A Menopausal Gentleman
Subtitle: the solo performances of Peggy Shaw
By: edited and with an introduction by Jill Dolan
Contributors: Dolan, Jill, 1957-
Series: Triangulations: lesbian, gay, and queer theater
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 170
ISBN-13: 9780472116478
Subjects: Drama; Lesbians; Lesbians' writings, American; American drama; Biography; Women performance artists
Description: 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. A founder of the renowned performance 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 working-class roots to her aging butch body. This collection of Shaw's performance scripts evokes a 53-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 Your 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", a collaboration with the UK's Clod Ensemble).
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : a certain kind of successful / by Jill Dolan; title: On being an independent solo artist (no such thing) / by Peggy Shaw; title: You're just like my father; title: Fat Lady : monologue from Upwardly mobile home; title: Menopausal gentleman; title: The big lie : monologue from Miss America; title: To my chagrin; title: Blue (song performed by Peggy Shaw); title: Must the inside story; title: Eight questions for Peggy Shaw : interview by the Walker Art Center.