Stage Struck

Theatre – it's not really a big tent, says PETER CRAWLEY

BEFORE WE begin, please note that this article is intended for brown-eyed readers only. Those with blue, grey, green, black or differently coloured irises may read no further. I can’t stop a brown-eyed person from giving you the gist of it, though. That would be unreasonable . . .

It seems remarkable, in a modern liberal society, that we can discriminate against people on the basis of physical difference without drawing censorious attention. Perhaps you didn’t know. After all, flick your superior chestnut eyes over a festival brochure and you’re unlikely to find the disclaimer, “This performance is for right- handed people only” or “You must be at least this height to enter”. It is, however, perfectly OK to discriminate against people because of gender. Didn’t you know?

This is the curious case of a show in this year’s Absolut Fringe called Maybe If You Choreograph Me You Will Feel Better, a one- on-one performance by the Lebanese-born, UK-based artist Tania El Khoury. It’s advertised with a phrase that would seem anachronistic even before suffrage: “this performance is for male audience members only”. Females may observe “on occasions,” but if you’re not in possession of a Y chromosome, you’re not getting in.

There is some precedence for this: three years ago at the Fringe, Madame Butterfly was a one- on-one performance for females only (men could observe through a window). But banning any demographic from participation is a provocative gesture.

That, of course, seems to be El Khoury’s point. As the ironic ego- massaging of its title suggests, the male spectator is invited to dictate her movements via microphone and headset, but her obedience to his every word is a feint. She’s in control. “The piece turned out to be more of a shout against oppression as a whole,” El Khoury wrote last year in a blog, adding, “It’s for men only because I simply never felt oppressed by women.” So, there you are. Bastards only.

Whatever about the show’s polemic, is it legal to restrict your audience according to gender, race or creed? The answer, surprisingly, is yes. An exemption in the Equal Status Acts is curiously specific: “The Acts allow people to be treated differently on the gender, age, disability or race ground in connection with a dramatic performance or other entertainment,” it says, but only “for reasons of authenticity, aesthetics, tradition or custom.”

This is why a theatre company is not legally liable if it passes over a young white actress for the role of Othello, say. Still, its broader interpretations seem troubling. What other exclusions, to a cast or an audience, could be argued on the basis of a production’s “aesthetics”?

It also raises another dicey question – just how accessible is theatre anyway? Buildings built before 1997, for instance, are not legally required to have disabled access, although most established theatres have introduced provisions for wheelchair access.

Nobody who cares about theatre likes to think of the form as exclusive, arguing against the weary charges of elitism vs populism with the Fringe as their strongest evidence.

Tania El Khoury’s provocative agenda may draw more scrutiny towards gender relations and the cultural assumptions underlying the theatre itself, but the play also sends an unsettling message we don’t often address: theatre is not for everyone.