International Women Stage Directors

ANNE FLIOTSOS AND WENDY VIEROW (EDS), INTERNATIONAL WOMEN STAGE DIRECTORS (MICHIGAN: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS, 2013)This book celebrates the achievements of women stage directors, against the odds. Their talent and tenacity in a consistently male-dominated industry distinguish these inspiring theatre-makers. There is no escaping the pervading state of play in the twenty-first century: women directors across the world are underrepresented, underfunded and marginalised in mainstream theatre. Where women directors make their mark is in independent theatre, creating their own companies and as freelance artists, giving them a good deal of artistic freedom, socially and politically.In the Foreword by Roberta Levitow, we begin to consider the inevitable relationship between theatre, politics and conflict. The Introduction by Anne Fliotsos advises the reader that the twenty-four countries selected represent the range of geographic diversity, socio-economic situations, and cover different religions and cultures.The work is not exhaustive but it is authentic, with the practitioners living and/or working in their communities. Each chapter, organised alphabetically, shares a common structure addressing: Women's Rights: Historical Context, Early Women Directors, Working Climate in the Twenty-First Century and Profiles of Contemporary Directors. Fliotsos identifies the many ways in which gender has influenced their work. This is the common denominator throughout.Successive waves of feminism have washed over each of the places in which the directors have pursued their work: more often than not, they have been disrupted by social and political turmoil. These circumstances ranged from moderate to extreme, including the imposition of dictatorship, martial law, war, genocide, economic crises, communism, totalitarianism, revolution, tensions of modernity versus traditionalists versus fundamentalists. They are predominantly patriarchal societies which have commonly derailed both the feminist movement and often theatre itself. Thus Poland's fight for liberation is entangled with the struggle for women's equality, both restrained by communism and Catholicism. In more recent times, in Egypt, feminism has been linked to the struggle for independence where it 'distils the journey of Egyptian women theatre artists searching for their voice and mission in the public sphere' (109).Communism reveals some unexpected results for the status of women directors. For example, while Imperial China afforded women limited rights, now most have equal employment rights under communism. However the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution saw theatre companies and schools shut down, and women presented on stage as stereotypes. In Poland, the transition, after 1989, from communism to capitalism, saw the curtailment of the previously generous theatre sponsorship by the state. In Russia, feminism was seen as a capitalist fight, not theirs. Under such regimes, artists had to make political compromises or be cleverly subversive.Post-colonial countries also created tensions for female directors, where issues of race and gender were often intertwined. Under British colonial rule, much indigenous performance culture were shunned as uncivilised. Westerners wanted eastern theatre and vice versa.These interactions have created a particular performance aesthetic. In many circumstances, women directors were marginalised by both gender and race. Vinnette Carroll, in 1972, was the first African-American woman to direct on Broadway. She explains that: 'When I said I wanted to direct, I was told to take a third off the show's budget because I'm black, and a third offbecause I'm a woman' (306).Theatre is often a platform for political engagement, used as a tool for propaganda or subversion. Out of such upheaval, whether it is in communist transition or post-colonial otherness, there has arisen greater protection of women's rights; but the inequality has not disappeared. …