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The Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf: Simulacral Performance and the Deconstruction of Orientalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2013

Steve Luber
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Extract

In the Theatre of a Two-Headed Calf's production of Drum of the Waves of Horikawa, Jess Barbagallo plays the curiously named Eesogay Yougayman, bedecked in a flowing black coat, a wig fit for Ziggy Stardust, and a badgerlike streak of black makeup across her face. The live music falls somewhere between the rhythmic, repetitive structures of kabuki and the more chaotic yet just as percussive style of punk rock, allowing Yougayman (implied to be a traditionally male character) to strut and plunge with violent swagger. She stalks the stage and falls to her knees before the object of her affection, Otane, played by Heidi Shreck, who wears a blood-red kimono and combat boots. Yougayman stares lasciviously into the audience, describing how she abandoned her studies as a samurai to see Otane: “My sickness was a ruse and yet not entirely so, for I was suffering from the malady called love. And you were the cause, Otane!” An exaggerated, almost parodic struggle ensues, in which Otane is caught by Yougayman, whose tongue wags in rhapsodic anticipation of the sexual conquest she is about to force upon Otane as the music and guttural “huhs” from the musicians heighten to a rough, almost unbearable climax.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 87 - 106
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 2013

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References

Endnotes

1. Witkiewicz, Stanisław, “A Few Words about the Role of the Actor in the Theatre of Pure Form,” in Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz: Seven Plays, trans. and ed. Gerould, Daniel (New York: Martin E. Segal Theatre Center Publications, 2004), 383–8, at 388Google Scholar.

2. The departure from identity or community politics further separates 2HC from other New York–based contemporaries, such as the Civilians, International WOW, Young Jean Lee, or Troika Ranch. Many experimental companies are working with simulacral performance, such as the patron saint The Wooster Group and Radiohole, The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, and Temporary Distortion; but 2HC has thus far been the company saddled with the responsibility for interculturalism.

3. Baudrillard, Jean, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Glaser, Sheila Faria (1982; reprint, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 2, 6Google Scholar; Baudrillard's italics.

4. Harding, James M. and Rouse, John, eds., Not the Other Avant-Garde: The Transnational Foundations of Avant-Garde Performance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Said, Edward, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1978), 3Google Scholar.

6. Baudrillard, 7.

7. Trilling, Lionel, Sincerity and Authenticity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 99–100; my italicsGoogle Scholar.

8. See Poggioli, Renato, The Theory of the Avant-Garde, trans. Fitzgerald, Gerald (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968)Google Scholar; Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde, trans. Shaw, Michael (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 51Google Scholar.

9. See Jochen Schulte-Sasse's “Foreword: Theory of Modernism versus Theory of the Avant-Garde” in Bürger, vii–xlvii, at xiii.

10. Bürger, 87.

11. Tillis, Steve, “East, West, and World Theatre,” Asian Theatre Journal 20.1 (2003): 71–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar. From here, since I am in agreement with Tillis, I self-consciously use terms such as East and West for the practical purposes of common vocabulary, particularly critical vocabulary, and for an understanding that East and West in simulacral performances follow the lines of postmodern pastiche.

12. Lei, Daphne P., “Interruption, Intervention, Interculturalism: Robert Wilson's HIT Productions in Taiwan,” Theatre Journal 63.4 (2011): 571–86, at 571CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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14. Ibid., 586–7.

15. Ibid., 574; Lei's italics.

16. Baudrillard, 2.

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18. David Cote, “Drum of the Waves of Horikawa,” Time Out New York, 1–7 November 2007; Robin Reed, “Drum of the Waves of Horikawa,” nytheatre.com, 27 October 2007; Helen Shaw, “A ‘Major’ Achievement,” New York Sun, 17 January 2006; Andrea Stevens, “Shaw's Skewers, Kabuki-Style,” New York Times, 18 January 2006; Daniel Mufson, “All Thumbs: Henry Fielding's Tom Thumb, Fried and with Lots of Butter,” Village Voice, 18 May 2004; Steve Luber, “My Kingdom for a Potato!” OffOffOnline.com, 13 May 2004; Rachel Saltz, “Adultery, Blood, Guts and Samurai,” New York Times, 1 November 2007.

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20. George Hunka, “Shaw, Kabuki, Eva Peron: The Usual Mix,” New York Times, 25 June 2006.

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29. Ibid., 149–50; emphasis added.

30. The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre, ed. Brandon, James R. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 148Google Scholar.

31. Pronko, 241, 243.

32. Helen Shaw, “Pretty in Punk,” Time Out New York, 25–31 October 2007.

33. Reed; Saltz.

34. See Stevens.

35. Robert Simonson, “Major Barbara,” Time Out New York, 19–25 January 2006.

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39. Bürger, 11.

40. Reed.

41. McNeil, Legs and McCain, Gillian, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (New York: Penguin Books, 1997), 74Google Scholar.

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