Many thanks to Lizbeth Goodman for her comments and support.

1. See Wittig, Monique, ‘The Point of View: Universal or Particular’, Feminist Issues, Fall 1983, p. 63–9Google Scholar.

2. During the writing and rehearsals of two of my plays – Dreamhouse (April-May 1991) and Dance of Guns (April-May 1992), commissioned by Aspect Theatre Company and Broadsword respectively – I was put under tremendous pressure to erase any overtly lesbian content in favour of ‘friendship between women’, this being their ‘women's project’! This despite initial assurances that I would be free to explore lesbianism in the play. As a consequence, I had to subtext most of the lesbian elements and spend a lot of precious time and energy defending the ones that refused this. What astonished me in both cases was the absolute horror heterosexual actresses have of acting out lesbian scenes. A mere kiss causing such trepidation! It is ironic that I received a lot more support in the lesbian aspects of the play from the men than from the women of both companies.

3. Moi, Toril, Sexual/Textual Politics (Routledge, 1985), p. 86Google Scholar.

4. Zimmerman, Bonnie, ‘What Has Never Been: an Overview of Lesbian Feminist Criticism’, Feminist Studies, VII, No. 3 (Fall 1981), p. 455Google Scholar.

5. I am aware that, according to this guideline, most of my and other lesbian playwrights' work is excluded, since lesbianism is not always what is foregrounded in many lesbian writers' work. Sarah Daniels is a prime example, having so far produced only one lesbian play. From my own theatre work, I only regard Ithaka and Critical Moments as lesbian. Both Dance of Guns and Dreamhouse include lesbian characters, but they are part of a larger whole rather than the centre of a world of their own, while Johnny Is Dead and Dangerous Oasis focus on heterosexual characters. However, the perspective remains lesbian, and in that sense they could be argued to be lesbian theatre. Whether that should be so or not is beyond the scope of this essay. I would like to point out, though, that three of my four non-lesbian plays were commissioned by heterosexual companies, and the fourth was written as part of an MA course. I can't help wondering how much the whole affair has to do with power and basic economics!

6. Wittig, Monique, ‘One Is Not Born a Woman’, Feminist Issues, Winter 1981, p. 49Google Scholar.

7. Ellenberger, Harriet, ‘The Dream Is the Bridge: in Search of Lesbian Theatre’, Trivia, No. 5 (Fall 1984), p. 25Google Scholar.

8. Ibid., p.24.

9. Rapi, Nina, Ithaka, in Seven Plays by Women, ed. Robson, Cheryl (Aurora Metro, 1991)Google Scholar.

10. See Zimmerman, op. cit., p. 452.

11. Report to the writer by David Hunter, then Literary Manager of the Bush, 7 March 1990. Comments to the writer by Greek members of the audience, after the first staged reading at Riverside Studios, June 1989. Review of Seven Plays by Women, op. cit., in Everywoman Magazine, Sept. 1991, p. 23.

12. Zimmerman, op. cit., p. 470.

13. Ibid., p. 470

14. In Plays by Women, Vol. VI, ed. Remnant, Mary (Methuen 1987)Google Scholar.

15. In The Drama Revieiv, Spring 1989.

16. In Lesbian Plays, Vol. I, ed. Davis, Jill (Methuen 1987)Google Scholar.

17. Published in New Playscripts series (Methuen, 1986).

18. In a telephone interview with the writer, 4 Jan. 1990.

19. At the Link Theatre, London, 1 April 1992, as part of the Wordplay '92 Festival.

20. My mental casting fortunately corresponded with the heterosexual director, Ruth Ben-Tovim's, actual casting. This however was objected to by members of the commissioning company, also heterosexual, who felt that the casting was stereotypical of lesbians. They were finally persuaded that the power balance between the two characters cancelled out any rigid stereotypes, and the casting in fact reflected their dynamic. The play toured London in April-May 1992.

21. This was particularly ironic, since the Mother was acted by a heterosexual woman who insisted that her character couldn't possibly be lesbian, while the Messenger was performed by a dyke who counter-insisted that their relationship couldn't possibly be anything but sexual and very lesbian!

22. Quoted in Case, Sue-Ellen, ‘Towards a Butch/Femme Aesthetic’, in Making a Spectacle: Feminist Essays on Contemporary Womens' Theatre, ed. Hart, Lynda (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1989), p. 282–99Google Scholar. Case here refers to de Lauretis's Technologies of Gender (Bloomington: Indiana University Press), p. 298.

23. Sue-Ellen Case, ‘Towards a Butch/Femme Aesthetic’, p. 283.

24. Joan Riviere, ‘Womanliness as a Masquerade’, International journal of Psychoanalysis, X, p. 303–13, cited by Sue-Ellen Case, op. cit., p. 298.

25. Dolan, Jill, ‘Women's Theatre Program, ATA: Creating a Feminist Forum’, Women and Performance, I, No. 2 (Winter 1984) p. 12Google Scholar.

26. See ‘Theatre of Moments: Nina Rapi Interviews Split Britches’, Rouge, No. 6 (Spring 1991).

27. Davy, Kate, ‘Reading Past the Heterosexual Imperative: Dress Suits to Hire’, The Drama Review, Spring 1989, p. 161Google Scholar.

28. As Dolan, Jill has phrased it in ‘In Defence of the Discourse: Materialist Feminism, Postmodernism, Poststructuralism, and Theory’, The Drama Review, Autumn 1991, p. 69Google Scholar.

29. As was noted by Hampstead, Theatre in a report to the writer on Ithaka, 17 01 1990Google Scholar: ‘Our reader commended the piece as an interesting mixture of styles, written with genuine thoughtfulness.’

30. In a questionnaire sent out to lesbian playwrights by the author in January 1990, for an MA paper on lesbian theatre for Essex University.

31. Rich, Adrienne, Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence (Only Women Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

32. Lorde, Audrey, ‘Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power’, in Audrey Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (Trumansburg, New York: Crossing Press, 1984), p. 59Google Scholar.

33. For example, in Sartre's, In Camera (Penguin Books, 1989)Google Scholar, Ines, the lesbian, is desiring Estelle but she is not only not desired, but actually repelled, by spitting in the face (p. 212). In The Children's Hour, by Lillian Hellman, Martha Dobie, once she has accepted beyond any doubt that her feelings for her friend Karen Wright are sexual, (‘I never felt that way about anybody but you’), doesn't hang around to be spat at, metaphorically at least, but makes a final exit and appropriately kills herself – the ultimate in self-rejection due to unrequited desire. And the issue here is desire, not love or friendship, since she does have Karen's love and friendship. Finally, in Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box by Wedekind, Frank (London: John Calder, 1989)Google Scholar, Gescwitz, Countess, ‘the tragic heroine’ according to Wedekind, and ostensibly one of the first lesbians to appear on the western stage (in Leipzig, 1898)Google Scholar, is the ultimate in pathetic, masochistic adoration of a heterosexual woman who has nothing but contempt for her.

34. Harriet Ellenberger, op. cit., p. 53.

35. Kate Davy, op. cit.

36. Zeig, Zande, ‘The Actor as Activator: Deconstructing Gender Through Gesture’, Women and Performance, II, Part 2 (1985), p. 12–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. Davy, Kate, ‘Constructing the Spectator: Reception, Context and Address in Lesbian Performance’, Performing Arts journal, X, Part 2 (1986), p. 43–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Kate Davy, ‘Reading Past the Heterosexual Imperative’, p. 166.

39. Kate Davy, ‘Constructing the Spectator’, p. 47.

40. Monique Wittig, ‘The Point of View’, p. 65.

41. In questionnaire to lesbian playwrights, op. cit.