A Menopausal Gentleman: The Solo Performances of Peggy Shaw

by Peggy Shaw, Jill Dolan (Editor)

Overview

"With classic butch finesse—-that handsome combination of vulnerability and toughness—-Peggy Shaw pieces together the challenges of growing up butch in the 1950s. Shaw is an engaging performer and inspired writer."
—-Gay Community News

Obie-award-winning performer and writer Peggy Shaw has been playing her gender-bending performances on Off Broadway, regional, and international stages for three decades. Co-founder of the renowned troupe Split Britches, Shaw has gone on to create memorable solo performances that mix achingly honest introspection with campy humor, reflecting on everything from her Irish-American working-class roots to her aging butch body.

This collection of Shaw's solo performance scripts evokes a 54-year-old grandmother who looks like a 35-year-old man (in her classic Menopausal Gentleman); a mother's ambivalent ministrations to a daughter she treated like a son (in the raw You're Just Like My Father); Shaw's love for her biracial grandson, for whom she models masculinity (in the musically punctuated To My Chagrin); and a mapping of her body's long, bittersweet history (in the lyrical Must: The Inside Story, a collaboration with the UK's Clod Ensemble). The book also includes a selection of Shaw's other classic monologues and an extensive introduction by Jill Dolan, Professor of English and Theater and Dance at Princeton University and the blogger behind The Feminist Spectator website.

A volume in the series Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance
Cover photos by Eva Weiss (top) and Robin Holland/robinholland.com (bottom).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472116478
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	07/11/2011
Series:	Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance
Pages:	178
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Jill Dolan is Professor of English and Theater and Dance at Princeton University, author of four books, and the blogger behind The Feminist Spectator website.

Read an Excerpt

A Menopausal Gentleman

THE SOLO PERFORMANCES OF PEGGY SHAW

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By PEGGY SHAW

The University of Michigan Press

Copyright © 2011 Peggy Shaw
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-472-11647-8

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Chapter One

On Being an Independent Solo Artist (No Such Thing) PEGGY SHAW

My name is Peggy Shaw. I am a solo artist and, by virtue of that, a collaborator— "I would be nothing without you." Well, I would be something, but not all that I could be. I write thousands of words, but I need others to edit them. I move my body, but I need others to show me what it looks like and light it in a space. I sing and dance because I ask someone to make music and I have my own company, so I can do anything I want.

There's another word for collaboration in the dictionary. It means to be in cahoots with another country: a spy. I could be defined in that way. I travel from country to country Slipping through borders to work. I am a migrant worker. With all due respect, I travel to where the work is.

You never know what's gonna happen in this process.

Because sometimes it works out great, and sometimes it's just plain hard to figure out why you did it at all. As hard as I try, it's because I believe in the artist in everyone, in the beauty of every person's stories, that I have to eventually come back to believing in myself.

My work always starts with my own dreams and desires and tries to tell a truth, rather than having a message or a product. "I believe in new truths, not old lies." I feel privileged to be an artist, to be able to write what I call the creative truth. Creative truth is when you take a basic impulse or a fact and try and make it poetic.

I arrange my shows the way I paint a painting; this feels right, this seems like it goes there, this looks good. I like this color. I try not to question any of it. I just work on impulse.

And with an editor and a director, usually the same person.

And I work from love because in the end that is the question I ask myself; have I made this with love?

I make comedy by telling the truth—there is nothing funnier than the truth.

As a woman I never felt that I understood what was funny. I have devoted myself for forty years to making that discovery with an audience, whether it was learning from a regular theater or performance audience, or from women in prison, or people in college, or women in a domestic violence safe house, or creating a new show with eighteen Taiwanese women who didn't speak English.

What I really mean to say is that until I enter the room with people, whether it's a prison or a college (I often wish they were interchangeable, since I feel like it's a monetary situation), I have no idea what we will all come up with together as a collaboration. Pretty scary awesome way to live.

What you do see here is a solo show.

What you can't see here are all the details and all the weeks and hours that fill all the spaces in between with other people. In a way these images are not products but placeholders; these are moments that try and show you the thrill of making something that wasn't there before or the pain in trying to work in an honest way.

In my humble opinion, imagination, circumstance, and determination are what make everything happen.

In my art, I have been trying to describe the world that I have created while creating it. Never accepting the confines of the "normal" North American world, I make performance and theater, for those interested in hearing the poetry or point of view of a sixty-plus-year-old, second-generation Irish, working-class, grand-butch-mother.

I have been described as masculine. Actually I am a new kind of femininity. I am interested in testing masculine-feminine and butch-femme as markers. I want to go way beyond the boundaries of the girls' room and the boys' room. I see endless horizons and new ways of creating and defining ourselves on this difficult, greedy planet, which is weighted and distributed so heavily toward the white heterosexual masculine. It has seemed, at some points in my time here, that this planet wants to tip off its axis and spill all that bullshit into the black hole and start again. This particular political time is even darker than usual, with few visionaries to alter the course.

To me being an artist is paying very close attention to our surroundings and having the privilege of twisting the mirror in order to reflect new images back on the culture. I get up every day and do the best I can to create and teach new visions, not old ideas.

—Peggy Shaw New York September 2010

You're Just Like My Father Written and performed by Peggy Shaw Directed by Stacy Makishi and James Neale-Kennerly Original lighting design by Rachel Shipp Music and vocals by Laka Daisical Additional vocals by Vick Ryder

You're Just Like My Father was developed at Dixon Place in New York and produced by the ICA in London and LaMama Theatre in New York.

Special thanks to Stormy Brandenberger, Stafford, Karena Rahall, Rose Sharp, Jill Lewis, Meryl Vladimer, Howard Thies, LaMama Etc., Rachel Shipp, Gay Sweatshop London, Lois Weaver, Hampshire College, WOW Café, Dixon Place, and New York Foundation for the Arts.

You're Just Like My Father was first published in O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance, edited by Holly Hughes and David Román, Grove Press, 1998.

Copyright (c) 1999 by Peggy Shaw. All rights reserved. Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that You're Just Like My Father is subject to a royalty. It is fully protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, including Canada, and all other countries of the Copyright Union. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio broadcasting, television and the rights of translation into foreign languages are strictly reserved. Royalty arrangements and licenses must be secured well in advance of presentation by contacting: Judy Boals, Inc., A Talent and Literary Agency, 307 W. 38th Street, #812 New York, NY 10018; phone: [phone]; fax: [phone]; e-mail: [e-mail].

You're Just Like My Father

(Lights come up on Peggy sitting on a chair on a bare stage with bare breasts and boxer shorts, bare feet. She wraps her breasts with an Ace bandage and goes over to a suitcase on a table and opens it. The opening of the suitcase, like the opening of a music box, starts the song "You May Not Be an Angel." She gets another bandage from the suitcase and wraps it on top of the first bandage around her breasts. She takes another bandage from the suitcase and wraps a hand the way a boxer would, as the song finishes. When she is finished wrapping, she drops her head into her hands and growls like a wolf.)

The landlord wouldn't fix the toilet 'Cause he said there was nothing wrong with it. She didn't know what she was planning on doing She knew she had to do something. You get no satisfaction calling in the authorities. She watched the darkness in her window, waiting for some kind Of release, but nothing came. Her arms needed to strike out, to drive outside of her what was Eating her up inside, but there was always such consequences in wrecking a place to feel better. She went over to the Kleenex box on the shelf, and started tearing Up white pieces of Kleenex into tiny white squares, Then she drew up the Kleenex in a little sack and tied each one with a piece of string This took her all afternoon She waited until she knew that it would rain and spread her tiny bundles all over The big, beautiful, groomed, green lawn of his office. It rained good and hard. The next day the big, beautiful, groomed, green lawn was dotted with Hundreds of white specks of sugar stuck to the blades of grass, There were no complaints to the management or to the police. Only to the minister. And the minister went to speak to the family, to her husband. But since he was dead, he couldn't take the blame. That is to say, my father couldn't take the blame. 'Cause this was my mother before they destroyed her. My mother who was in love with me in the house.

(Runs her hands through her hair, making sound of a wolf.)

Hey! I'm Eddie. My father wouldn't call me Eddie, he called me Margaret. Margaret means pearl. I was his pearl of a girl. But pearl didn't match my outfits. This is my face. It's sharp like my father. You look just like your father, my mother would say. I look like my father when I'm in a good mood. Most lesbians I know really like their fathers, me included. My father was a Leo, he had a heart condition; he had to count to ten before he hit us. He gave me the same heart condition simply because I knew him so well. He had big hands. I have his big hands. I like to touch things and people. Once a shrink asked me where my desire comes from. I said, "From my hands." She told me to keep my hands to myself.

She didn't mean to say it. It just came out and embarrassed her. I guess shrinks aren't supposed to be so direct. But I knew what she meant. There were so many children in my family that when we visited people's houses we had to hold our hands behind our backs for the whole visit so we couldn't touch anything. I had to control my hands all the time. My Grandmother told me I would do great things with my hands; I think she meant play the piano. My father told me that his father knocked out Joe Louis with his bare hands.

(Musical number: "This is a Man's World." During all the musical numbers, a microphone descends from the ceiling, as in a boxing ring. Music continues over.)

As hard As I've tried I can't get it up Fully On top You know Head To toe Missionary Go tell it on the mountain But mounting Is something I've got trouble with 'Cause I can't Get on top Get hard Butch on top

It's left over From way back When I was a boy And all the girls Wanted me to please It's hard To keep it up My reputation Easy for the young ones But hard for me But not hard enough. If it only comes down Or comes up To coming To keep it going To keep it up To strapping one on To whacking me off 'Cause Deep inside my love for you Is a flash picture It has to do with my arms My fingers My hands These are the butch queer feminine parts Of me On the other hand Either my left or my right I'm told that I'm missing out on a dildo. I can hardly look at the real ones That look like real dicks I can look at the dolphin ones Dolphins don't have veins. It's the veins. That vanity in men.

I think Moby Dick was really a dolphin. My father's dick looked like a dolphin When I saw him In the toilet. Feminists made me hate dolphins, I mean dildos. They tried to make me hate boxer shorts Not that I want to put blame On anyone for my Lack of thrust Except maybe the missionaries. I don't want to be like my parents In any way Unless, of course, I can't help it You should never take your parents personally.

(Peggy goes to the center ring and counts down from ten, then dresses in the army uniform.)

My mother used to make me things from cardboard all taped together like houses. She used the cardboard from my father's Sunday shirts from the Chinese laundry. She caught me at the kitchen table at five years old, drawing a picture of a woman tied to a tree with her hands behind her and her breasts were naked, and I drew a woman kissing her breasts. My mother watched me closely from then on and made sure I didn't have girlfriends for too long or stay over at their houses. She said I'd go to hell if I didn't get married.

I liked other people's mothers. You know, around fifty, the ones who had to work in a store. They seemed like they could stand in one place without someone to protect them. But I wanted to sit with them in the kitchen for hours while they flirted with me. Their husbands seemed so old. And I was so full of desire. I would do things for them. And they never told me I was going to hell.

My mother hated my grandfather, and when he died, she didn't want to go to the funeral either, so we went to Brigham's in Cambridge and had a hot-fudge sundae. For years after that when I saw my mother I would take her for a hot-fudge sundae with marshmallow and nuts, I was her sundae lover. Once, we tried to go to a different ice-cream place. They didn't make it right, so they were wrong and she got mad. That's how she was about her family. Her family was right and the rest of the world was wrong.

(Peggy finishes dressing in her tie and hat. She salutes.)

My mother said, "You'll go to hell if you keep this up." My mother said, "You'll die if you run in the street." My mother said, "A bear will eat your child if you leave it unattended on the back porch." My mother said, "If you bowl on Sunday, you'll go to hell." My mother said, "If you swear, you'll be like Catholics." When I stand on my mother's shoulders I can see very far, sir! I can see past my grandfather and into the dripping water of the rain.

(Traveling music, such as in, for example, Pee Wee's Big Top.)

I always pack a gun. That gives me the I'm okay, you're okay, look. The one I use for borders. Sometimes it works for me. Once I went through a border with a drag queen, who was dressed butch to pass as a man. I was dressed femme to pass as a girl. They pulled us over and wanted to see our suitcases. He got my suitcase with the suits and ties and letters to girls. I got his suitcases, with dresses and high heels and poems to boys. They passed us through as normal. But I didn't have my gun. I didn't have my dildo. Packing, I call it, in both cases.

I carry my gun, unlike my dildo. I carry it just in case. The gun that is. I keep the dildo in my drawers with my neatly folded white boxer shorts. I don't use it. I'm not dangerous. Knowing I'm safe makes me a trustworthy person. You could even trust me with your wife if you wanted to.

(Peggy makes sugar bundles like those her mother let melt in the rain on the grass, wrapping mounds of sugar in tissue and tying them with string.)

Doctors say they aren't sure what ovaries do or what they're for, but I know that en los ovaries is my luz de la vida. Luz de la vida is not a type of gun, it's a joy of life. In Mexico, women carry the joy of life in their ovaries. Right now it's hard for you to find my ovaries because they're hidden by my fibroids, or barnacles, as I call them. When something is in the sea a long time, barnacles usually grow on it. But that's why it's harder and harder for me to find my joy in life. Well, not joy in my life, harder for me to find my ovaries. I only showed my barnacles to one woman in Seattle, and she looked in and said I had a beautiful cervix. Have you every had anyone tell you you had a beautiful cervix? Your body starts smiling from the inside and gets all perky and feeling good about itself. Whenever you have a chance, you should tell a woman you know that they have a beautiful cervix. As far as I know, cervixes aren't measured up to any standard of beauty, so you won't have anything to go by except your feelings. It doesn't matter if you believe anything I say or not.

It's just like my gun. I know it's there. It's amazing that I still have sex.

(Traveling music.)

Or that I ever had sex. When I was young I thought everyone knew more than me about it. All I knew was that when you grew up you had to shave your pubic hair. I knew that, 'cause I read page forty-nine in my brother's book under his mattress. I also thought that I would get pregnant wearing his dungarees. Not so farfetched, really, depending on how soon after he wore them. I thought the other girls had secrets that they wouldn't tell me, like there was something they wore in their underpants. 'Cause my friend, Joanne Brulee, who I loved more than anyone, she let me kiss her sometimes. Once in gym class I was helping her jump over the horse, or the buck, as we called it, I grabbed for her and my hand slipped between her legs. I felt something hard, like a box in her underpants. I can still feel it. I try and think, still, what it was, 'cause it wasn't soft like a sanitary pad. It felt more like the box they came in in the vending machines in the girl's room. I never found out 'cause she moved to Chicago and killed herself.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from A Menopausal Gentleman by PEGGY SHAW Copyright © 2011 by Peggy Shaw. Excerpted by permission of The University of Michigan Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction: A Certain Kind of Successful JILL DOLAN....................1
On Being an Independent Solo Artist (No Such Thing) PEGGY SHAW....................39
YOU'RE JUST LIKE MY FATHER....................47
Fat Lady....................65
MENOPAUSAL GENTLEMAN....................71
The Big Lie....................97
TO MY CHAGRIN....................103
Blue....................130
MUST—THE INSIDE STORY....................139
Eight Questions for Peggy Shaw....................159
Selected Bibliography....................161
Acknowledgments....................169

Editorial Reviews

Winner: Lambda Literary Award, LGBT Drama

LGBT Drama Lambda Literary Award