Queering The Stage

This thesis discusses three theatrical works by the celebrated New York lesbiandrama troupe Split Britches, namely Lesbians Who Kill, Belle Reprieve and Lust andComfort. Through examining three predominant theatrical devices employed in theabove plays, that is, language play, cross-dressing and representation of sexuality, thisthesis problematises the existing gender norms and disrupts the presumably legitimateconsistency and continuity among sex, gender, sexuality and sexual practices. Thediscussion of the subversive and deconstructive play with language and discourse inLesbians Who Kill questions the constructed gender “reality” within the mainstreamsociety; the examination of the effects of cross-dressing in Belle Reprieve exposes thecrisis of the culturally constructed categories of “man” and “woman”, as well as thesystem of gender categorisation itself; whereas the exploration of how sexuality isqueerly represented in Lust and Comfort shows that sex, gender and sexuality are notfixed but changeable, and the power relations within sexuality is fluid rather thanstatic. With the detailed analysis of these theatrical texts, this thesis reaches theconclusion that Split Britches’ performances have opened up a queer space ofpossibilities and multiplicities in which the taboo of lesbian identity is thereforebroken and the heteronormativity that scapegoats lesbianism challenged. By focusingon this lesbian drama troupe which is scarcely studied in Chinese academia, this thesisincorporates new ideas and findings in lesbian feminism and queer studies into the discussion of the radical, avant-garde and postmodern works in the off-andoff-off-Broadway theatre.