When I was 14, my mother wouldn’t let me have a pair of red patent shoes for school because; there was only one type of woman that wore red patent shoes, a prostitute.

My journey in this presentation of The Whore in the Madhouse has involved unsurprisingly reading much feminist work, including Naomi Wolf, Valerie Solanas and Elaine Aston, but also a feminist reading of Borderline Personality disorder.        

In the Beauty Myth, first published in 1990, Wolf suggests that the only way for a woman to gain financial parity with a man was to either work in the looked at male gaze professions, or prostitution.

Franca Rame’s Whore dances naked, and is not only violated by men, but society. The monologue not only questions misogynistic suppressions physically and at a subconscious level of the continued patriarchal control of language, but the wider question of how we see mental health issues within the wider population, as Serena Anderlini states in her article Franca Rame: Her Life and Works “the dynamics of power and liberty, violence and love, conventionality and authenticity, is what really is at stake in women’s issues”.

As much as academic reading has informed the shape of my work within this piece, I cannot deny or escape my own experiences and political standing in determining my choice in the material. The path we tread is delicate and fragile and is often determined by what is done to us and not by us, but those actions sometimes ultimately go on and define us, but not determine us. For me, there have been many crossroads and roads less travelled that have determined my position now, fortunate to be studying an MA at university because there have been times when I may have had only one option in gaining financial parity.

My old school, built in the middle of at the time of completion, the largest social housing estate in Europe, accommodating the work force of a steel industry, was being demolished to make way for a new school. The doors were opened one last time for a reunion of ex pupils. I attended with friends, who remembered everyone. I remember nothing. We met my old history teacher, Glen Challenger. I attempted “A” Level History. It was a poor attempt. But Glenn remembered us all. At the time when we were young and innocent, he seemed to be old, but in truth when we were 17, he was 25. He said to me that he would never forget me. He would never forget me because I would dance the Charleston in his lessons.

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Franca Rame: Her Life and Works

WHO IS FRANCA RAME?

 A major problem in writing about Franca Rame is drawing a line between what belongs to her and what belongs to her husband, Dario Fo. It is at the same time a practical and an ideological problem, as the relationship between these two people is a complex one that affects their personal and creative life entirely. My decision to focus on Franca Rame is a response to the imbalance observed in reviewing the criticism about their theatre. Dario is given a larger share of attention than his actual contribution really merits, and my choice compensates in a feminist way for the ideological bias that lumps both under the heading ‘Dario Fo’.

 In a recent interview, Franca quoted for me a commonplace repartee: “Have you seen two people in this room? No, I just saw a man and his wife”. Being married to Dario Fo is in her view a major privilege, but she often feels offended by the disrespect shown to her by outsiders; so much so that in the archives of their company she has filed a dossier that says “Franca: Humiliations.”

 Franca Rame owes her fame in the United States to a series of dramatic monologues (originally entitled Tutta casa letto e chiesa) known either as Female Parts or as Orgmmo Adulto Escapedfrom the Zoo. These are among 32 the most popular pieces of feminist theatre in Europe. They have been performed more than 1,200 times in 152 different productions. These numbers compare with those of the most popular plays of the company, such as Accidental Death of an Anarchist and We Can’t Pay, We Won’t Pay. According to many commentators, the plays of the Fo-Rame company are the mostly widely produced by living authors; consequently, one is allowed to infer that Franca Rame has called the attention of an unprecedently large public to the issues of feminist theatre. This in itself is a remarkable achievement, as the goal of any seriously committed political theatre is reaching those people “whose eyes need to be opened”, or who are not convinced already of the point one is trying to make. Both Rame and Fo like to bring their plays in person to a new audience.

Franca Rame’s shows present sexual “problems” as an issue connected with a system of power that diffuses violence, conventionalism, and repression. Her theatre does not explore relationships among women, and it avoids the mother-daughter relationship so dear to the avant-garde of the feminist movement. If her feminism is elemental, and focuses on the issues of power in heterosexual relationships, it also goes beyond idiosyncratic anti-male positions. The plays suggest that the dynamics of power and liberty, violence and love, conventionality and authenticity, is what really is at stake in women’s issues. If Franca’s theatre is not meta-feminist, in the sense that it doesn’t question metaphysical issues such as the sex of God and the existence of the individual (as American plays such as Approaching Szmone and Fefu and Her Frimcb do), the “painful proximity” that characterizes her voice results in a fusion of writer, performer, subject and audience that bypasses the necessity of intellectual argumentation. Franca Rame’s feminist plays imply an assumption that ultimately seems the most reasonable to me: women, men, and all sorts of other creatures, are bound to be on this planet together - at least as long as we manage to avoid the nuclear holocaust; by showing the darkest face of the medal Franca incites us to make less painful this collective existence( Serena Anderlini ).

Serena Andrerlini  Franca Rame: Her Life and Works accessed 31/12/16 file:///C:/Users/hp/Downloads/Franca_Rame_Her_Life_and_Work%20(3).pdf

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Borderline Personality Disorder - the new female hysteric

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There is a strange, uncomfortable, somewhat in human feeling to her.  It feels somewhat like having a dream with an archaic figure who speaks in a stilled language from a distant century, yet carries a strong affect.  She speaks to me in plain English, has affects I clearly recognise, is suffering, yet also seems inhuman, of a different species.  Her words carry a fullness that feels like that they each link to a greater whole, yet they are expressed in a strangely shallow manner.   Alternatively, she has a great depth and insight. But each moment is strained, too full and also too empty. He seems an outcast, living on the fringes of the world, cast into a dark shadow of inhuman, archetypal processes and speaking through them as if she were partaking of a human dialogue.  She seems a princess, a witch, a clown, a trickster.  We are in a fairy tale world of abstract characters which quickly turn back to flesh and blood reality. I am left feeling guilty for ever thinking of her as anything but genuine.

 

Borderline: Vision and Healing

(Scwartz-Salant, 1989, p. 9)

 

 

 

 

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