Split Britches

Lesbian Practice/Feminist Performance

Sue-Ellen Case

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136165665
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

The Split Britches theatre company have led the way in innovative and challenging lesbian performance for the last decade. Split Britches: Lesbian Practice/Feminist Performance is a long awaited celebration of the theatre and writing of Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw and Deborah Margolin, who make up this outstanding troupe.
This unique anthology comes complete with:
* seven of Split Britches' best loved performance texts
* a critical, historical introduction by Sue-Ellen Case
* programme notes to accompany each of the plays
* a range of stunning photographic illustrations
The publication of the Split Britches play texts, collected here for the first time, provides invaluable access to these celebrated performance pieces for both the student and contemporary arts audience.

UPWARDLY MOBILE HOME

DEB MARGOLIN, PEGGY SHAW,
LOIS WEAVER

Directed by Lois Weaver
Performed by Deb Margolin, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver
Choreography Stormy Brandenberger
Sets by Susan Young
Lights Joni Wong
Sound design by Janee Pipik

Originally produced in spring 1984 at WOW Café,
330 E. 11th Street, New York

Copyright, Margolin, Shaw, Weaver 1996

Extracts from The Shanghai Gesture are reproduced by
permission of Sheldon Abend, American Play Company, Inc.

CHARACTERS

A group of performers with a history of working together who function and identify as a family even though they come from extremely varied backgrounds

MOM (Peggy Shaw)

LEVINE (Deb Margolin)

TAMMY (Lois Weaver)

Dawn’s first light. It’s dark with a slight yellow-orange glow. We see a partially distinguishable image of a VW camper under the Brooklyn Bridge at the base of the bridge’s gray stone support structure. We hear the hum of cars and trucks crossing the bridge. A dimly lit string of Chinese lanterns hangs outside the camper. There’s also a folding picnic table, folding lounge chair, a clothes line, a Coleman stove and a campfire outside. Tammy, LeVine, and Mom are asleep and hidden from view inside the camper.

MOM: Are you still awake?

LEVINE: She’s always half asleep.

TAMMY: I’m just resting my eyes.

MOM: We have one day to work on this play.

LEVINE: Don’t worry, we always pull it together.

MOM: Do we have coffee for the morning?

LEVINE: Hey, listen to this! From the real estate section: (She sits up, her head visible through the camper window – she reads from a newspaper)"To the artist and investor in each of us. All around town are investors who dream of doing something creative, and artists who wish they knew how to turn red ink into black. To you we dedicate Bleecker Court. Because a co-op at Bleecker Court meets two basic human needs: creativity and financial sensibility.”

MOM: LeVine, do we have coffee for the morning?

LEVINE: (continuing to read)"However, there is more to life here than simply making a good investment in an exciting space.”

TAMMY: Prob’ly.

LEVINE: “There’s the quality of life itself. You’re two blocks from the Public Theatre, right near the Strand Bookstore and Tower Records; up from the art galleries in Soho, down from the Bottom Line and just east of Washington Square Park and Balducci’s.”

MOM: Do we have coffee for the morning?

LEVINE: At Bleecker Court, for the first time, the artist and the investor in you will finally agree on something.

MOM: LeVine!

LEVINE: Probably enough for tomorrow, Mother.

MOM: We have to get up early so we can rehearse before LeVine goes to work, and there’s no milk.

TAMMY: (in the van) Hunh?

MOM: There’s no milk.

TAMMY: There’s no money.

LEVINE: I got some change.

TAMMY: We could change our minds.

LEVINE: The show must go on.

MOM: Who said the show must go on?

TAMMY: Oh, maybe.

MOM: Maybe what?

TAMMY: Maybe tomorrow somethin’ll happen. Maybe tomorrow she’ll win the contest and we can just drive away in our new mobile home.

MOM: We can leave anytime.

LEVINE: Not before coffee … (She continues to read) “Your creative needs now satisfied, you naturally move on to contemplate your financial considerations ...”

TAMMY: Shhhh . . .

MOM: LeVine!

Sunrise. 5:30 a.m. Chinese instrumental music, slow then fast, fades up. We hear the sounds of the bridge, cars, trucks, and morning traffic which transforms slowly to instrumental music in the style of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” then to a more popular song like “I’m Gonna Be a Wheel One Day.” Mom gets up, gets out of the van, puts on a Chinese silk robe, lights the Coleman Stove and begins to make coffee. An alarm clock buzzes. The music stops. Inside the camper, LeVine, dressed in a black slip, jumps up and starts her stretching exercises. Mom washes some underwear in a bucket. An alarm goes off

RADIO ANNOUNCER: A sprinkle giving way to clear skies and seasonable temperatures this afternoon. Tonight it will be clear and cool, high will be around forty. Next is shadow traffic at five minutes past. We turn now to our helicopter report: Jim.

HELICOPTER PILOT: Things look okay at five minutes past the hour, Cath. Bruckner and Cross Bronx moving bumper to bumper. Choose alternate routes into Manhattan. Brooklyn Bridge one lane open – stay to your right. Two lanes closed by TV cameras covering the WUMH VW Camper Marathon on the north end of the bridge. Use the tunnel; the bridge is hardly moving. Deegan moving rather well at seven minutes past the hour. Now back to you, Cath.

LeVine continues to stretch inside the camper. Mom washes some items of clothing in the tub and hangs them on a line to dry.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Today marks the beginning of the sixth remarkable week in the living bridge marathon. As you know five contestants began competing for a mobile home by camping out around the arches of Brooklyn Bridge six weeks ago. Under the watchful eye of millions of New York commuters, the nation’s attention has focused on the two remaining contestants.

The telephone in the camper rings – LeVine answers the phone. Tammy is still in bed. Mom is sitting in her lounge chair outside.

LEVINE: Hello … Yes, Suzanne, this is Madeleine LeVine … Yes, yes, hon’. No that’s not a problem … we can have that taken care of well before 10:30. Okay, good, good, I’m glad you called. Yes, fine, dear, fine … I’ll see you later … yes. Bye.

MOM: Who was that?

LEVINE: I have to wear dirty underpants again today. My god, if I live through today it will be a miracle. Two jobs, the audition, and another fifteen questionnaires to finish, Su Yung Lee’s fashion show ...

MOM: heh-heh-heh-heh –

LEVINE: Why do you laugh?

MOM: ‘Cause inside I have a joke. A very wise joke. Tonight my comic spirit runs fast along. Tonight we have a new show.

TAMMY: Shhhhh!

MOM: You have to have a sense of humor.

LEVINE: Sense of humor. What am I supposed to do now, no clean underpants for my day, fine state of affairs. People look at you and they know … (the telephone rings; LeVine answers). Hello? Yes, Jerry, good morning. I just spoke with Suzanne and she’s very dissatisfied with your floor plan.

MOM: Why didn’t you wash some out last night?

LEVINE: (continuing on the phone) I said I’d get back to her, and get to you. If we’re sure the floor is laid by quarter past I can have the models in order … Hold on just a sec, can you? (LeVine covers the telephone mouthpiece and looks out the window at Mom. To Mom) I was too busy boiling water for the dishes and I didn’t even eat dinner. (On the phone) So Jerry, cool your heels and move your ass. Okay love? I don’t know … I’ll meet you there if I can.

The front door of the camper opens. Tammy comes outside in a yellow dress and sweater with a slept-in look. Her hair is in curlers and she’s carrying a cosmetic case.

MOM: (to Tammy) Aren’t you up early today?

LeVine hangs up.

MOM: (to LeVine) Any luck?

TAMMY: My luck.

LEVINE: We’re out of clown white. I told you that yesterday, remember?

MOM: Not even a little left?

LEVINE: I wouldn’t have said there was none left if there was a little left. We’ve been using the little left for two weeks. And we’re out of face cream.

TAMMY: My luck.

MOM: It’s not luck, we’ve been talking about the amount of clown white for two weeks. Would you like some coffee, Tammy?

TAMMY: I had coffee already at Burger King. Jesus Christ! (She starts to put on her make-up and comb out her hair)

MOM: What’s that?

TAMMY: I dreamt I got picked up by a woman who thinks she’s Jesus Christ … and on her way to work yet, oooooh … it was a sexy dream, and I was all dressed up for work … with my net stockings and tweed skirt … she had on a skirt too. We had coffee after, she bought me coffee and wanted to know my name. I was almost gonna tell her when she started talking about how her camper had air conditioning and curtains, like I didn’t notice. Made me nervous. I like to be able to see around me all the time, you know?

MOM: There’s no milk.

TAMMY: How about some fake cream containers from Burger King?

LEVINE: Can I have some of that hot water? I’d like to wash under my pits.

MOM: Then I won’t have enough for coffee, I have to have coffee, everyone else has had coffee (meaning Tammy).

TAMMY: It’s not the caffeine that gives you cancer, it’s something they spray on the beans.

MOM: You think so?

TAMMY: I liked having that dream, too bad I don’t ...

MOM: Too bad you don’t dream about a script for our new show tonight.

LEVINE: We have a script, Ma … we have The Shanghai Gesture. (She stops her calisthenics and goes for her clothes)

MOM: It’s racist and sexist.

LEVINE: Oh Mom, it’s not racist and sexist, and besides, we can do something with it. It was a hit in the twenties.

MOM:...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of plates
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• SPLIT BRITCHES
• BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
• UPWARDLY MOBILE HOME
• LITTLE WOMEN
• BELLE REPRIEVE
• LESBIANS WHO KILL
• LUST AND COMFORT
• Bibliography