Living in an age when female theatre makers and playwrights are profuse, prolific and form an integral part of the community, it’s fascinating to revisit a time when women had to shout very loudly to be heard in the testosterone-filled, male-dominated medium of theatre. This concise multi-media exhibition covers a 23-year period and has been primarily drawn from the more expansive Unfinished Histories project by Jessica Higgs and Susan Croft, which maps the history of Britain’s alternative theatre scene.
Radical Rediscovery, curated by Dr Susan Croft, associate artist at London Performance Studios, has drawn together a compelling narrative of feminist theatre from 1969, the year before the Women’s Liberation Movement was founded, until the early 90s. Eight neatly organised vitrines burst with attitude, anger and collective resistance, a kind of prototype, gendered punk that found expression, voice, and visibility in staged performances from writers, directors, collectives, and experimental companies.
Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven by writer and filmmaker Jane Arden demand to be heard and seen, and the ancient, flickering TV sets allow you to do just this with headphones. In this exhibition, theatre proper on a stage with performers intersects with situational performance that takes place in the wider world, such as when the Miss World Contest was stormed by furious women taking a stance against its repressive stereotypes. The bewildered compere, Bob Hope, was heckled as protestors hurled stink bombs and flour. Three years later, the first Women’s Theatre Festival was held in 1973 at the Almost Free Theatre in Soho to promote change, demand funding and challenge prejudice.
Laid out clearly and cohesively, Radical Rediscovery is organised chronologically and thematically. A plethora of flyers, programmes, scripts, and posters allow viewers to travel through a great swath of political movements and social issues, all reflected in female theatre. Strands include Rediscovering Women’s History, which focuses on the canon’s feminist revisions, then radical, now increasingly common. The Female Trouble: Female Rebels section includes work and memorabilia from Sadista Sisters, who separated from Stephen Berkoff’s London Theatre Group and Cunning Stunts, who combined clowning and the grotesque.
In The Demand for Diversity: Global Majority Theatre, the foundations of Black and Asian Theatre are established with The Theatre of Black Women in the early 1980s out of Rose Bruford College’s radical community theatre arts course. In the Demand for Inclusion: Disability and Lesbian Visibility area, we learn women played a progressively important role in Graeae, the first disabled theatre company founded in 1981. Any Woman Can was the first lesbian play by Gay Sweatshop in 1976, while the arrival of Julie Parker as Artistic Director at the Drill Hall and Kate Crutchley as Theatre Programmer at the Oval Space were keen promoters of LGBTQ+ work.
The political landscape both fed and fuelled feminist theatre makers. While there was campaigning within the theatre industry for greater visibility, status, and representation of women, the wider world witnessed the collective power of feminist theatre, which took to the streets with the Socialist Workers Party, Greenham Common’s campaign for nuclear disarmament and the 1980s campaigns against pit closures.
The design and graphics on show exhibit their age, rage, and sincerity with a striking row of posters on one wall. Addressing issues of body shape, physical stereotypes, reproductive rights, pornography, sexuality, and violence against women, it’s fascinating to see how far women have come and what’s been absorbed into the mainstream. Conversely, it’s sobering to reflect on what persists today and how women’s fight for equality and freedom is far from over: Afghanistan. Wade versus Roe. Unequal Pay. Disparity in the Legal System. The list remains long, and there is still much for female playwrights to fight for.
It’s incredible that in the 1960s, a handful of belligerent ‘angry young men’ commanded such status and space in the theatre landscape, yet this much larger, arguably more significant body of angry young women fought so hard to be heard and taken seriously. This exhibition allows younger generations to connect with some pioneers of the British feminist theatre movement and spot the early work of some contemporary writers and dramatists, including Bernadine Evaristo, Caryl Churchill and Deborah Levy. This valuable collection of material is sure to inspire, enthral and educate, and there’s a strong argument for this to be a permanent exhibition, not just a passing one.
Exhibition events include a Radical Rediscovery Symposium on 30 November that will gather female theatre makers from across generations to share histories, conversations, and performance.
Radical Rediscovery: Feminist Theatre in Britain 1969 – 1992 runs until 1 December 2024
