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Staging Cruelty through Consent: Sycorax in Kansas
Jane Barnette, Alysha Griffin, Timmia Hearn-Feldman
Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Volume 34, Number 1, Fall
2019, pp. 105-121 (Article)
Published by The University of Kansas, Department of Theatre and
Dance
DOI:
For additional information about this article
https://doi.org/10.1353/dtc.2019.0026
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/749730
[34.201.171.104] Project MUSE (2024-10-22 15:23 GMT)
Fall 2019 105
Jane Barnette is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of
Kansas, where she teaches courses in dramaturgy, theatre history, and script analysis, as well as seminars
in theatrical adaptation and the performance of gender and sexuality. Her recent book, Adapturgy: The
Dramaturg’s Art and Theatrical Adaptation, explores the powerful alchemy of dramaturgically-savvy
adaptations for the stage. Barnette’s research includes Chicago-based touring theatre practice at the turn
of the twentieth century, American pageantry, and depictions of “witch” characters onstage as well as
in popular culture. Jane is also a director and a dramaturg.
$O\VKD*UL൶Q is a doctoral candidate in theatre at the University of Kansas. She received a bachelor’s
degree in English and history from Spelman College and a Master’s degree in English from the University
of Kansas. Her research interests include African American literature and culture, performance theory,
and museum studies. Ultimately, her work aims to examine the role of institutional structures and local
communities in the production of black art. Alysha is also a writer and performer.
Timmia Hearn-Feldman7KHDWUH6WXGLHV%$<DOHLVDWKHDWUHDQG¿OPGHYHORSHUDQGJHQGHUULJKWV
activist. She was a founding member of the Trinidad and Tobago PRIDE Arts Festival, former Director
of the School for the Arts at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, the Caribbean’s oldest theatre company, and
former Marketing Manager at the CaribbeanTales International Film Festival. She is currently pursuing
her Master’s in Theatre Studies at the University of Kansas, where her research focuses on postcolonial
theatre practice and Disability Justice, and engages in community-oriented and social change focused
theatre across the Diasporas to which she belongs.
Staging Cruelty through Consent: Sycorax in Kansas
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In this multivocal exploration of the third staging of Susan Gayle Todd’s Sycorax,
director, lead actor, and spectator confront the challenges, successes, and failures of this
production’s use of consent-based practices to stage violence. Framing the discussion
using Antonin Artaud’s “theatre of cruelty,” we explore questions around consent, trigger
warnings, cultural appropriation/invasion, violence, and the reclamation of narratives.
We unpack the production from conception through execution and theorize how consent
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overlapping conclusions, foregrounding the subjectivity of truth.
Keywords: consent, intimacy choreography, theatre of cruelty, adaptation, Shakespeare
“Every social encounter generates and is generated by complex
sets of negotiations between externally produced meanings and
internally created subjectivities, between the ways we see and
hear and the ways in which we are seen and heard.”1
Introduction and Guiding Questions
7KLVHVVD\LVPXOWLYRFDOLQDQDWWHPSWWRJUDVSWKHGL൵HUHQWSHUVSHFWLYHVRI
intention and reception as well as those stemming from our identities as a white
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a queer, mixed-race, second-generation immigrant spectator (Hearn-Feldman).
We all identify as women, although Hearn-Feldman invites the use of both female
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106 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
and nonbinary pronouns. Our goal is to explore the possibility of staging human
cruelty through a consent-based rehearsal process. By cruelty, we mean both the
content and subject matter of the play in question as well as the methodology
proposed by Antonin Artaud, when he spoke of “a theatre in which violent
physical images crush and hypnotize the sensibility of the spectator seized by the
theatre as a whirlwind of higher forces.”2 While we recognize that Artaud remains
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WRH[RWLFL]HDQGDSSURSULDWH$VLDQWKHDWULFDOLW\ZHQHYHUWKHOHVV¿QGYDOXHLQKLV
“theatre of cruelty” as one lens through which to evaluate the challenge of staging
this play. We seek to explain a case study that demonstrates our overarching belief:
that traumatic material can and must be staged, but in a way that challenges our
current cultural acceptance of violence as commonplace.
The Project and the Challenges
Jane Barnette: In winter of 2018 I began rehearsals for a regional premiere of
Sycorax, by Susan Gayle Todd, a feminist prequel to Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
Todd’s 2007 play imagines the origin story of Caliban’s infamous “blue-eyed hag”
mother from Algiers.3 In her version, Sycorax is scapegoated as a witch by the
residents of Algiers in an attempt to allocate blame for a tidal wave that virtually
destroys the city as well as to counter the power that Sycorax has accumulated during
her years of serving the governor and his constituents as a midwife and herbalist.
As punishment for her transgressions, she is exiled from Algeria after watching her
partner, Clare, be burned alive. When exiling Sycorax, the governor proclaims her
body to be in the “public domain” for the sailors in charge of transporting her away
from the country, and the play’s climax occurs at the end of act 2, on Sycorax’s
ninetieth day on the ship, when she barely survives a brutal gang rape.
Todd, who earned her PhD in performance as public practice from the
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a doctoral candidate, writing about another feminist adaptation of Shakespeare,
MacBird! by Barbara Garson.47KH¿UVWSURGXFWLRQRISycorax (2007) was part
of the David Cohen New Works Festival, when the script was quite new. It was
directed by Fadi Skeiker, a Syrian-born theatre artist who specializes in shadow
puppetry. Three years later, Todd had the opportunity to co-direct her play (with
Christa French) when it was produced by the Weird Sisters Collective, an all-
female performance company based in Austin. That 2010 production featured
a cast of eleven actors—ten women and one nonbinary performer. Azure D.
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experience of embodying both a male and female role was “just what [they]
needed at the time,” since Osborne-Lee was just realizing they were nonbinary.5
Sycorax had never been produced since then, and when I discovered it during my
research about performances of iconic witch characters, I knew I had to direct it.
Fall 2019 107
As a feminist director, however, Sycorax posed several challenges to me that
made the integration of consent and intimacy choreography necessary from the
earliest stages of casting and rehearsal. First and foremost was the aforementioned
scene, in which Sycorax is surrounded by the sailors and raped—in the previous
productions, this moment had been staged as an abstract “dance of rape,” and it
was followed by a single poem that she spoke alone on the stage before collapsing.
The other scenes of concern occur earlier in the play—when Sycorax taught her
assistant how to alter a young girl’s genitals, as part of her profession, and when
the governor and his assistant sought to convince the townspeople that Sycorax
was to blame for the recent storm that had devastated their land and property.
Shortly after closing the show, I received an email from a graduate student
in our program whose research explores coloniality within contemporary theatre
practice through a disability justice framework—Timmia Hearn-Feldman. She
had seen Sycorax, and felt strongly about it:
Sycorax, to me, considering the research I’m doing—was a
massive success. The puppet and shadow work combined with
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brutality and cruelty in ways that were both emotionally moving,
and not traumatizing/re-traumatizing. I was especially taken with
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After several subsequent conversations, Hearn-Feldman and I decided to write
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who played the title role (she is also a University of Kansas graduate student),
to contribute as well. The following essay is a snapshot of our conversations
regarding this challenging production—our perspectives are not in alignment, but
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views, we honor the complexity of consent-based theatrical labor, especially when
representing marginalized bodies within a framework of institutional privilege.
Early Interventions
At the outset, I knew that we would need assistance from trained intimacy
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Working with our dramaturg—Kaitlyn Tossie, a doctoral student in the program
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crafted a statement that went on the audition and callbacks notices as well as the
publicity and program materials accompanying Sycorax. It read: “This production
includes inferences to physical and sexual abuse, female circumcision, and a
scene of sexual violence. It is not appropriate for all audiences.”6
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108 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
Timmia Hearn-Feldman: I come to this conversation from the position of
an outsider/insider. My outsider positionality comes from not being involved in
creating this particular production. However, as someone immersed in the culture
of the University of Kansas (KU), who is familiar with KU’s policies around
performance, and who is an active participant in discussions about colonial
representations of colonized subjects within the theatre, I am positioned as an
insider to many of the discussions taking place. I have been a theatre practitioner
for many years, and am currently a graduate student at KU, so my perspective
may not align with that of a typical spectator. I heard about the production of
Sycorax from the time it was announced as part of KU’s season, but did not see it
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university, so perhaps I was squarely in the typical audience demographic.
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a(nother) white woman about Sycorax, I was, honestly, suspicious. I had concerns
about the form this representation would take, or how a white woman would/
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“witch” by a white man (Shakespeare, through Prospero). I wondered what
Barnette would be interested in adding to the conversation. After all, as Abena
Busia reminds her readers about Sycorax:
The question of the (re)presentation of black women in colonial
discourse is problematic on many levels. The problematic, for
the purpose of interpreting or decoding the master’s text, arises
from the place of black women as receptors of two paradigms
of alienation and otherness within this dominant discourse: that
of femaleness and that of blackness.7
Since Todd sought to complicate the misogynistic way in which Shakespeare
addresses Sycorax, I wondered if she would also be able to engage in decoding of
that master’s text in a way that addressed the title character’s blackness.
Barnette’s production’s online summary included the following line: “This
tragedy imagines the life of the witch Sycorax as an Algerian healer who rises
to power only to be scapegoated by powerful men.”8 I wanted to see that play,
and how the subject matter would be handled. Sycorax ran six months after the
Brett Kavanaugh hearings played out on the national stage,9 so the scapegoating
of women weighed heavily on my mind. I also wanted to support my department
members and was sure that the show would be, at the least, thought-provoking.
I was particularly interested in the way in which it would grapple with violence.
Prominent on all the marketing was the trigger warning mentioned above. As a
result of this warning, I attended the production without a family member who
Fall 2019 109
often accompanies me to the theatre. This family member is a survivor of sexual
violence and sexual abuse, and I did not want to trigger her. Another family
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and was not worried about being triggered.
JB: Early in the process of imagining the staging for Sycorax, I spoke with
Chelsea Pace, of Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE), who would later work with
the cast for several rehearsals—with her guidance, from the auditions forward,
I referred to the climactic scene on the ship as “Day 90,” the author’s title for
the scene. By not mentioning the violence that occurs within it, and instead
referencing the time on the ship Sycorax has already endured, we reframed the
play’s most traumatic scene from the start. In callbacks, I started the process by
explaining that consent would be central to our entire rehearsal process, and that
it would be a decisive part of the callback evaluation itself. As much as I would
be watching for acting and movement choices, I would be observing how the
auditionees treated one another, and whether they checked in during group work
before physically interacting with each other. Perhaps most crucially, I gave the
actors permission to step outside or stop the work at any point in the callback,
reassuring them that their decision to do so would not negatively impact their
audition process. I also encouraged them to read Sycorax carefully, and to decide
if it was a tale they wanted to be part of telling. Overall, I wanted to establish a
tone of support and respect for the traumatic nature of this play, while explaining
to them the reasons why I thought this story mattered.
$O\VKD*UL൶Q Barnette’s proposed interventions and her record of creating
an environment of transparency in her classes were the deciding factors for my
participation in the production as I was not drawn to the script. My dissatisfaction
with Todd’s adaptation stems from the dissonance among the text, bodies, and
histories; to me, the script contains moments of cultural irreverence that parallel the
recurring sexual violence against black, brown, and female bodies but especially
black female bodies. More explicitly, Sycorax is another play wherein a black
female body becomes an object of white desire, gendered and sexual violence, and
voyeurism. My position as the vessel for the title character and my history as the
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As those of us involved in the production discussed consent, I yearned for an
acknowledgement of the cultural and emotional invasions we made as artists which
cannot be isolated from collective histories of intimate violence. There seems to be
an overcorrection wherein privileged individuals capitalize on the experiences of
marginalized populations to rectify historical injustice and/or distance themselves
from said privilege. Sycorax demonstrates an example of this as American artists
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110 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
and scholars projected our own social agendas onto another culture with little
regard for the scholars, artists, and spectators within black, Muslim, African, and/
or Algerian communities. Even as someone who occupies a marginalized social
position in the United States, I struggled with my role in telling a story that was
only tangentially related to my own and was also created and directed by women
who were even further removed from the represented culture than me. As an artist
and scholar, I thought frequently about whether the intimacy between text, artist,
audience, and represented communities requires some sort of consent but not
knowing how it might look. Barnette and I had many open conversations about my
feelings toward the script and about her artistic objectives as director. I have not
changed my feelings toward Sycorax itself, but the production was an invaluable
opportunity to engage and think about consent-based theatre practices.
JB: My goal, I explained, was to give life and texture to the absent presence
of Caliban’s mother, Sycorax, whom Prospero degrades with his language in The
Tempest, but whose voice and perspective readers and spectators rarely see. Todd
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line: “For one thing she did / they would not take her life,” spoken by Prospero
in act 1 of The Tempest. What was that “one thing”? While some scholars have
suggested it was her pregnancy with Caliban, Todd pays attention to the agency
of the sentence—what was the thing that Sycorax alone achieved?10 How might
that action have protected her from the ultimate punishment? How powerful must
Sycorax have been to be labeled a witch and exiled from Algeria?
The answer, as we learn in Todd’s prequel, is that Sycorax has found a way to
assist the governor in gaining an heir—she has helped him and his young wife have
a son. She becomes known for her work with fertility and childbirth, and this is
why she comes to teach her assistant, Clare, how to perform a clitoridectomy. Todd
includes this instruction as a key moment in the story of how Clare and Sycorax
come to trust each other, which will lead to their love for each other as common-
law spouses, so the medical instruments and the child on whom the operation is
performed are necessary parts of staging the scene. Early in the process, I decided
that all children would be represented by doll puppets—soft, three-dimensional
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puppet, it was important that she have legs and wear a dress, so that her head would
be downstage and her feet upstage when Clare performed the operation. Initially
we wanted to amplify the action by using shadow puppetry illuminated from behind
the central backdrop/screen—one of the ideas that emerged from our work with the
puppeteer Bryan Mercer was to depict the following directions from Sycorax to
Clare as shadows on the screen, using a pliable balloon as the “nymph”:
First, with the forceps in your left hand, grasp the nymph and
pull it out—gently, gently…yes, that is right. Hold steady. With
Fall 2019 111
your free hand take the knife and you must cut here, just above
the teeth of the forceps…yes, only the excess skin is amputated.11
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needed grounding, focus, and gentle devotion. For spectators to see a shadow
get stretched and then cut was far too gruesome. It sensationalized the violence,
rather than contextualizing it and giving it human dimension. The actors, assistant
director, and stage manager all voiced their discomfort with the shadow balloon
nymph; therefore, it was eliminated.
THF: As a spectator, though I had been warned, I did not know how
to process this scene. On the one hand, it was done with such delicacy that it
completely stripped away the negative connotations of female genital mutilation
with which I am so familiar. Instead of making me more comfortable, however,
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cultural invasion. There is a long-standing debate around even the term “female
genital mutilation,” and above Barnette refers to the practice by its more medical
term: clitoridectomy. There are arguments supporting the idea that to abolish
clitoridectomies is “colonial imposition” and to perform them is an act of anti-
FRORQLDOGH¿DQFH12 Todd, in some ways, takes this side of the argument by having
the only medical procedure that Sycorax performs onstage be this one. It struck
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scenes of the play? It is beyond the scope of this paper to dig deeply into Todd’s
choices; however, as spectator, despite the sensitive handling of the scene, I still
felt that it was an invasion of a conversation that didn’t seem to belong in this
story. It felt clumsy and unnecessary. I believe that the director and actors did as
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scene traumatic, but there was only so much that could be done. Overall, while I
applaud the decision to abandon showing the surgery itself with shadow puppets,
I wondered why there was no apparent stance on the practice or surgery itself in
the visible dramaturgy. I felt that some kind of discussion in the program note or a
lobby display would have helped to clarify the ambiguity surrounding this scene.
JB: Conversations about how to stage the surgical procedure were central
to the dramaturgical research conducted by Tossie and me—we recognized both
the appropriative nature of calling the procedure mutilation and the geographical
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clitoridectomies rarely occur in North Africa and, when they do, it is more likely
performed for a Christian family than a Muslim one. On learning this, we consulted
with the costume designer to assure that the patient and her family members—her
mother and aunt—would not wear hijabs. Rana Esfandiary, our costume designer,
hails from Iran and is of Muslim heritage—it was her design choice to emphasize
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112 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
WKH0XVOLPDQG$UDELFLQÀXHQFHVLQ$OJHULDDQGZHUHOLHGSDUWO\XSRQKHUFXOWXUDO
sensitivity to the setting with regard to the scenography overall.13
The Propaganda Scene
As part of the lead-up to the climax of Sycorax, Todd includes a “Propaganda
Shadow Puppet Show” scene that is fairly open-ended: she lists key moments
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metatheatrical moment as described in the script, since it begins with citizens from
Algiers gathering onstage to watch the show, and culminates with the governor
making the proclamation about Sycorax’s punishment: she will be exiled, and her
partner, Clare, will be burned at the stake.
Because it is so open-ended and because puppetry is one of the few things
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and near the end of our rehearsal process. In callbacks, the actors were divided
into groups and instructed to improvise the scene as described, using some of their
group members as puppets controlled by the other group members, who would be
puppeteers. This was one way for me to assess the actors’ willingness to engage
in consent-based movement work and how they interacted in teams. But to stage
the scene itself required a level of collaboration and trust that only emerged after
weeks of rehearsal and experimentation.
Ultimately we took inspiration from the Chicago–based group Manual
Cinema, which performs shadow puppetry shows using overhead projectors that
Fig. 1: Josh Philoon (L) and Tinashe Mukoyi (R) on the overhead projector, with puppet
design by Kieran Regan. Scenic design by Katelynn Schultz, photo by Luke Jordan.
Fall 2019 113
are part of the stage picture, along with the images they project.14 The creative
process for this short scene began in group work with Mercer, our puppet
specialist, who broke the larger cast into groups of four to create musical phrases
to support the scene. Parts of the music developed in this workshop informed the
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shadow puppet show, several others remained backstage with their instruments,
accompanying the performance. Two actors—Josh Philoon and Tinashe
Mukoyi—functioned as both shadow puppeteers and, along with Kieran Regan,
another actor, designers of the propaganda scene. They wheeled the projectors out
onto the stage while the governor’s adviser was bombarded by Algerian citizens
demanding recourse for their losses due to the storm, then began the puppetry in
earnest after the citizens were invited to sit and watch the show.
Although this scene only lasted a few minutes in duration onstage, it took the
most time in rehearsal to create.15 Every cast member contributed something to
the scene, and ultimately for many of our spectators, this was the most memorable
moment in the play, in part because of the unexpected and metatheatrical nature
of using overhead projectors to create a scene within the larger world of the
performance itself.
THF: I am curious about Manual Cinema, their use of shadow puppetry,
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noteworthy that Manual Cinema has performed in Tehran, but does not credit any
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who, in his theorizing, calls for “higher forces” in art, for absurdity, for cruelty,
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of nature, and violence and feeling. Artaud was not alone in being moved and
impressed by theatre that was non-Western, and the feeling of something “new”
coming through those theatre forms.16
As I watched the use of shadow puppets, of non-Western music and a non-
Western setting in this production, written and directed by American scholars,
I worried that the production would consider Algeria as “strange” a space as
Shakespeare’s The Tempest did. But as the scene played out, this weariness lifted.
I ended up deeply loving and appreciating the shadow work that Barnette and her
cast created. I was particularly captivated that the projectors used were old-school
classroom projectors. These very projectors were originally used in classrooms
at KU, before they were largely replaced by more advanced technology, and are
similar to those that my teachers used in classrooms in the late 1990s. It worked
beautifully to remind the audience that this production was taking place in an
educational environment, and that the play was set in the early 1990s. The shadow
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thought of cultural appropriation was alleviated.
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114 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
Staging “Day 90”
JB: By far the challenge that weighed most heavily on me was that of staging
the “Day 90” scene without reenacting the trauma it represents. While blocking
Sycorax, we left this last scene of the second act untouched until our intimacy
choreographer, Chelsea Pace, arrived. She and I agreed that we wanted the men’s
gestures to stem from the repetitive movements sailors make in their work on the
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into actual touch between the sailors and Sycorax.
By this point in the process, our sound designer, Chelsea Pitts, had located
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thunder, followed by a layer of nonhuman growling. This altered song for “Day
90” was “Somos Sur,” by the French-Chilean artist Ana Tijoux, featuring Shadia
0DQVRXUD%ULWLVK3DOHVWLQLDQDUWLVWZKRKDVEHHQFDOOHG³WKH¿UVWODG\RI$UDELF
hip hop.”17 During the design preparation and rehearsal phases, I asked Pitts to
locate Arabic hip-hop music from the late 1980s and early 1990s, since I had
decided to locate the action of our production in Algiers, on the cusp of their
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provided for me to consider, although the song was cut, sped up, and layered
ZLWKWKXQGHU DQG JURZOLQJ ZKHQ ,¿UVWKHDUGLW,QGHHGWKH SURYHQDQFH RI WKH
WUDFNZDVQRWLQFOXGHGLQWKH¿OHV,UHFHLYHGDQGWKXV,ZURQJO\DVVXPHGWKDW
the song belonged to the larger group of early Arabic hip-hop I had requested.
Instead, this is a 2014 track with mostly Spanish lyrics—in “Somos Sur,” Tijoux
embraces her indigenous roots and calls upon the “south” writ large, including
“the plight of all oppressed and indigenous peoples across the planet, regardless
of their coordinates.”18 Ironically, in its distorted form, this anthem of resistance
EHFDPHWKHEDFNGURSIRUWKHFXOPLQDWLRQRI6\FRUD[¶VVX൵HULQJRQWKHVKLSDQG
the music to which we choreographed the sexual assault of “Day 90.”19
After working with the ensemble—including those not in this particular
scene—to establish boundaries of comfort and bodily autonomy, Pace and I
EHJDQWRFKRUHRJUDSKWKLVVFHQHLQHDUQHVWZLWKWKH¿YHVDLORUV6\FRUD[DQGKHU
guardian sprite Ariel. Pace wove together ship-based movement (like pulling rope
from a mast), basic grappling moves with audible grunts, and heavy breathing
ZLWKFORVLQJWKHGLVWDQFHEHWZHHQWKHPHQDQG*UL൶QSOD\LQJ6\FRUD[ZKRP
the actor playing Ariel (Stella Garibaldi) tried fruitlessly to protect. The four
DFWRUVSOD\LQJVDLORUVIRUPHGDFLUFOHDURXQG*UL൶QDQGDVWKH\SHUIRUPHGURSH
pulling movements, Sycorax’s arms began to rise, as though they had attached
her to the ropes and she was now part of the ship itself. With her arms raised
to shoulder height, the men took turns slowly walking under her arms, bending
backward so that their chest would not touch her skin, in a grotesque version of
the limbo dance. By the time four of them had gone under her arms, Sycorax
Fall 2019 115
was breathing heavily, her gaze cast downward, her arms still raised, but slowly
coming down. At this point, the growling sound began to be more audible as a
layer in the hip-hop track, and the sailors who had performed the grotesque limbo,
facing upstage, worked together to push the remaining soldier toward Sycorax.
This last soldier was John Stone, who had been established earlier in the play as
a newcomer to sailing and a recipient of the other men’s bullying. Chris Pendry,
the actor playing this role, was taller than the other men, so when he took his pass
under Sycorax’s arms, he had to contort his body more obviously than the others.
Pace and I instructed him to slow his passage down, keeping his eye contact on
the arm as he moved under it, while the other men watched him pass.
As he reached the other side of her arm and turned his gaze back toward
*UL൶QDV6\FRUD[DQGGRZQVWDJHWKHVDLORUVRQFHDJDLQIRUPHGDFLUFOHDURXQG
*UL൶QZLWK*DULEDOGL$ULHOEHKLQGKHUDQGEHJDQKRLVWLQJURSHPRYHPHQWV
SXOOLQJWKHURSHGRZQLQXQLVRQ:LWKHDFKSXOOWKH\PDGH*UL൶Q¶VDUPVZRXOG
move toward her sides, while Garibaldi’s arms moved upward, queued by the
PHQ¶V URSH SXOOV 2QFH*DULEDOGL¶VDUPV ZHUH XSZDUG DQG*UL൶Q¶VDUPV ZHUH
GRZQKHUKHDGKDQJLQJGHÀDWHGWKHPHQEHJDQWRXVHVXUIDFHOHYHOWRXFKRQWKHLU
RZQERGLHVDVWKH\PRYHGXSVWDJHRI*DULEDOGLDQG*UL൶QLQWRDOLQHDJDLQVWWKH
upstage wall. As they stood together upstage, Garibaldi turned her gaze toward
WKHPKHUEDFNQRZWR*UL൶Q¶VEDFNDQGWKHPHQEHJDQWRXVHVNLQOHYHOFRQWDFW
touch on each other, avoiding overtly sexual movements, but keeping the gestures
¿UPDQGLQWHQVHDVWKH\NHSWWKHLUJD]HRQ*UL൶Q
)LJ7KHVDLORUVVXUURXQG6\FRUD[$O\VKD*UL൶QZLWK$ULHO6WHOOD*DULEDOGLEHKLQG
her, with raised arms. Clare (Becky Phelps) watches from upstage. Lighting design by
.D\OHLJK6KD൵HUSKRWRE\/XNH-RUGDQ
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116 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
7KH¿QDOSDUWRIWKLVLQWLPDF\FKRUHRJUDSK\ZDVSHUKDSVWKHPRVWGLVWXUELQJ
of all to everyone involved in the production, although certainly the intensity
of the movement had continued to build up until this moment: the men began
walking toward the audience after groping each other’s legs and arms, with
unnaturally heavy breathing.20 Garibaldi (Ariel) attempted to stop them, but they
ZDONHGULJKWSDVWKHUDQG*UL൶QDQGDOOWKHZD\WRWKHYHU\HGJHRIWKHVWDJH
Crucially their gaze was not on any spectator but nor was it not—they looked
just above spectators’ heads, continuing to breathe with unusual intensity, before
WDNLQJRQHODVWORRNXSVWDJHDW*UL൶QDQGWKHQVWLOOEUHDWKLQJKHDYLO\ZDONHG
RXWVLQJOH¿OHWKURXJKWKHHQWUDQFHWKDWWKHDXGLHQFHXVHGWR¿QGWKHLUVHDWVDWWKH
start of the play.
THF: It was at this point in the play that I texted the family member I
mentioned earlier and said: “You could have come.” The family member I did
come with talked to me during intermission about how the trigger warning
presented both online and in person before the show had scared her and made
her physically prepare to have to witness the graphic staging of a brutal rape. But
when the scene came, we found that while it was emotional and intense, it didn’t
hurt to watch. It wasn’t traumatizing. We were both relieved and impressed. As
someone who thinks a lot about how many of us are survivors, and who has had
to argue with directors I’ve worked with about using trigger warnings and making
sure that shows are safe for survivors, I felt triumphant, even though I’d done
nothing myself. I felt: This is how you do it!
JB: After the sailors and Ariel leave the stage, Sycorax is alone, and she has
a short monologue before she “collapses, unconscious,” and the lights go out,
ending act 2. This is where we inserted an intermission.21 Downstairs in the green
room, at the top of that intermission, the actors who portrayed the sailors would
MRLQ*UL൶QDQGWKHDFWRUSOD\LQJ$ULHOLQDFLUFOHKROGLQJKDQGVVXUURXQGHGE\
the rest of the cast members in a larger circle. This would be the crucial work of
de-roling, inspired by Augusto Boal, where each “Day 90” participant would state
what they did as the character versus what they did as the actor.
AG: /LNH %DUQHWWH VWDJLQJ ³'D\ ´ ZDV WKH PRVW GL൶FXOW SDUW RI WKH
SURGXFWLRQIRUPHEXWIRUGL൵HUHQWUHDVRQV$VSUHYLRXVO\PHQWLRQHGWKHUHZDV
an ever-present cloud of cultural and historical violence that followed me during
WKLVSURGXFWLRQ0RUHRYHUWKHLURQ\EHWZHHQWKHSHUFHLYHGWKHDWULFDODUWL¿FLDOLW\
and the perceived authenticity of personal and cultural memory made this aspect
disillusioning. At times, it infuriated me. To begin, I struggled with the intentional
choice to not name truth to power—referencing the scene as “Day 90” as opposed
to acknowledging the scene for what it was: rape. I suspect that the misnomer
LPSDFWHGP\H[SHULHQFHRIWKHVFHQH,QRXU¿UVWUHKHDUVDORIWKHVFHQHDFWRUV
were joking and laughing as is what should be expected in any production. To
be clear, this same camaraderie made the production enjoyable and added to
Fall 2019 117
the trust and transparency the cast developed. I wonder, however, if part of the
reason I never felt the energy shift when we rehearsed the scene (which is not
to say that it did not for others) was because our language did not require us to
treat it with seriousness. As an actor, it was surreal to be aware that this was a
rape and yet be surrounded by beautiful movements and up-tempo music. I am
cautious not to undermine any survivor’s experience of intimate violence and
their required boundaries. However, I am also fully aware that each survivor’s
H[SHULHQFHLVGL൵HUHQWDQGHDFKUHTXLUHVGL൵HUHQWIRUPVRIDFNQRZOHGJHPHQWDQG
care on their path to healing. That said, I wondered how an actor in my situation
or an audience member who may have trauma marked by silence, secrecy, denial,
DQGDODFNRIMXVWLFHPD\KDYHH[SHULHQFHG³'D\´GL൵HUHQWO\²LIWKHDWWHPSWV
to stage violence with sensitivity for some audience members may have been
LQVHQVLWLYHWRRWKHUYLHZHUVRUFUHDWRUVLQYROYHG",WLVLPSRVVLEOHWRWUXO\D൶UP
the trauma of another, as someone cannot return to the exact site, time, and
place of an event to witness someone else’s trauma. However, as Cathy Caruth
H[SODLQVWKHUHVWUXFWXULQJRIDWUDXPDWLFRUYLROHQWPHPRU\LQWRDQDUUDWLYHR൵HUV
a “transmissible truth” even if reported events are factually false. Part of the
power of art in confronting trauma, then, is its ability to recapture the ephemeral
moment, make it comprehensible, and allow another to bear witness, which in
LWVHOIR൵HUVD URXWH WR KHDOLQJ22 How does symbolic representation of intimate
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do we stage violence that challenges the cultural acceptance of violence when
violence is already so common place? I remain uncertain.
(YHQRXUDWWHPSWVWRGHUROHRIWHQIHOOÀDW2QWKHRQH KDQGLQWKHKXVWOH
and bustle of costume changes, de-roling became just another routine. On the
other hand, even in the midst of a chaotic backstage with nearly twenty actors,
there was something special about taking a moment to comfort and encourage one
another and, sometimes, even laugh. Cast members often took the opportunity to
H[SUHVVVLQFHUHD൵HFWLRQIRURQHDQRWKHU,EHOLHYHWKHURXWLQHRIFKHFNLQJLQRQ
one another fostered a sense of trust more so than the idea behind separating the
character from the person.
In other words, hearing my cast mates say they were not their character was
QRWDVH൵HFWLYHDVVHHLQJWKHPVWUXJJOHZLWKWKHLUFKDUDFWHU)RUH[DPSOH,ORDWKHG
the actors who played the sailors in the early rehearsals. I especially disliked one
who poked and leered at Sycorax with equal amounts of curiosity and disgust.
Although I gave my permission for the actor to touch me, because it was in the
realm of the play and the character, I was uncomfortable with the interaction and
developed an aversion to the actor because of it. My feelings only changed during
the staging of a scene where the character backhands Sycorax after she bites him.
When the time came for the actor to slap Sycorax, the actor was visibly emotional.
With my body turned away from him, I heard him prep himself, “I’m just an actor.
[34.201.171.104] Project MUSE (2024-10-22 15:23 GMT)
118 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
I’m just playing a part.” For him, there was no separation between the character
and the actor. His inability to draw the distinction, though, allowed me to separate
the actor from the character which shifted my perception of the person. I am
uncertain what this means for staging violence and trauma on a larger scale, but
from my experience, it was clear that choreography itself was not as important for
fostering an environment of consent and mutual respect as the act of witnessing
actors separating themselves from their characters. We were prepared to do some
of this work thanks to our guest Bryan Mercer, whose exercises fostered a degree
of emotional awareness and provided a language to talk about our feelings. I
remember being emotionally raw after many rehearsals, but I believe this may
have been necessary in order not only to understand levels of intimacy but also to
confront our individual experiences with the support of our ensemble.
Conclusion
JB: We began this essay with a provocation: that it is possible to stage cruelty
using consent-based staging techniques. Months after Sycorax closed, however, I
learned that I had omitted a crucial person from those I invited to choose whether,
when, and how to participate in a play like this—I forgot to include myself in the
PL[7UXO\DV$UWDXGQRWHV³$µWKHDWUHRIFUXHOW\¶PHDQVWKHDWUHWKDWLVGL൶FXOW
DQGFUXHOIRUP\VHOI¿UVWRIDOO´23 While I believe that our production of Sycorax
achieved my vision of staging cruelty through consent, I now recognize that in
order to do so, I chose to suppress my own traumatic triggers and memories
DWWDFKHGWRVH[XDODVVDXOW,QUHWURVSHFW,DJUHHZLWK*UL൶QWKDWZHPD\KDYH
done a disservice to survivors’ experiences by refusing to call the action in “Day
´ E\ LWV QDPH *LYHQ WKH ¿FWLRQDO KLVWRU\ RI 6\FRUD[ DV D SRZHUIXO$IULFDQ
woman whose story is told by white colonists, we must beware of any silencing
of her voice—instead, we should seek to amplify it. As the techniques of intimacy
FKRUHRJUDSK\DQGFRQVHQWEDVHGUHKHDUVDOVFRQWLQXHWRSUROLIHUDWHDQGDUHUH¿QHG
by practitioners, I hope we will not lose sight of the urgency of speaking truth to
power. For all of us involved in staging tragedies and performances of trauma,
DWWHQWLRQPXVWEHSDLGWRWKHVXUYLYRUVRIFUXHOW\ERWKRQDQGR൵VWDJH
THF: Artaud’s above-quoted words recall a familiar thought-path down
which artists and creators travel. I grew up believing that there was no art or
FUHDWLRQZLWKRXWSHUVRQDOVX൵HULQJ,WLVQRWXQNQRZQZLWKLQWKHDWUHFODVVURRPV
for teachers to celebrate the moment a student breaks down in tears. I want to
challenge this celebration of cruelty as a means of release or true human reality.
$V*UL൶QQRWHG HDUOLHUZHOLYHLQ D YLROHQFHVDWXUDWHG FXOWXUH 6KH ZRQGHUHG
KRZWKH³'D\´VFHQHZRXOGLQÀXHQFHWKHDXGLHQFH:RXOGLWIDLOWRFDSWXUH
WKH UHDOLW\ RI WKH YLROHQFH DQG OHDYH SHRSOH IHHOLQJ DV WKRXJK WKHLU VX൵HULQJ
wasn’t done justice to? I cannot speak for survivors, but I can speak for myself
and my (survivor) family member who accompanied me, and we both felt that
Fall 2019 119
the metaphor of violence was more powerful and less traumatizing than a more
realistic portrayal could ever be. I think about how abstract art allows people
to be deeply moved and feel connected, without the shock and trauma of the
photograph or realism.
I position our fascination with realistic portrayals of violence, as well as with
WKHPHULWVRIVX൵HULQJZLWKLQDWR[LFFXOWXUHWKDW,GRQRW¿QGKDVEURXJKWXVDVD
community to a stronger place. Artaud’s call for cruelty and insistence that society
was no longer civilized in the West was deeply part of the culture within which he
existed.24,VHHNWR¿QGRWKHUZD\VWRFRQQHFWWRWKHPDJLFWKDWLVKXPDQVWUHQJWK
resilience, and recovery.
Trigger warnings can help audiences choose if they want to engage in
material or not, but, as can be seen in my narrative, they can also prevent people
from attending shows if they do not include a description of the level of violence.
In a violence-saturated culture, I question the assumption that it is enough to warn
people about content and then be as violent as possible. Barnette and her team
chose to err on the side of caution and make sure that their trigger warning was
inclusive of all possible triggers. But I wished that it had included the phrase there
will be no graphic depictions of violence. This simple sentence would inform
spectators about the safety and sensitivity surrounding the production’s approach
to staging violence.
:KLOH , IHOW WKDW WKH VWDJLQJ RI WKH YLROHQFH ZDV GHHSO\ H൵HFWLYH DQG QRW
retraumatizing to the audience, the overall story, which centered a black woman
who was created by a white man and reimagined by a white woman, did not
manage to decode the master’s text. As the actor Melisa Pereyra recently argued
in an impassioned essay for HowlRound, it is doubly traumatizing for women of
FRORUWREHUHSHDWHGO\SRVLWLRQHGZLWKLQWKHDWUHDVWKHHPERGLPHQWRIVX൵HULQJ
both physical and mental, “for the sake of storytelling.”25 Sycorax’s story, through
Todd’s imagination, may start with her rising to a position of power and prominence
and getting to experience love and joy, but ultimately the action of Sycorax—the
YHU\FOLPD[RIWKHSORW²LVHQWLUHO\UHODWHGWRKHUVX൵HULQJ6KDNHVSHDUHFUHDWHG
a villainous witch, and while Todd reclaimed Sycorax as a survivor of vicious
misogyny, she nevertheless still positions Sycorax as a disempowered victim,
violated and ripped from her home and love. Pereyra contends: “We cannot keep
stepping into problematic stories that do not properly address issues of race,
ethnicity, or gender without someone on the other side of the table who’s aware
RIWKHSRVVLEOHH൵HFWVWKHVHVWRULHVZLOOKDYHRQRXUERGLHV´$IWHUWKHSOD\,ZDV
left wondering what the cost of this production would be on the actors and the rest
of the creative team.
AG: The act of witnessing staged violence evoked traumatic lived memories
for some involved in the production. For others, it conjured emotional memories
QRWGLUHFWO\UHODWHGWRWKHLUOLYHGH[SHULHQFHVEXWVLJQL¿FDQWO\WLHGWRWKHLUVRFLDO
[34.201.171.104] Project MUSE (2024-10-22 15:23 GMT)
120 Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism
LGHQWLW\ 7KHVH GL൵HUHQFHV VXJJHVW EURDGHU SROLWLFDO DQG VRFLDO LPSOLFDWLRQV
which carry weight for theatre-makers seeking intellectual insight and community
building. To consider the possibility of staging intimate violence in a way that
challenged the widespread acceptance of violence, it may have served us better
WR¿UVWDFFHSWWKDWYLROHQFHis our reality. In receiving that fact, we might have
been compelled to understand the various manifestations of violence related to
SycoraxDVDWH[WDQGFXOWXUDO¿JXUHDVZHOODVWKHYLROHQFHWKDWPD\WDNHSODFH
through and in relation to theatre. As artists, we bore the brunt of the cruelty. If we
had already positioned ourselves for self-harm, perhaps our practice could have
been reframed to aid in the emotional healing and intellectual clarity of victims
of institutional and gendered violence. I wonder how staging intimate violence
PD\KDYHORRNHGGL൵HUHQWO\LIZHKDGDSSURDFKHGWKHSURGXFWLRQDVDQH[HUFLVH
RIKHDOLQJ+RZPLJKWWKHSURGXFWLRQKDYHORRNHGGL൵HUHQWO\LIZHIUDPHGRXU
LQTXLU\DVDQH[DPLQDWLRQRIZRPHQ¶VGL൵HUHQWH[SHULHQFHVDFURVVVSDFHWLPH
and culture?
Beyond providing representations of identity, theatre provides opportunities
to explore individual biases, prejudices, and intellectual gaps. This is especially
true for those involved in producing and staging theatre, and ultimately this is of
what Sycorax’s successes and failures remind us. KU’s production initially aimed
to consider the possibility of staging intimate violence without self-perpetuation.
We discovered this is totally possible. Despite our success, we did not, however,
overcome our largest obstacles—staging a culture not our own, protecting
ourselves as artists from triggering material, and being perceptively aware of
our audiences’ needs. In many ways, violence is central to these shortcomings,
DQGLWVHHPVWKDWZHPLVVHGRSSRUWXQLWLHVWRHQJDJHKRZGL൵HUHQFHVLQLGHQWLW\
culture, and lived experiences shape our performance and reception of staged
YLROHQFH3HUKDSVRXUSURGXFWLRQPD\ KDYHEHHQPRUH H൵HFWLYHLIZH KDG¿UVW
LGHQWL¿HGWKHPXOWLSOHDQGYDULHGH[SUHVVLRQVRIYLROHQFHLQDQGDURXQGSycorax.
In so doing, we would have been better positioned to stage violence and cruelty
through a more complete practice of nurture and reconciliation—one that very
clearly countered representations and philosophies of violence at large. With such
clarity, we may have avoided simplifying experiences of violence and limiting the
healing potential of theatre.
Notes
1. Abena P. A. Busia. “Silencing Sycorax: On African Colonial Discourse and the Unvoiced
Female.” Cultural Critique 14 (1989): 82. doi:10.2307/1354293.
2. Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and its Double: Essays (New York: Grove Press, 1958), 82–83.
7KH³DEVHQWSUHVHQFH´RI6\FRUD[KDVEHHQWKHVXEMHFWRIPDQ\WKHDWULFDO¿OPDQG¿FWLRQ
adaptations as well as scholarly interpretations—from those who suggest that she is an iconic witch on
par with Medea and Circe (Purkiss) to others who have compared her to Richard III (Tóth).
Fall 2019 121
4. Susan Gayle Todd, “MacBird! A History and Feminist Critique of Barbara Garson’s Radical
Play” (PhD diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2010).
5. Azure Osborne-Lee, “Not Here for the Bard: Candor from a Shakespeare Detractor,”
HowlRound, October 20, 2014, howlround.com/not-here-bard.
6. Sycorax production page, KU Theatre, kutheatre.com/Sycorax.
7. Busia, “Silencing Sycorax,” 84.
8. Sycorax production page.
9. Catherine Trautwein. “Inside the Kavanaugh Hearings: An Oral History,” Frontline, May 21,
2019, ZZZSEVRUJZJEKIURQWOLQHDUWLFOHVXSUHPHFRXUWNDYDQDXJKFROOLQVÀDNHKHLWNDPSEODVH\
ford.
10. For an overview of how scholars have analyzed the “blue-eyed hag” reference to Sycorax
in The Tempest, see Claire R. Waters, “The Tempest’s Sycorax as ‘Blew Eye’d Hag’: A Note Toward a
Reassessment,” Notes and Queries 56, no. 4 (2009): 604–5, doi:10.1093/notesj/gjp217. For a popular
culture assessment of this reference, see Rand Einfeldt, “Sycorax: ‘She’s a Witch!’” Shakesfeare
(blog), February 8, 2014, shakesfeare.blogspot.com/2014/02/sycorax-shes-witch.html.
11. Susan Gayle Todd. Sycorax, Austin, unpublished play, 20.
12. Lisa Wade. “Learning from ‘Female Genital Mutilation’: Lessons from 30 Years of Academic
Discourse.” Ethnicities 12, no. 1 (2012): 26-49.
13. Dramaturgy regarding the practice of clitoridectomy in Northern Africa emerged after initial
designs were submitted—this is why these characters began as Muslim but were later changed to
&KULVWLDQ²WRUHÀHFWWKLVUHVHDUFK
14. For more on Manual Cinema, see manualcinema.com.
15. The use of past tense here is intentional, to signal a choice made in this particular production,
rather than what was designated by the playwright. When referring to the script, we use present tense;
when referring to our production, we use past tense.
16. Scholars frequently credit Artaud with being the father of the avant-garde in the West, but
KLVIDVFLQDWLRQZLWK(DVWHUQDUWLQÀXHQFHG:HVWHUQDYDQWJDUGHSUDFWLFHRIWHQZLWKRXWFLWDWLRQ)RUD
summary of writings on Orientalism in Artaud’s work, see Cobina Gillitt, “A Legacy of Theatricality:
Antonin Artaud’s Encounter with Balinese Gamelan,” in Performing Indonesia (2016), edited by
Sumarsam and Andy McGraw, New Series, vol. 5, asia.si.edu/essays/article-gillitt. For more about
other Western artists who have taken similar approaches, see Rustom Bharucha, “A Collision of
Cultures: Some Western Interpretations of the Indian Theatre,” Asian Theatre Journal 1, no. 1 (Spring
1984): 1-20. doi:10.2307/1124363.
17. Jon Donnison, “British Palestinian Rapper Conducts a ‘Musical Intifada,’” BBC News,
September 7, 2010, www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-11215298.
18. Sara Skolnick. “Video: Ana Tijoux’s ‘Somos Sur’ ft. Shadia Mansour [CHI],” Remezcla,
June 16, 2014, remezcla.com/music/video-ana-tijouxs-somos-sur-ft-shadia-mansour-chi.
19. Needless to say, if we had known these dramaturgical details about the song during
UHKHDUVDOVLWOLNHO\ZRXOGKDYHFKDQJHGWKHZD\WKDW*UL൶QDQGWKHRWKHUDFWRUVSURFHVVHGWKHWUDXPD
related to enacting the “Day 90” scene.
20. For all intimacy scenes, but especially this last portion of the “Day 90” scene, we followed
the methods of Theatrical Intimacy Education as outlined by Pace for physical interactions, including
the “groping” portion of the movement. Actors established what zones of their body were acceptable
to touch before each rehearsal. See Chelsea Pace, Staging Sex: Best Practices, Tools, and Techniques
for Theatrical Intimacy. London: Routledge, 2020.
21. Todd, Sycorax, 45.
22. Cathy Caruth, from the introduction to part 2, “Recapturing the Past,” in Trauma:
Explorations in Memory, edited by Cathy Caruth (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1995),
154.
23. Artaud, The Theatre and its Double, 79.
24. Here, Hearn-Feldman references Artaud’s idea that instead of being civilized, we have a
“syphillization,” or a shared and fatal sickness.
0HOLVD3HUH\D³:H+DYH6X൵HUHG(QRXJK7KH&RVWRI3HUIRUPLQJ7UDXPDIRU:RPHQRI
Color,” HowlRound6HSWHPEHUKRZOURXQGFRPZHKDYHVX൵HUHGHQRXJK
