract

In this response to John F. Deeney's article, ‘Censoring the Uncensored: the Case of Children in Uniform’, which appeared in NTQ 63 (August 2000), Helen Freshwater enters the growing debate over our reclamation of historical depictions of homosexuality. She questions Deeney's contention that our contemporary critical prejudices obscure the circulation of dramatic images of lesbianism during the 1930s, proposing that the Lord Chamberlain's difficulties in identifying lesbianism demonstrate the impossibility of dispensing with the theoretical structure that informs our understanding of this identity. Her archival research also reveals that there were in fact many efforts to put the lesbian on the stage during this period, but that these were effectively suppressed by the Lord Chamberlain, who refused to contemplate the performative enactment of lesbianism, no matter how indistinct or conventionalized in form. Her article addresses the challenges faced when addressing these dramatic inscriptions of lesbian desire, which are often homophobic, prurient, and unquestioning in their affirmation of the heterosexual norm. Helen Freshwater has recently completed her PhD on performance and censorship in twentieth-century Britain at the University of Edinburgh, and now lectures in drama and performance at the University of Nottingham. Her ‘The Ethics of Indeterminacy: Theatre de Complicite's Mnemonic’ appeared in NTQ67. She is also a contributor to the Edinburgh Review and to the anthology Crossing Boundaries (Sheffield Academic Press, 2001).

Type
Research Article
Information
New Theatre Quarterly , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , November 2001 , pp. 310 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2001

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References

Notes and References

1. Deeney, John F., ‘Censoring the Uncensored: the Case of Cliildren in Uniform’, New Theatre Quarterly, No. 63 (2000), p. 219–26 (p. 225)Google Scholar.

2. See Gale, Maggie B., West End Women: Women and the London Stage, 1918–1962 (London; New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 2Google Scholar.

3. Davis, Jill, ed., Lesbian Plays (London: Methuen, 1987), p. 9Google Scholar.

4. Lewis, Reina, ‘The Death of the Author and the Resurrection of the Dyke’, in Sally , Munt, ed., New Lesbian Criticism: Literary and Cultural Readings (New York; London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992), p. 17Google Scholar.

5. Ibid., p. 23. Focus on a playwright's sexual identity as a key to interpretation ignores the fact that a production of a play is a communal effort, and that an entire team of producer, director, designer, and performers also contribute to theatre's execution. What is more, an author-led interpretation is often only possible when dealing with canonical material. The lives of Hellman and Winsloe have attracted biographical attention and coverage, which encourages investigations into the relationship between their lives and their work. This impulse is confounded when dealing with obscure works written by unknown authors.

6. Dyer, Richard, Now You See It: Studies in Lesbian and Gay Film (London: Routledge, 1990)Google Scholar.

7. Hart, Lynda, ‘Canonizing Lesbians?’ in Schlueter, June, ed., Modern American Drama: the Female Canon (London; Toronto: Associated University Presses, 1990), p. 275–92 (p. 290, n)Google Scholar.

8. Lewis, ‘The Death of the Author’, p. 26.

9. Sinfield, Alan, Out on Stage (London; New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 3Google Scholar.

10. Cited by Weeks, Jeffrey, in Sex, Politics, and Society: the Regulation of Sexuality since 1800 (London: Longman, 1981), p. 105Google Scholar.

11. St John Irvine, cited by Findlater, Richard, Barnned (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967), p. 141Google Scholar.

12. Restrictions of space curtail discussion of the other two, namely Alone, by Marion Norris, banned in 1930, and Riviera, by Henry Broad water, banned in 1935.

13. See Maggie B. Gate, West End Women, Appendix, p. 198–137.

14. Aimée Stuart, letter Lord Chamberlain's Correspondence file, British Library Manuscripts (LC Corr.), 4 June 1935.

15. George Street, report, LC Corr., 27 October 1934.

16. Lord David Cecil, letter, LC Corr., n.d.

17. Henry Game, report, LC Corr., 4 June 1938.

18. Darlinglon, W. A., ‘Marriage or a Career: Old Conflict in a New Play’, The Daily Telegraph, 2 06 1935Google Scholar. The Play ran for three performances from 2 June 1935 at the Phoenix Theatre, London, where Margaret Mabster directed the Repertory Players.

19. ‘Love of Women’, Variety, 15 December 1937. See Curtin, Kaier, We Can Always Call Them Bulgarians: the Emergence of Lesbians and Gay Men on the American Stage. (Boston; London: Alyson, 1987), p. 221–2Google Scholar.

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24. Faderman, Liiian, ‘Love Between Women in 1928: Why Progressivism Is Not Always Progress’ in Kehoe, Monika, ed., Historical, Literary, and Erotic Aspects of Lesbianism (London; Harrington Park Press, 1986), p. 23–42 (p.28)Google Scholar.

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26. Maggie B. Gale, West End Women, p. 186.

27. Rich, Adrienne, Blood, Bread, and Poetry: Selected Prose 1979–1985 (London: Virago, 1986), p. 51Google Scholar.

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29. Rapi, Nina, ‘Hide and Seek: the Search for a Lesbian Theatre Aesthetic’, New Theatre Quarterly, No. 34 (1993). p. 147–58, (p. 155)Google Scholar, including quote from Ellenberger, Harriet, ‘The Dream is the Bridge: in Search of Lesbian Theatre’, Trivia, No. 5 (Fall 1984), p. 53Google Scholar.

30. Marie Stopes's use of several pseudonyms (including George Dalton and Clifford Cooper) illustrates this problem. See LC Corr. files for Married Love, 1923, and Cleansing Circles, 1926.

31. Smith, Patricia Juliana, in Lesbian Panic: Homoeroticism in Modern British Women's Fiction, ed. Faderman, Lillian and Gross, Larry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 2Google Scholar.

32. For example, Gale refers us to Sheila Stowell, who suggests that the traditional perception of realism as a hegemonic form needs challenging: ‘This position raises a number of problems, beginning with its assumption of a simple and direct relationship between reproduction and reinforcement. While genres or styles…may not be politically neutral, they are surely capable of presenting a range of ideological positions.…Dramatic forms are not in themselves narrowly partisan. They may be inhabited from within a variety of ideologies.’ See A Stage of Their Own: Female Playwrights of the Suffrage Era, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 100–1. See also Gale, Maggie B., ‘Women Playwrights of the 1920s and 1939s’, in The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights, ed. Aston, Elaine and Reinelt, Janelle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 23–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ‘Errant Nymphs: Women and the Inter-War Theatre’, in British Theatre Between the Wars 1918–1939, ed. Barker, Clive and Gale, Maggie B. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 113–33Google Scholar.

33. Deeney, ‘Censoring the Uncensored’, p. 224.

34. Norman Gwatkin, letter, LC Corr., 27 March 1946.

35. Earl of Cromer, comment on report, LC Corr., 23 February 1935.

36. Sinfield, Alan, ‘Private Lives/Public Theatre: Noël Coward and the Politics of Homosexual Representation’, Representations, No. 36 (1991), p. 43–63Google Scholar.