.7 o l‘u 3'16.
4" 1- =- —
.zv ”7....

iii :4
2.. 5....
v. 3.... .35.”?
% 3| 4

,l. «ulhv,

»

, $5-, .
.i...np..o..;...¢.n.ifi5:- .
It. . v.

llfitvf" ‘1...

A. 1 I. I» it'll}!!!

'll -I.‘I|...v0.s.ll.

I .t'v4‘. .v.’9 -11
‘cvviln’o

.o; .1
t I.

.t 3.?»A’lv
1. 7.}.(b

‘ ll .1 . .7: u
. .lltlv.

.r.
‘n! ‘5 ‘l-O
5,103.00-
1 . 2...
Law?

I
ll
dirk...- Il..-_.av.iH lbsuovuxn
. 1 tall IV! A rt‘
:1 v. 5234...... ........1....P..u 1.-..
I I: 1?. ..
it? ’1‘.v 213i.
i..lnlli I... lili-

.\¢A . \hl.
.XE II}? x. A.-- .1!
ulLLllé..f’l-fi .

U .

 

CHIGAN STATEU

W WW3WWWW WWW WWW WWW WWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWI

293 00917 3638

WWW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled
THE FEMINIST DRAMA OF MEGAN TERRY AS REPRESENTED IN THE
PLAYS CALM DOWN MOTHER, HOTHOUSE, APPROACHING SIMONE,
AND AMERICAN KING'S ENGLISH FOR QUEENS.

 

 

presented by
Kelly Van Hooser
has been accepted towards fulfillment

of the requirements for

MA degree in Theatre

Ax/(Ztgxé’g:

Major proTES’sm-

 

Date [M all/990
U / '

0-7639 MS U is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution

§ _#r—a

 

W LIBRARY
{Michlgan State
Unhealty

 

 

 

PLACE IN RETURN BOX to remove this checkout from your record.
TO AVOID FINES return on or before date due.

DATE DUE DATE DUE DATE DUE

,LWW _
::W_.
’5‘]

W: J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

L_______L______W________]

mm

 

MSU Is An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Institution
chG-QI

 

 

THE FEMINIST DRAMA OF MEGAN TERRY AS REPRESENTED IN THE PLAYS CAM

W, HOT OUSE, APPROACHI G SIMONE, AND AMERICM KING'S
ENGLI§E EOE QUEEN§.

BY

Kelly Van Hooser

A Thesis

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts

Department of Theatre

1990

.-

 

 

/ rir _/ /

3 .
r“.

ABSTRACT

THE FEMINIST DRAMA.OF MEGAN TERRY AS REPRESENTED IN THE PLAYS
CALM DOWN MOTHER, HOIHOUSE, APPROACHING SIMONE, AND AMERlCAN
KING'S ENGLISH FOB QUEENS.

BY

Kelly Van Hooser

One of the most interesting genres of Modern American
Drama is the recently developed genre of feminist drama.
Megan Terry, an early and‘ extremely influential feminist
playwright, played and important role in the development of
this genre. Terry has been writing feminist drama since the
1960's, has laid many foundations for this genre, and.has been
a role model and a source of inspiration for playwrights in
this field for the last 25 years.

Through the study of four of Terry's plays, gnln Down
Mother; notnouse, Approaching Sinone, and Anericnn King's
Englisn :9; Queens, this thesis will explore the definition
and general characteristics of feminist drama, as well as the
contributions that Terry has made both to the American theatre

and to the development of modern American feminist drama.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Megan Terry and the Omaha Magic
Theatre for their enormous help in providing information and
sources needed for this thesis.

I also would like to express thanks to my guidance
committee, Professor Frank Rutledge, Professor Gretel Geist,
and Professor Evan Parry for all of their support and
expertise.

Finally I would like to acknowledge and thank Andre' D.
Turner without whose love and support this thesis would not

have been possible.

iii

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

Chapter

II

III

IV

VI

VII

VIII

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

A Definition of Feminist Drama

The Life and Career of Megan Terry

Calm Down Mother

Hothouse

E 1' 5. o

Conclusion
Notes

Bibliography

iv

21

40

58

76

91

95

106

1
Introduction

One of the most recent developments in modern American
theatre is the emergence of a new genre called feminist
drama. This genre is written by women and about women and
explores situations, pressures, struggles and triumphs unique
to their gender. Feminist Drama has it roots in the
experimental Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatres of the 1960's
(where many of the early feminist playwrights began their
theatrical careers), and came to fruition in the early 1970's,
along with the women's liberation movement of that era.

Feminist drama is an important *movement in modern
American theatre. It has given women playwrights, who for so
long have been excluded from the canon of dramatic literature,
a chance to be published and performed. It also has given
voice to a recently developed, but very important set of
political and philosophical beliefs (those of the school of
feminism). Finally, feminist drama has brought important
social issues such as sexism, stereotypes, and the oppression
of women and children to the stage, and it has done so in a
rhetorical, didactic manner, in hopes of provoking social
change. However, feminist drama is not just rhetoric, it is
also art. Feminist drama instructs, provokes thought and
action, but it also entertains and delights. For all of
these reasons, because it gives women playwrights and feminist
beliefs a chance to be heard, and.because it is instructional,

thought-provoking 9nd artistic, delightful and entertaining,

2
feminist drama is an important genre which must not be
ignored, but rather demands to be explored, studied, analyzed,
and criticized as a legitimate dramatic form.

Before any of this can happen, however, feminist drama
must be defined and understood. The purpose of this study to
define and explain the content and intent of feminist drama
by exploring the work.of one of the first feminist dramatists,
Megan Terry.

This study will begin with a general study of the genre
of feminist drama. .A‘working'definition of this form of drama
will be drawn from the writings of feminist critics Janet
Brown, Diane leavitt and Elizabeth Natalle. Also, common
characteristics, specific subject matters and thematic trends
of the genre will be discussed. The definition and
characteristics of feminist drama will then be further
explored as found in the work of playwright, Megan Terry.

Megan Terry, a forerunner in the development of feminist
drama, began writing before the women's movement of the
1970's. Her early modern American feminist dramas have had
enormous influence on the genre because of their feminist
subjects and themes and their unique and innovative style.
Megan Terry has not only shown women playwrights that they
women gnn make it as writers, but has also shown them nnn to
do so.

This study examines four works by Megan Terry, Calm Donn
Hefner. W. AW. and AM “c King's.

3
Engli sh fo; Queens. These works and Terry's career are
examined not only in order to explore the artistry and
feminine point of view of this dramatist, but also to explore
the genre of feminist drama as a whole. Without Megan Terry,

and without these four plays feminist drama would not be what

it is today.

4
A Definition of Feminist Drama

Before exploring the work and career of Megan Terry, and
before analyzing her four feminist plays, it is necessary to
establish a working definition of feminist drama, and the
common characteristics of plays of this genre. Feminist
dramas vary a great deal in subject matter, theme, and style,
they can be about almost anything, and be written in almost
any style.

Because of this diversity, and because it is difficult
to precisely define the word feminism as both a political
movement and a philosophy, the term feminist drama is also
a bit difficult to define. As Diane Leavitt reports,

Megan Terry believes that people have a difficult

time understanding what feminist theatre is

because they are too engrossed in trying to

identify the political position: ‘There isn't one

party line in feminism. What people fail to

perceive is that everybody is an individual

and each theatre company [here she is speaking

of feminist theatre troupes] projects a different
image.'1

Perhaps this diversity is due to the fact that the
women's movement does not have a typical hierarchical
structure like other political movements. There is no one
leader in the women's movement, where every woman is her own

leader, but rather several important figures in.the movement,

5
as Terry pointed out in a personal telephone interviewz. 'The
feminists have rejected the patriarchal structure which
creates leaders and followers, and allows for much less
diversity.

Another issue that must be dealt with by critics and
scholars trying to define the genre of feminist drama is the
unwillingness of women playwrights to be labelled. These
women do not want a development of a new aesthetic or form for
all feminists to follow, for this would limit them. "Many
feminist playwrights, including Susan Yankowitz, Megan Terry
and Myrna Lamb, are against the formulation of an aesthetic
because of implicit restrictions that would be disastrous to
an emerging art form."3

Nevertheless, despite the diversity amongst feminist
playwrights, a general working definition of feminist drama
can be drawn, and common characteristics of this genre can be
seen in plays by many different playwrights. Janet Brown,
author of WW
states: "This feminist impulse is expressed dramatically in
woman's struggle for autonomy against an oppressive, sexist
society. When woman's struggle for autonomy is a play's
central rhetorical motive, that play can be considered a
feminist drama."‘ .Another critic, Elizabeth Natalle (author
of MW) defines feminist
drama: "Generally most will agrees that feminist theatre is

theatre written by women which tries to explore the female

6

psyche, women's place in society and women's potential."5 And
yet another feminist critic and author of the book Feninist
Theatre Grou s, Dinah Leavitt states: "Feminist theatre seeks
to discover what a woman is and could be, values the woman's
experience, creates accurate characterizations and establishes
a woman's tradition through a rediscovery and reappraisal of
women's history."6 A fourth and final definition comes from
playwright Megan Terry: "Anything that gives women confidence,
shows themselves to themselves, helps them to analyze whether
it's a positive or negative image...it's nourishing."7

From these four similar definitions, a general working
definition can be drawn. A feminist drama is a play written
by'a woman, or'women, about women, and the unique experiences,
positive or negative, that those women have while being women.
Other general characteristics of plays of this genre are that
they usually include very strong roles for women, and are
usually didactic and/or rhetorical.

This generalized definition can include plays of all
sorts, written by many different playwrights on various
subjects. However, there are quite a number of subjects and
themes which seem to be found frequently in feminist plays.
These subjects focus on the life experiences of women, as well
as issues that women would like to see resolved in society.
They include the personal as well as the political, and often
the personal is political and the political is personal.

These subjects include: production and reproduction, women's

7

relationships to one another, family life, sickness and the
loss of a loved one that often accompanies it, commonplace
activities of women, the activities of women when men are not
around, sexual stereotypes and the limitations that they can
cause, the victimization of women by men and by society, the
heroism of women from history (and often history is reexamined
by the feminist playwright), and gender roles.

Feminist playwrights write about these subjects in plays
with many themes and messages. However, as Beverly Byers
Peavitts notes, there seem to be five major thematic trends
of feminist drama. These themes are recurring in drama
written by women, and often interlock and overlap in these
dramas. The five major themes through which feminist
playwrights offer their audiences varied messages are: 1) the
social oppression of women; 2) the oppression of women in the
family ; 3) the relationship of mother and daughter: 4) women's
struggle for autonomy: and 5) friendship among women.8

Feminist playwrights write for a variety of reasons.
Feminist drama is usually didactic or rhetorical. It is
designed to present a political point of view and to get its
audience to think, and perhaps even to take action. One
author notes on this aspect of feminist drama: "By using the
stage as a speaking platform, feminists argue against their
own oppression, seeking a change in their identity as lesser
human beings and their subordinate position in society."9 And

Diane Leavitt remarked: "Feminists have successfully used

8

theatre as a means to combine public and private experiences
to promote radical changes when other means have been
closed."10

Perhaps the most didactic and rhetorical of all feminists
writing for the theatre are those that work in the various
feminist theatre troupes across the nation. These troupes
often admit only women onto their stages and into their
theatres, and voice very militantly feminist opinions through
their productions. One author states: "All feminist theatres
[referring to feminist theatre troupes] are rhetorical
enterprises; their primary aim is action, not art."11
Individual feminist dramatists, writing on their own, without
a troupe, aim for both action and art in their work. They too
are alsquuite didactic and/or rhetorical (that is they are
writing to get audiences to think from a feminist point of
view and to perhaps take action). Feminist playwrights
promote the advancement of women by depicting them as strong,
intelligent individuals. They also promote social change by
showing the oppression that women have had to live with for
so long and the atrocious ways women have been treated by
society' and their families“ 'This oppression and, these
atrocities are presented by feminist dramatists to show the
audience their existence and to force the audience to face
them. Megan Terry is one such playwright, as noted by one

critic:

9
Her plays persistently criticize and subvert specific
institutions and events in American society--from the
war in Vietnam to the hypocritical behavior of parents
toward adolescents--but these critiques are not merely
casual gestures at topical issues or facile assaults
on patriarchy and sexism. Rather, they are specifica-
tions of a vision that emphasizes a transformation of
morality as the basis of social and political change.12

Feminist dramatists use a number of different techniques
and styles to present their subjects, themes and rhetorical
messages. These techniques and forms are again quite diverse,
but some general characteristic techniques, forms and styles
can be found.

Most, but not all, feminist dramatists choose to write
in non-traditional, non-realistic modes. Even though there
are women writing naturalistic works, the maj ority of the ones
receiving publication and being produced diverge from

13 There are two possible reasons for

conventional realism.
this trend. First of all, feminist theatre has roots in the
experimental, avant-garde theatre of the 1960's. Many
feminist playwrights got their beginnings in such experimental
Off-Off-Broadway theatres as the Open Theatre, Cafe La Mama,
The Living Theatre etc. These groups "...sought to
revolutionize through the collective or ensemble creation of

new theatrical forms and contents, an art believed decaying. "1"

These groups explored such issues and techniques as self-

10

exploration, group improvisation, nonverbal communication, and
non-naturalistic ways of acting, directing and playwriting.
It was in these groups that such early feminist dramatists as
Megan Terry got their training. It is no wonder then, that
today many feminists practice the same techniques and methods
that were practiced in the experimental theatres of the
1960's. Another possible reason is the fact that many women
are rebelling against the traditional male forms. These women
do not want to follow the male example, but rather set their
own and find their own forms and methods of playwriting. This
tendency has a lot to do with the women's movement, and the
desire to reject anything that is male-tradition oriented.
"Feminist criticism, developed by the women's movement,
promoted the idea that women's art would have to be expressed
in new forms."15

And just what exactly are these new forms and new
methods that feminist dramatists are using? There are a
variety of them. "Plotless, circular, layered, poetic,
choral, lyric, primal, ritual-like, multi-climactic, surreal,
mosaic, collage-like and non-realistic are terms often use to
describe the bulk of feminist drama."16 Often these plays are
episodic and. circular in nature with fragmented plots
". . .because women's lives are episodic and fragmented."17 And
these plays are not arranged in a typical narrative manner
with a logical chronological progression and a linear plot,

but rather they contain ". . .the organization of discrete

11

elements (images, events, scenes, passages, word, what-have-
you) around an unspoken thematic or emotional center."m

The techniques that women use with these non-linear,
fragmented plots and circular structures, are often quite
theatrical, and non-realistic. Feminist dramatists often use
music, non-verbal communication, audience involvement, and
they also often use the transformation device (where the
characters and situations can transform in the middle of a
scene into the middle of a scene into a totally new and
unrelated characters and situations). Finally, feminist

dramatists rarely keep the fourth wall intact.
Calm Down Mother, Hothouse, Approaching Simone, and
Amenicgn King's English for Queens, are four of Megan Terry's

most feminist dramas. These plays can be used to illustrate
the definition and criteria of feminist drama and to
illustrate the influence of Megan Terry, and her contributions

to this genre.

12
The Life and Career of Megan Terry

Megan Terry, one of the most prolific and most
influential modern American feminist dramatists, has been
working in the theatre since 1951. She has written many plays
and has had over 60 of them published. Most of Terry's work
has been in the non-commercial, and more experimental theatres
both in and out of New York City. Before looking at Terry's
feminine voice as represented in four of her dramas, it is
interesting first to take a quick look at the life, background
of the playwright.

Megan Terry was born Marguerite Duffy to Harold Duffy Jr.
and Marguerite Cecilia Henry Duffy in Seattle, Washington, on
July 22, 1934. Several members of Terry's very artistic
family were involved in the performing arts. She says "I grew
up being an audience for all these incredibly talented people.
My mother was a great singer and performer, and my grandmother
a marvelous storyteller. My aunt was a stage director, my
uncle was a concert pianist, my cousin was pioneer in the
field of creative dramatics for children."1

It is not any wonder that a child growing up in this
family would develop a great love for the theatre. As a
child, Terry went to see live children's theatre productions
at the Seattle Repertory Playhouse. Terry remembers her
reaction to the theatre at the age of seven: "I went and I
looked at the stage and fell madly in love. I knew I wanted

"2

to do that, whatever it was. From then on, she participated

13
in grade school dramatics, and did her own performances in her
backyard.

Eventually, when she was a teenager, and after some
personal hardships resulting from World War II and her
parents' divorce, Terry returned to the Seattle Repertory
Playhouse, this time looking for a job. The theatre at this
time was run by Florence and Burton James. They eventually
took her into the theatre and trained her. Florence James and
her husband were extremely talented people, he being an
excellent leading actor, and she a director who had studied
with Stanislavsky.3

Here at the Seattle Repertory theatre, Terry received a
classical grounding. She designed, built and painted sets
while at this theatre and learned about Edward Gordon Craig
and Adolph Appia. Also, because of the James' political
beliefs, Terry learned to associate theatre with politics.
Terry remembers "Mrs. James walked around with a copy of
Jefferson under her arm at all times: when she wasn't
directing or lecturing, she ran for office in the progressive
party." Exposure to these beliefs "radicalized Terry at an
early age."4 In high school, and while at the Seattle
Repertory Playhouse, Terry became interested in Chekhov and
read the Irish playwrights. She also performed small roles
at the Playhouse. At this time, Mrs. James would have Terry
and the other actors ". . .write biographies of what we were

doing offstage--dia1ogue--so when I was playing Irina, I wrote

_ fl‘bI-‘dn-‘h . -

14
down all of the things she was thinking and saying before her
entrance. That's one of the things that got. me into

5 The Jameses also had Terry write personal

writing...".
biographies which included explorations of her deep personal
and political feelings. All of these early experiences with
the Jameses eventually influenced Terry to take up writing.

After graduating from high school in 1950, Terry went
to the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada. The
Jameses taught classes here in addition to their'work with.the
Seattle Repertory Playhouse. Terry went to the school to
study acting and directing, and received a theatre
scholarship. While at this school, her classical training was
furthered by chances to play in Shakespeare's Lyigpnnne;
Nignp's Drepn, and Tne Inning of pne snrew, among others.6

The next fall, Terry began her Sophomore year at the
University of Alberta, Edmonton, where she studied psychology
and sociology, and read Antonin Artaud. Here she also
designed sets for the university theatre, and was technical
director for the Edmonton Children's Theatre. "It was this
backstage experience which made her decide she would rather
be a playwright, ‘responsible for the entire concept of not
only what went on stage, but for the whole environment of the
audience.'"7

Due to an illness in the family, Terry was unable to stay

in school in Canada, and in the fall of 1953, she entered the

University of Washington to study creative dramatics, and

15

began teaching at the Cornish.School of.Allied.Arts (where she
organized the Cornish Players) .8 Three of the improvisations
that she developed and "wrote up" while at the Cornish School
were produced in Seattle in the spring of 1955, The Qirt Boa;
was premiered by Seattle's KING-TV, and the Beagh Gpass and
Seascape were performed by the Cornish Players. Terry's
fourth script Go Out and Move the Car was done by the adult
program at the Cornish School this same year.9

In June, 1956, Terry received her Bachelor's of Education
from the University of Washington, resigned from the Cornish
School and returned for a short while to the Banff School.
However, this same year, back in Seattle, she had a bad
experience in the theatre. Terry had staged some of her own
work, along with some selections of Eugene O'Neill's "...and
a reviewer consigned them both to ‘a burlesque house on Skid
Row'".10 At this point, Terry decided to move to New York: "I
decided New York would be more hospitable to the direction I
felt I had to take my theatre work, and it was." n

By the time she got to New York, she had changed her name
to Megan Terry, but she did not let anyone know that she was
a playwright. Terry tells of these early years in New York:

I wrote in secret and wouldn't tell anybody.

It was involved with this whole thing ‘women

shouldn't be able to do that.' Since I felt

that playwrights were the pinnacle of civilization,

for me to aspire to that seemed out of reach. But

16

two of my friends found one of my plays and took
it to my agent. She called me up and I went to
her house and she kissed me on the forehead and
said ‘You're talented.'...12

During the years from 1958 to 1963, Terry wrote and
started many scripts of many different styles and lengths.
The first play Terry wrote during this period in New York was
Ex-Misg Coppe; Queen on g Sen pf Pills, which was produced
seven years later in 1963 by the Playwrights' Unit at Cherry
Lane Theatre Off-Broadway. At the premiere of this show,
Terry met two men who were to change her life, Joseph Chaikin,
and Michael Smith.
Terry recalls:

...they came back stage and said ‘We like your

writing.‘ Then they walked me home and said ‘You

know, we can't stand the commercial theatre. Do you

want to come with us? We want to start some kind of a

group that will make it possible to live. Because

it's impossible to live in the commercial theatre

as it's set up in New York.' I said, ‘Sure.' And
then we began the Open Theatre.13

The Open Theatre was designed as a theatre in which all
members of the company, the actors, directors, and playwrights

would be equal, and they all were striving to find "a new

style of acting and directing to go with a new style of

17
play.""' Chaikin started an acting workshop at the Open
Theater to explore and develop this new style.

The Open Theatre used many improvisational techniques
derived from the theatre games of Viola Spolin. One of these
techniques was the transformation technique. This technique
(which will be described in great detail in a subsequent
chapter), and many others were adapted by Terry as she began
to write improvisations and latter scripts for the group. Two
of these scripts were the transformational plays Qalm Down
Mother, and Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dpy Place. These
plays premiered on a double bill by the Open Theatre at the
Sheridan Square Playhouse on March 29, 1965.

Another important play written by Terry while at the Open
Theatre is her rock musical Viet Rock. This play is a
collaboration play written with the actors during six months
of Saturday workshops at the Open Theatre in 1965-66, in which
the company explored their reactions to and against the
Vietnam war by means of improvisation.

119L393]; opened at the Cafe La Mama on May 21, 1966, and
received semi-favorable notice. It was selected, however, by
Robert Brustein, the then newly appointed dean of the Yale
School of Drama to open the School's professional season. It
then returned to New York were it ran for another sixty-two
performances as the first American rock musical.

In 1967, Terry left the Open Theatre to go to Yale on an

American Broadcasting Company "Writing for the Camera"

18

Fellowship.'15 And in the Spring of the same year, she was
commissioned by a television station in New York to write a
play for television. The play Terry wrote was a "futuristic
soap opera called Home: or Future Soap." Officials for the
National Educational Television saw the show, and produced it
nationally on the "NET Playhouse." It was the first
commissioned play to be produced nationally on television.“

Following this production, Terry saw a number of her
other works done at various Off- and Off-Off-Broadway theatres
in New York City and elsewhere. Changes was done at the Cafe
La Mama, Jack-Jack was done at the Firehouse Theatre in
Minneapolis, Massacnusents Trust was done at Brandeis
University. Tne Tonny Allen Snow was done in Los Angeles, New
York and Omaha, Nebraska.17

In 1970, Terry wrote perhaps her most important piece,
Appzpeening_§inpne. This play was presented at both Boston
University and at the La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, and
ran for less than ten nights total. Nevertheless, Terry won
the Obie Award for Best New Play of 1969-1970.18

Terry remained in New York for a few more years, and
worked on one last collaboration.*with. the. Open, Theatre
(W written by Terry, Sam Shepard, and Jean van
Itallie). In 1972, she joined with five other women
playwrights (Maria Irene Fornes, Rosalyn Drexler, Julie

Bovasso, Adrienne Kennedy and Rochelle Owens) to form the

Women's Theatre Council which " . . .came together to demonstrate

19

the existence of feminist drama and to support each other as
well as other playwrights in achieving productions of plays
that arose from women's vision."19 Then, in January of 1974,
she moved to Omaha to join her friend and Open Theatre
colleague JoAnn Schmidman as playwright-in-residence at the
VOmaha Magic Theatre.

The Omaha Magic Theatre is a laboratory theatre which
includes a group of actors, directors, writers, visual
artists, and musicians dedicated to developing new American

0 The majority of Terry's works written since

musical plays.2
1974 have been produced by this theatre company. The most
popular of Terry's works to be done at the Omaha.Magic Theatre
are genes in tne Eignonse, Ameriean King's Englisn fez; Queens,
§£é111_EéQQ. and Goone Goona. During her most recent years
at the Omaha Magic Theatre, Terry has been quite involved with
writing plays which deal with such important social issues as
teenage alcoholism, and child abuse. At present, Terry is
still working with the Omaha Magic Theatre as an actress, but
she will be returning shortly to her typewriter to create
another work for the Magic Theatre's upcoming season.21

Megan Terry has been involved in many aspects of the
theatre for most of her life. She has worked as designer,
actor, director and playwright for various theatres across the

country, and these experiences bring a rich perspective to her

writing. Keeping this in mind, we can now turn to Terry's

20
four feminist dramas, Calm QonniMotherg Hephpnee, Appgeeehing
Sinpne, and Anepieen King's English for Queens.

These selected plays written over a time span of twenty
years (beginning with Celm Down Mother written while Terry was
with the Open Theater, and ending with Anericen King's English
for Queens, written while Terry was at the Omaha Magic
Theatre) are all feminist pieces championing the strength of
women, while at the same time protesting their oppression.
They were chosen because they are clearly feminist in their
points of view. Secondly, they all contain subject matters
and themes which are common in this genre. They also all
contain experimental, non-realistic techniques and structures
found in most feminist dramas. And finally, these plays were
chosen because of their diversity. Through careful study and
analysis of these works, the reader will have a clearer

understanding of this distinctly female form of drama.

21
Calm Down Mother
Calm Donn hother, a one-act play written by Terry while
she was working at Joseph Chaikin's Open Theatre, has been
"...often hailed as the first truly feminist American

1 While it may be difficult to prove beyond any

drama...".
doubt that this play, or any other for that matter, was the
"first truly feminist American drama", it was certainly one
of the first (produced in 1965, before the women's liberation
movement began in the 1970's) and one of the most significant
works of feminist drama ever written.

Calm Donn Mother was first produced (on a double bill
with another of Terry's works, Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool
Dpy Plaee) in March 1965, at the Sheridan Square Playhouse by
the Open Theatre company. It is a play that Terry notes was
written for the very talented women who were members of this
company. Terry believed that these women were developing,
becoming better and better actors, but realized that there
were no substantial roles for them in most plays written by
men. Also she notes that many of these women had weight
problems, and were often not being cast for this reason.
Terry decided to write a play with roles that any of the women
in the company could play without regard to their weight or
height.2 Thus, Qeln_hgnn_hpphe; was a "woman's play" before
it was even written, for it was begun with women in mind.

This play is very typical of Terry's style in that it

is a transformational drama (Terry's subtitle to this work is

22
"A.Transformation for Three Women"). It is a series of scenes
or vignettes involving a number of different female
characters. The actors (three in number) involved in the
production of this piece play all of the characters by means
of a technique called transformation.

The transformation is an acting and a playwriting
technique whereby without any logical explanation or
transition, characters and situations change or transform
abruptly into different characters and situations. This
technique in drama relies solely on the skill of the author
to make the transformation work and to fit into the rest of
the play as a unified whole, and on the performance and skill
of the actor to be able to transform so completely from one
character to another without any sort of transition. This
technique isia difficult one to master both for the author and
the actor, but it can be a highly effective technique for
presenting the message of the drama.

Celn Dpnn Mother is made up of several transformations,
making a series of eight vignettes possible, all dealing with
women and their various relationships to one another. The
first vignette, or as author Phyllis Jane Rose calls it, the
first "action bloc"3,ideals with three women making speeches
to assert their independence» One of these women is named and
modeled “'after the nineteenth century American feminist and

«’0

literary critic, Margaret Fuller. This character says:

"From the time I could speak and.go alone, my father addressed

23

me not as a plaything, but as a living mind,"5 .and she later
proclaims "I am Margaret Fuller and I accept the universe!"
and "I accepts I accept, not as a furry animal plaything, but
as a mind, as a living loving blinding mind."6

This is a very strong assertion for a woman to make on
stage. One author noted:

This is a stunning declaration of human

independence. But the speaker's name is

Margaret Fuller, and what is most provocative

about her declaration is the very fact that

she is a girl, a young woman, a female human

being: women have publicly declared their human

identity in terms of their intellect less

frequently in literature than they have in life.7
But the character has done just that, publicly declared her
identity in terms of her intellect. She also has asserted
that it is possible for a woman to achieve, and be successful
in terms of intellect and to "accept the universe as a .living
mind." .As Keyssar explains, "For’most women...it is.difficult
to know oneself as a ‘living mind,‘ and the montage of scenes
that follows in Qaln pom Mgthep catches moments in that

"a This opening

struggle for a variety of women characters.
vignette sets the tone for the rest of the play'which explores
women's struggles to come to terms with their lives

intellectually.

24
The next scene takes place in a delicatessen in

9 The characters in this scene are two elderly women

Brooklyn.
who work at the delicatessen and a young girl who stops in to
buy a six-pack of ale. .As the elder'women talk with the young
girl, they admire Iher lovely' hair, reminisce about how
beautiful their own hair used to be before they aged, and
marvel at how soft the young girl's skin feels. This vignette
is quite feminist in its exploration of aging and the supposed
loss of physical beauty that goes along with it. Terry seems
to be trying to show her audience just how limiting it can be
for a woman to be too preoccupied with her physical
appearance. For the elderly women in this vignette seem
unable to accept the fact that they are aging, and that they
are losing their hair, but that it is alright, and that they
can still be happy even without their long curly hair and
milk-like soft skin.

The two elderly women are not the only ones who are
limited by their preoccupation with their physical appearance.
For the young girl in the scene appears to feel the same way
they do. When one of the women tells her that her hair fell
out after receiving anesthesia for an operation the girl asks,
"Couldn't they uh make tests...allergies...you should have
been tested...well you know you may have been allergic to
whatever they knocked you out with...Your hair fell out fer
God's sake. It's important for a girl for God's sake. Her

"w

hair. You know what I mean. The young girl too is very

 

n:

Che

The

rag

Two

Pee;
they
thrOl

the c

25
concerned and preoccupied with physical appearance. Terry,
like so many other feminists, wishes to speak out against the
tendency of our society to judge women only by their physical
beauty and not by their inner beauty and personality.

The women of this scene have become too preoccupied, too
obsessed with their beauty. Men and society have told them
for so long that a woman must be beautiful, must have soft
skin and long curly hair, that when the elderly women loose
these surface physical characteristics, they feel very badly
about it, and indeed, mourn for their loss. The young girl
is also affected by preoccupation with physical beauty as she
empathizes with the elderly women who have lost their hair.
In this vignette, Terry shows what an oppressive and
detrimental effect a preoccupation with physical beauty (that
women often.have because of society's and men's view) can have
of women of all ages.

Following this scene, the actors "transform" out of their
characters, to "become themselves" and address the audience.
The next action bloc begins with the actors expressing their
rage at society and therimitations it puts on them. Woman
Two says: "I get to the point in my life where the anger that
people send me, the disappointment they show me, the criticism
they yell at me can be absorbed by me and sent right on
through me into the ground all the way down to China and out

the other side."11 The women then become angrier and angrier,

26
and express their anger by pounding their fists into their
palms and yelling to the audience "I WANT TO HIT!"12
Yet Terry shows the audience that this is not the
solution for women and offers an alternative:
Woman Three: "Talk...Talk...talk...lay bare every
part of your limited life. Maybe you
could force your life to grow into lives.
Facts. Add up all the desperate facts,
pitiful few facts as they are--
add them all up to enter on the human
record, short as it is. Keep
writing. Maybe if I keep talking and
writing, listing all the facts of my
life, I won't seem so small, at least
not to me. When I get scared I can pick
up all the lists--all the long lists of
my life and read them out loud to myself,
and maybe I won't feel so crippled, so
unconnected--at least not to myself...
A lot of people must start writing
with the absurd conviction they are
talking to or will contact someone.
SOMEONE! SOMEONE! SOMEONE!13
The message to the women of the audience seems clear, and is
quite feminist: That women must not be overtaken with rage,

and that they must not let other people's criticism and

27
disapproval limit them. Instead they must make something
out of themselves and their lives, prove that they are people
and then reach out to others to share their discoveries.

The next transformation involves just two of the actors
and deals with two sisters. One sister is getting a divorce,
and the other has come to support her through the change and
get settled in her new life. We also find out that the
sisters' mother is dying, and that one of them, Nancy, (who
has come to help her sister Sally through her divorce) is
having a very difficult time dealing with their mother's
cancer.

The subject matter of this scene, illness and the loss
of a loved one, is common in feminist drama (for example
illness is explored in Honor Moore's hounning Pi eeee, Corrine
Jacker's hi ts end Pieces, and Alice Childress' fleggingjend) '“
In this play, Terry shows women how they can deal with the
devastation that comes with the illness and death of a loved
one: by leaning on other women for support and by returning
that support. This vignette ends with the women freezing in
a loving, supportive embrace.

The next transformation brings the actors to a scene in
a nursing home. Two of the actors play patients in the
nursing home, Mrs. Tweed and Mrs. Watermellon. Mrs. Tweed and
Mrs. Watermellon spend most of the scene bickering and teasing
one another. Mrs. watermellon antagonizes Mrs. Tweed with

what she believes to be the truth about them now that they are

28
older: that they cannot reproduce and therefore are useless.
Mrs. Watermellon tells Mrs. Tweed that she knows where the
"sunrise" (or life) begins: "The world is waiting for the
sunrise, and I'm the only one who knows where it begins."15
And after Mrs. Tweed asks her where it does begin, Mrs.
Watermellon tells her: (Clasping her breast) "Here, right
here, right here it starts. From the old ticker it starts and
pumps and thumps around, coagulates in my belly and once a
month bursts out onto the ground. . .but all the color's

"16

gone. . .all but one. . .all but one. And then she says to Mrs.

Tweed: "You three-minute egg! You runny, puny, twelve-weeks-
old, three minute egg. You're underdone and overripe."17

This scene ends with the entrance of the nurse with their
meal. The nurse is a flat and mechanical personality, who
does nothing to help comfort these women in their Old age, but
who just adds to their frustration and unhappiness by treating
them like children. However, the entrance of the nurse does
help to bring the other two women together as they stand
against the nurse and refuse to eat her meal.

This scene not only criticizes and attacks society's
tendency to mistreat aging women by sending them to a nursing
home where they are forgotten and made to feel unloved and
useless, but also criticizes elderly women's perception of
themselves. Terry attacks the elderly women who put

limitations on themselves and each other by telling themselves

and each other that they are useless and unwanted. However,

29
she does seem to Offer a solution to women in this situation:
these women should turn to one another for support, friendship
and strength (just as Mrs. Watermellon and.Mrs. Tweed do With
‘the entrance of the Nurse) rather than degrade and.bicker’with
one another.

The three actors transform into prostitutes for the next
vignette of Calm Down hgtheg. The characters of this scene
are an experienced prostitute named Inez who is getting ready
to go out on a call with two less experienced call girls
Felicia and Momo. As the women get ready, Momo and Felicia
banter and fight over who is more experienced, who gets the
mirror, and over money Momo has hidden from their pimp. The
women of this scene cannot seem to treat each other with any
amount of kindness. They continue to fight and be nasty to
each other throughout the duration of the scene.

With this scene Terry seems to be showing the limitations
women like Momo, Inez and Felicia place on themselves by
selling their bodies. They are at the beck and call of the
men who they visit and of their pimp, Ricky; They do not.have
control over their lives, and because of this cannot get along
with each other and be friends. This scene parallels the
previous scene in the nursing home in which the two elderly
women have trouble getting along with one another and being
friends. With these two scenes, Terry seems to be showing
women that they need to be friends, to bond together, to

support and love one another, especially in trying times and

30
situations, in order to overcome the limitations placed on
them by men and society.

Following the prostitute scene, and before the next
'vignette, the actors again step out of character. This time,
instead of reaching out to the audience they reach out to each
other, and form a triangle to give each other confidence and
tell each other again and again "Have confidence. You have
been found."18 This mini-scene is yet another affirmation of
the strength and support women can find in one another.

The final action bloc finds the actors playing two young
women and their mother who are doing the dishes in their
tenement kitchen. The oldest daughter, Sue, starts a
conversation about birth control. She tells her mother and
sister that she is tired of hearing men tell people that birth
control is wrong. She believes that since she can produce one
egg every month for the next thirty years, she has three
hundred and sixty chances of becoming pregnant inside her
body. Therefore, she feels that it is alright for her to use
birth control. She also believes that the men who are
preaching against birth control are just trying to control
women's lives and bodies. She says:

So if god sees fit to flush them [her eggs]

down the pipe every month if they don't meet

up with an electric male shock, then who the hell

are these priests and all to scream about pills

and controls? Tell me that! Who the hell are they?

31

They want me to save my eggs till they can get

around to making them into babies, they can line up

and screw the test tubes!19

Sue then goes on to say that they will not have her eggs,
that she will take control of them, and of her body, and will
continue to take her birth control pills. As she asserts all
of this, heerother and sister are shocked, and the scene ends
with Sue's mother kicking her out of the house:20

The feminist voice in this scene is very clear. Terry
is asserting that women must take control of their lives and
their bodies, and indeed, of their eggs, and not let the men
limit them by forcing them to have babies. She also seems
to be showing women that it is time that they take control of
their sexuality by choosing birth control as a legitimate way
of enjoying that sexuality, and ignoring what society or what
men tell them.

The character Sue in this scene seems to answer a lot of
the questions that Terry has raised throughout the play. For
example, Terry raises the issue of women's bodies and women
selling them to men in an earlier scene about prostitutes.
The characters of this scene are not happy characters, they
fight with one another and.have to answer to their pimp's beck
and call. But Sue, in the final scene takes control of her
body. She decides that men will not tell her what to do with

her body or with her sexuality and she decides that birth

32
control in one way she can regain control of her body and
life.

Also, Sue asserts her independence very strongly in this
scene. She is perhaps the most independent woman in the play,
for she stands up not only to society, but to her family as
well. The portrayal of Sue embodies a strong, independent
female that has control of both her mind and her body and who
is going to make it. This final scene fits in nicely with the
rest of the play, and by placing it so close to the ending,
Terry is able to close with a strong-willed independent role
model for all women.

Qelm_Qenn_Mp§hep ends with the actors again "coming out
Of character" and speaking directly to the audience. The
women speak of their body, Of parts of their anatomy:

TOGETHER (They place their hands on bellies) Our bellies

WOMAN TWO (On Sides) Our bodies

TOGETHER (Back on Bellies) Our bellies

TOGETHER (On bellies) Our bellies

WOMAN THREE (On sides) Our bodies

TOGETHER (On bellies) Our bellies

WOMAN ONE (On breasts) Our funnies

TOGETHER (bellies) Our bellies

WOMAN TWO (sides) Bodies

WOMAN ONE (bellies) Our eggies

WOMAN THREE (bellies) Our eggies

WOMAN TWO (bellies) The eggies in our beggies

33

WOMAN ONE (sides) Are enough

WOMAN TWO (sides) Are enough.

WOMAN THREE (sides) Are enough

TOGETHER (Turn their backs on the audience) ARE'THEY?22
This ending sums up Calm gown Mother with the message to the
women in the audience that there is more to life than their
bodies. Terry is telling the audience that women should not
be limited to their anatomies and to the fact that they can
have children. Instead, women need to explore the other
aspects of their lives such as their intellect, and their
relationships with other women. Women's bodies are not
enough, they also need to learn as Margaret Fuller says to
accept the world "...as a living, loving, mind."

In a personal interview, Terry said that the ending of
Celm Down Mothep is ironic and is optimistic. She also stated
that the ending is about the duality of the body and.the mind,
and about the power of the mind. Also, with this ending,
Terry said that she was trying to make the feminist statement
that "There is more to a female than just her eggies and her
beggies . "22

Also, with this scene, Megan Terry reminds her audience
time and time again of the limitations placed on women, by
men and society that they can and must overcome. In this
transformational drama, Terry is able explore many subjects
that are of great concern to feminists even today, some

twenty-years after the piece was written. These subjects are

34

the concern about women who are aging, women dealing with
their anger against men and society, women trying to deal with
illnesses such as cancer and the losses these illnesses bring
with them, and the problem of women needing to take control
of their bodies, but not letting their bodies control them,
or letting men or society control them. It seems somewhat
remarkable that Terry wrote this piece with such strong
feminist messages before the woman's movement Of the early
1970's had even begun. Perhaps this is why Caln hown hother
has been hailed " the first truly feminist American drama."

The fact that Terry raises these women's issues in Qeln
Down Mother is enough to make it a truly feminist work which
undoubtedly inspired other female playwrights (and indeed
female directors and actors- as well). It also contains an
inspirational and encouraging message for women in other walks
of life, for I it shows women who are becoming stronger and
stronger, and learning to survive their oppression by relying
on their intellects (as in the speech where woman three talks
directly to the audience, telling them to write [which indeed
can mean to keep working or producing in whatever medium] and
to keep communicating and using their intellects until someone
listens) as well as their bodies, and by leaning on other
women for support. In this work, Terry does not just present
the audience with issues and problems that women have to face
in their lives every day, but she also presents solutions as

well. As one author put it: "Enacting her own feminist

35

vision of American romanticism, Terry has chosen in most of
her plays to highlight the positive, though incremental,
change that is available: women, in her dramas, are ‘alive and
well' and on the way to doing better."23

An exploration of the Terry's feminist drama Celn gown
Mothe; would not be complete without a careful study of its
style. Just as other feminist dramatists (and indeed many
other types of experimental dramatist who write for political
purposes) choose to reject the more traditional, realistic,
psychologically-motivated forms that so many (male) play-
wrights have used, so has Terry with W (and
indeed with many of her other works as well. Lynda Hart
notes: "Terry's work represents a sustained project to offer
alternatives to realism as a form that perpetuates male-

"2‘ In the majority of her works,

centered power structures.
Terry does away with narrative, chronologically-oriented plots
with a central, main protagonist, and works rather in the mode
of transformational drama. In fact, she has used the technique
of transformation so often that it has become her distinctive
trademark.

The transformation technique came out of the
improvisational exercises Joseph Chaikin had his actors do in
his workshop at the Open Theatre in the 1960's. These
exercises were adaptations of Viola Spolin's theatre games.

One author says transformations are defined ". . .by a non-

psychological, action and image-oriented conception of a

36

character which negates the notion of a fixed reality or
situation in favor of the continuous displacement of one
reality with another."25 .And, as Keyssar notes, "Spolin's
theatre games meshed perfectly with Terry's vision of a
theatre in which.actors created and altered.the world in front
Of the audience, relying on their own resources Of body, voice
and imagination.”5

This technique, the transformation, is a very effective
style for the feminism Of Megan Terry, not just in the play
Qalm Dgnn Mothep, but in many subsequent plays as well. It
is effective because it is a break with the male tradition.
It tells other women that they do not have to do things the
same way that men have traditionally done them. It is also
effective because it breaks down the stereotypes that damage
all women and that feminism speaks out against. It breaks
down these stereotypes because it allows, in fact it even
forces, actors to play all type of characters of all ages.
For example, the women cast in Caln gown Mghher play a variety
of different "types" of women (from prostitutes to young girls
living in tenement housing to women living or working in
nursing home) and a variety of different ages. Because of
this very reason, traditional "type-casting" which contributes
to society's stereotyped images of what prostitutes look like,
or what young or old women should look or act like, is

impossible.

37

Another aspect of Qaln gonn gopher that reinforces the
feminist voice of Terry is the unique structure of the play.
As Terry herself pointed out, up until the point at which she
and others at the Open Theatre started working with the
transformational drama, most plays were like a pyramid in
structure. They were written with one main character and
"everyone else illuminates that one character."v' She noted
that with Qelm Down Mother she wanted to show different
aspects of all of the characters. And in another interview,
she said:

I started writing transformation plays because

most plays are about one person-~one person gets

to show three or four aspects of the personality,

while all the other people have supporting roles

and usually are stereotypes. What if you could

see all the aspects of all the people? Most three-

act plays spend two acts building to a climax,

with a short denouement, and that's it. What
if there were plays with ten climaxes?!8

This non-hierarchical, episodic structure which does not
acknowledge a main character who stands out as a leader is
inherently feminist in nature in that it denies the structure
not only of the traditional drama of men, but because it also
denies the hierarchical structure of the patriarchic society.

This structure, while not completely unique to feminism

(indeed this structure is used in pdays by other types of

38
plays as well) is used with great frequency by feminists in
their’writings, art and.organization, :Early works of art such
as Terry's Celm gown Mother with this type of non-
hierarchical, non-pyramid-like structure served as models for
feminist artists of later years, and contributed greatly to
the development of the unique style of these artists.

It is important not only to note this feminist structure
of Qaln gonn Mother but also to study its effectiveness in
presenting the content of the play. Because Terry does not
focus on one single character, or even three specific
characters, she makes the play less personal and more
universal. It forces the audience not to identify and become
over-involved with the characters, but rather forces them to
listen to the message Of the play. It also forces the
audience to look at the society in which the characters live
rather than the characters themselves. It reinforces the very
feminist belief that "the personal is political and the
political is personal".

As one critic noted: "The early transformation plays, eg.
len_ggnn_hghhe;, which were inspired by and developed with
the Open Theatre. . .militate against a private world. " The same
author also said: "The nature of the transformation play is
that people and situations are rapidly transformed into other
people and situations, that no private residue of a character

is allowed to accumulate, that people as function, people as

39
symbol of certain American conditions wipe out all possibili-
ties of people as people."29

And so with her structure, style and technique, Terry is
able to make her feminist statements loudly and clearly. She
forces her audiences not to pity and sympathize with one or
two characters, but to Observe what is happening to a number
of characters, and what a number of characters are saying and
doing, and to explore and think about a number of characters
and situations and the reasons that these characters and
situations exist as they do.

Thus, Calm Down.hother can.be seen to be a truly feminist
dramaa It was feminist in its initiation, because Terry wrote
the play specifically foeromen.and.for'her female colleagues.
It is feminist in the subjects it presents. It is feminist
in theme. And it is feminist in technique, style and
structure. Is it indeed the "first truly feminist American
drama?"

When asked this, Terry noted that it indeed was a play
of firsts. Its form was innovative and new, for it was one
of the first American dramas with a non-hierarchical
structure, with the transformation technique, and it was the
"first play written to show off the performer, to celebrate

"u’ All of these firsts make this play

the power of the actor.
an important and influential one in the genre of modern

American feminist drama.

40
W

11m, a semi-biographical drama, was started by Terry
at approximately the same time that she was working on her
“transformational works, Cal Down Mother, e ° t osed
i 001 ce, and a more realistic one act play
entitled En-Miss Copper Queen on a Set of Pills. She worked
on all of these plays one month during the summer of 1964,
while being funded by a Rockefeller Foundation Grant at the
Office for Advanced Drama research in Minneapolis, Minnesota.1

,flgghgnse is a rather unique play for Terry, for it is one
of just.a handful of her plays that is written in a realistic,
"well-made play" style. While the bulk of her plays,
especially her more feminist pieces are written as transforma-
tional dramas with experimental non-naturalistic techniques,
the traditional style and structure of Hothonee works well for
this feminist piece of drama.

When.asked.about this play, and why she chose realism for
the work, Terry said simply that she found that this was the
style that was necessary for the story that she wanted to
tell. She said of both this work and of her one-act play Ex;
Wills. "I thought I had to tell
the story in that way." She also pointed out that she has
always been a fan of naturalism, and that the style of her
plays depend on the story, whether it is personal (like

W) or not, and on the mood that she is in at the time.2

41
Because it is such a personal play, Terry remembers that
Hothouse took.ten to fifteen years of rewriting and revisions

3 While this play won the

before it was ready for production.
Stanley Drama Award in 1964, it did not receive its premiere
production until February of 1974 at the Circle Repertory in
New York City. The story takes place in Seattle, where she
was raised, and she says that she grew up with the people in
this drama.‘ Nevertheless, this semi-biographical drama is
not just.personal, it is political as well: it illustrates the
problems and limitations Of not only the women with whom she
grew up, but of women everywhere and from every generation
who do not have control over their lives.

The setting of Hothouse, is a small house in a fishing
village near the city of Seattle in 1955. The house is warped
from the dampness of the weather, and a bit run down. It is
also overrun with house plants and is surrounded on the
outside by wild growths Of weeds, wild berries and various
trees. This setting is extremely effective, creating just the
right mood, and.emphasizing the message of the play; For this
house is a home to both house plants and people who are left
to grow wild, and are uncared for. As Bonnie Marranca points
out for the characters of this play, "Home is a ‘hothouse'
which stifles emotional growth and personal independence. . . ".5

In this hothouse live three generations of women. Ma,

the eldest, is an "old boot-legger" who lives with her

daughter and granddaughter, and spends most of her time

42

drinking and playing cards with her latest live-in boyfriend,
Banty. Her daughter, Roz, a heavy drinker with a live-in
boyfriend of her own, spends a lot of time wondering why her
husband Jack has left her and how she can get him back. The
third woman who lives in the hothouse is Jody, a young, pretty
twenty-year old who also, spends a lot of time drinking, and
who has a college-boy boyfriend named David. These women all
live, love and drink in their hothouse.

The plot takes place in twenty-four hours, and in one
location as do the plots of most."well-made plays". The story
opens with a light, playful scene between Jody and her
boyfriend, who wants to stay with her for a while, but cannot,
because Jody must make dinner for her mother. Already in the
first scene, the audience sees how much the women characters
in the play depend on one another and care for one another.
For' Jody chooses to spend. time ‘helping' her' mother' and
grandmother, rather than spend time with her boyfriend.

As Jody goes into the house, we find out that her mother
is not yet home, and she immediately becomes worried that she
is out at the bar getting into trouble. Also, at this point,
we are introduced. to .Jody's "direct, gruff’ and lusty,"
grandmother, who "holds a little man on her lap".6 As these
two characters drink and play cards, Terry reveals to us the
role-reversal of this relationship, for it is the man, Banty,
who is wearing an apron, and who waits on the women by

bringing them drinks.7

43
After Jody joins them for a drink, Ma reveals that Jack,
Jody's father, is planning to divorce her mother Roz, and is
planning on using Roz's best friend, Doll, for a divorce

8 .After they have a few'more drinks, Roz enters drunk

witness.
and singing, and tells the others that she has invited Doll
home to give her another chance. She also has brought home
her latest boyfriend Andy, and a drunken couple that she has
picked up from one Of the bars she visited earlier.

As the night wears on, these characters have a party and
get more and more drunk, and things start to heat up. We
first find out. the circumstances of Roz's ‘marriage and
divorce. It is revealed that Roz has cheated many times on
her husband, beginning during the years that he was away at
war. And she is still cheating on him with her current live-
in boyfriend Andy.

Roz gets drunker and she finally erupts. She kicks Andy
out, with the help Of Jody, who calls Andy a "mooch" 9, and
who realizes that the fact that her mother has a live-in
boyfriend will not look good to a divorce judge. Roz also
confronts Doll, finds out that her suspicions about an affair
between Doll and.Jack are correct, and kicks her out" .At this
point, the party breaks up, and everyone either leaves or goes
to bed, andeo y and.Roz are left together for the first time.

The final scene of the first act, between Jody and Roz

is a very warm and tender one. They talk.to each other’ about

their men, about the marriage between Jack and Roz, and Jody

 

CC
SC

ILE

te

3T

he
fO
As
is
re1
tO

unt

boy
go
mini
This
dire
figh
much
from
Jody,
has no'

in her

44

convinces her mother to try to get her father back. This
scene shows how wrapped up these two characters are in their
men, and how it seems impossible to them to be happy without
their men. Nevertheless, Terry ends the act with a warm,
tender image of female love as Roz tucks her daughter into bed
and sings her a lullaby.

Act Two begins the next morning with Jody "moaning

"1° She has a hangover and has overslept,

herself awake.
forgetting about the promise she made to make David lunch.
As she awakens, she finds the house full of activity. Banty
is ironing Ma's dress (evidence again of Terry's gender role
reversal), and Roz is cleaning up the house and getting ready
to go out and find Jack. Jody forgets about David completely,
until he knocks on the door.

After a few minutes of flirting with her daughter's
boyfriend, Roz goes off to find her husband, and Ma and Banty
go off to the bar. Jody and David are alone. After a few
minutes of playful conversation, David asks Jody to marry him.
This startles her and, as Terry explains in her stage
direction, Jody "Breaks from him. A new thought for her. She
fights down anger at this demand. She hadn't counted on how

'11 This reaction to a marriage proposal

much he wanted her. '
from a young girl in love seems a bit strange. However, for
Jody, who has grown up mainly in the company of women, and who
has not seen evidence of the happiness that marriage can bring

in her own home, the proposal is new and strange for her. In

 

fa

1c

wc
he

he

pr

as
ma:
am

pa;

Ila:

in

dOe

tal

Val-

VhO

Aft

45
fact it seems to be a demand rather than a proposal, a demand
that would take her away from home and from the women that
love her.

David persists however, and tells her how much fun it
would be to be married to one another; He also tells her that
he wants to teach.her, to turn.her into better person, in fact
he tells her, "I believe in you, I believe in guts...in spite
Of everything, you've made your own personality, no matter
what the bad influences around you. . .Some of the greatest
Americans have come from the worst homes. And you're gonna
prove my theory."n

In this scene, Terry certainly does not portray marriage
as it is traditionally portrayed. She does not portray
marriage as a joyful union of two people who will live with
and love one another happily ever after. Instead, Terry
paints a portrait of one young man's idea of marriage as a
way to mold his mate into a better person and to use her to
"prove a theory" that she can be a "good person" like himself,
in spite of her background.

Jody, however does not accept his approval, in fact she
does get a bit angry at it, and then changes the subject by
talking about an old boyfriend that she lost to the Korean
war. David comforts her, and they end up making love.

They are interrupted, however, by Jody's father and Doll,
who have come to catch Roz in the act of cheating on him.

After a violent scene between Jack and David, and after Jody

46

tells her father that Roz is out looking for him, Jack tells
Doll to leave so that he can.be alone with his daughterx. Jack
then tells Jody to get her clothes packed; he wants her to
come live with him. He tells her: "I'm gonna take care of
you. I'm sick of your mother poisoning your mind against me.
You're the only kid I got. And no kid a mine's gonna live in
this hellhole any longer."13

This begins the big confrontation scene between.Jack and
Jody. They confront each other about the past and present
and about Jack.and Roz's marriage. .Jody tells her father that
she resents him for not always being there, and for going away
to the war when he did not have to, leaving her to care for
her mother, and leaving Roz and Ma with the mortgage and his
gambling bills. She tells him:

And what did you leave me with? ‘Take care of your

Mother for me, Jody'...me and Margaret O'Brien,

what a scene. And I cried and promised I would.

And I tried. But oh boy, Buster, what a hellion

you gave me to take care of. The Army, the Navy

and the Merchant Marine couldn't take care of her,

but me, I tried. A ten-year-old kid tried. Well,

I'm exhausted. I feel a hundred and ten now, and

you say you're going to run off again.“

Jack retaliates by saying that he was fighting for her
and for her mother, to keep them safe from the Japanese. In

her anger against Jack, Jody tells him what it was like when

47
he was gone, and how Roz and Doll ran all over town to find
men to bring home to their beds. As soon as this is out, Roz
enters from the kitchen.

With Roz's entrance comes the climax Of the play. It is
during this scene that Jody finds out the truth about her
mother and father and the truth about their marriage. At this
point Jody finds out that her parents have been unfaithful to
each other for years. She also finds out that.Jack forced Roz
(at gunpoint) to have an abortion when he thought.that she was
pregnant with another man's child (which is a remarkably
powerful and feminist statement on men and how they try to
take away women's power and try to control women and their
bodies). However, the truth is also revealed.tO.Jack, for Roz
tells him that she never cheated on him until she had found
out that he cheated on her first. She also tells him that it
was his own child that he forced her to abort, not another
man's. And finally, she reveals that the abortion that she
was forced to have made her unable to bear any more children.

These revelations stun Jody. In fact, they make her ill.
She now knows the truth about her parents, and what terrible
things they have done to one another. But there is one more
truth to be revealed. In the heat of the moment Jack blurts
out the fact that Jody had just told him about Roz's behavior
during the war, and.Roz sees that she may not be able to trust
Jody like she thought she could, and that Jody is not

completely on her side in this argument, that she blames her

48

as much as she blames her father for what happened to the
family. Roz feels very betrayed, and tries to get both Jack
and Jody to leave. Calling them two-Of-a-kind. But Jody
tells her: "I'm like you. I'm exactly like you. But I wish
to Christ I could just be you and not have to think about
it!"15 As this exclamation reveals, at this point, Jody
realizes what marriage has done to her mother and father, she
also realizes that her mother is a powerless, trapped woman
who depends too much on alcohol and men. However, at this
point Jody also realizes that she too is just as powerless as
Roz, and that she tOO'Will be miserable because of the men and
alcohol in her life. She even tells her mother that she
wishes she did not realize all of this. She wishes that she
did not see how marriage, men and alcohol has ruined her
mother's life and is about to ruin her own. She wishes rather
that she did not have this knowledge, that she could just go
on without knowing how unhappy and powerless they both are.

Jody then yells at her mother for not keeping the family
together and for treating both her and her father so
hurtfullyu The argument.gets so heated that it.gets physical,
and Roz ends up hitting Jody. This is the final straw for
Jody, and she leaves exclaiming to her parents that they make
her sick and disgust her.

After she is gone, Jack and Roz decide that they are not

going to get a divorce after all, and that Jack will move back

49
into the hothouse. The second act ends with Roz proclaiming
the need for a party to celebrate their reunion.

Act Three takes place that night between midnight and
1:00 a.m. It starts with the party that Roz has thrown to
celebrate Jack's moving back in. As the scene Opens, everyone
is drunk and Roz is entertaining with a song. Soon, however,
Ma runs everyone Off, and Roz and Jack retire to their
bedroom, .All goes well, until Roz asks Jack to hold.her after
they make love. He gets angry because he wants to sleep, and
ends up hitting her and running Off again.

This scene is followed by another warm scene between
mother and daughter. After Jack leaves, Roz calls her mother
who leaves Banty, and comes to comfort her and help her clean
her wound. Roz sits on Ma's lap, and Ma sings to her. Roz
and Ma hold each other and fall asleep. This scene is one of
the few truly warm scenes in the play. Terry illustrates at
this point in the play how women must lean on one another and
comfort one another'if'they are to survive the sufferings that
men have caused them. This scene is a celebration Of unity
among women and of mother-daughter love.

As soon as they are asleep, Jody comes home with her
boyfriend Davide She has decided that she is going to get her
things and leave town with him. But when Jody sees her mother
and sees that she has been hurt, she asks David to wait out-
side for her. She goes to her mother and embraces her and

tells her she is sorry for their quarrel earlier in the day.

50

When she hears what happened between her mother and her
father, she promises to go find her father. When David
objects, she asks him to go home. He does finally leave, but
not without telling Jody what a dead end her home is, and
asking her how she could do this to him. He says: "Only this
evening...how could you love me like that if you didn't mean
it? You're mine now, Jody. Look at me. Jody!". And she
tells him: "You really mean so much to me. . .you. . .made me feel
again." His reply: "What good is it that I made you feel
again if that feeling isn't for me?"16

David is still only thinking about himself in this
relationship, and about how he can mold Jody into a good mate
who will make him feel good. He really has no concern for her
as a person or an individual.

As David is leaving, he makes an Observation: "Jesus

" 17 This observation of how

Christ! You all have the same eyes.
much the three women are alike physically can be seen to be
symbolic of their emotional unity as well. Ma, Roz, and Jody
look alike, think alike, and feel alike. This unity is both
good and bad. It is bad because the women are trapped by
their relationship to one another in the hothouse which
overflows with men and drink. However, and more importantly,
this unity makes the women stronger and happier because even

though they are trapped and quite powerless, they have each

other's love, comfort and caring to help them survive.

51
After David leaves, Ma goes back to Banty. Roz and Jody
are alone again. They drink to a fresh start, and Jody
wonders if she will ever be able to make it on her own. She
asks her mother "Oh, Momma. Oh, Momma. Won't I ever be able

"‘8 Roz responds by singing to her,

to look out of my eyes...
and telling her how much she loves her. She tells Jody that
the one thing she never has to do without is love. The play
ends with the two women embracing, and promising each other
that they will start anew the next day, and will try to bring
Jack back. The final image of the play, after Jody comforts
her mother and tells her that everything is going to be
alright, is that of Jody opening her arms to the world and
saying (like she did when she was a little girl): "COME IN
BUGS...COME IN FLIES..." and welcoming the outside world and
the hope it brings.19
The feminist message Of this play is clear; It's message
is a "...feminist statement on solidarity among women...".20
And it is about "...the positive side of matriarchal love and
how women have been able to maintain themselves even though
they've had no power, through the love that is passed from
grandmother to mother to daughter."21 It is the women of this
play who end up surviving and who end up learning something.
For at the end, Jody and Roz realize the importance of their
love for one another, and the importance of their mutual

support. The men of the play learn nothing. Both David and

Jack feel that women are theirs for the taking, and are to be

52

controlled by men, and this attitude does not change at the
end of the play because they both have learned nothing.
However, it is the men who loose in the end, who leave the
hothouse with nothing and without the love, support and
strength that the women find in one another.

As one author notes, hothouse is a play of contrasts.
". . .the relationships suffocate and nourish, they provide

"22 The relationship

warmth and humor as well as shock and pain.
between Jody and her mother is good in that it is loving,
caring and supporting, and it is bad because Jody is becoming
just like Roz, a heavy drinker who loves her men too much for
her own good. Jody even recognizes this when she tells her
mother that she is just like her and when in the end she asks
Roz if she will ever be able to see out of her own eyes. The
ending is one of contrast as well. The play ends on both a
positive note as well as negative one, for Roz and Jody
realize that they can find love and support in one another,
but yet they are still determined that they need to find Jack
and get him to move home.

Nevertheless, in spite of the fact that this ending is
not completely optimistic, Terry still makes a very important
feminist statement for women all over the world and from all
generations. The statement is that women need to realize that

they can live without men, and that they can find power and

strength, even though they are oppressed by society and by

53
their family, if they bond together and rely on each other for
love, comfort and support.

Terry also makes an anti-war statement as she shows what
the separation due to war has done to this family: it has
turned.Roz into a heavy drinker who runs around with all sorts
of men, causing her husband.to leave her, and.it has left.Jody
without her first love (for she lost her first boyfriend Ray
to the Korean war), and without a father. As Terry said
recently: "My biggest resentment about the war, besides the
Obvious destruction, is how it wrecks families. Our family
was destroyed by World War II, our extended family."‘23

The concern about war, and the concern with family
continuity that is evident in not only Hothous , but in other
Of Terry's works as well, is feminist in nature, for she does
not glorify war and/or soldiers like many male authors, but
rather blames the men who start the wars for the oppression
of women and destruction of family that it causes.

And so nephgnee can be proven to be a feminist drama.
It illustrates how marriage and the traditional male-centered
American family can oppress women and how it does not work in
all cases. It shows how war can ruin families. And it shows
how men have almost destroyed women by taking away their
powers, and making them believe that they have no life at all
without men. But most importantly, Hgthppee shows women

fighting back, and women finding strength, support and love

54
through other women, and women making it on their own, without
men.

One last aspect Of Hothouse that needs to be analyzed is
its style and structure. As previously mentioned, HOLEQESQ
is one of the very few works written by Terry in a more
traditional style. It does not use the experimental
techniques that many feminist playwrights have used Often in
their dramas about women and women's experiences. As one
scholar notes: "The portrayal of female characters within the
family unit--with their confinement to the domestic setting,
their dependence on the husband, their often defeatist,
determinist view of the Opportunities for change--makes
realism a "prisonhouse of art" for women..."a

But in Hothouse, realism is not a "prisonhouse of art".
Rather the realistic technique and structure is altered by
Terry to fit her story and.her feminist.message. For example,
"In contrast to most well-made modern plays. . .the central
characters are women and the world of the play is

"5' Terry takes an already established

distinctively female.
and very traditional form of drama (that of the realistic,
well-made play) and alters it to include a female‘world rather
than the traditional male-centered dramatic world and with
male characters. The female characters in this work are the

important ones, and the strong ones, while the men exist only

in relation to the women.

55
Also, in fighhonse, Terry relies very little on narrative
development, and exposition as do many traditional well-made
plays. It is a play of "words functioning as gestures"26
dialogue is what propels the piece forward, and in which
"...Terry's words function on stage as physical action, as
mediations that gradually change the people who speak them and

the relations between them. "27

It is the dialogue of this
piece that defines the characters as well as the plot, rather
than the physical action upon the stage.

Like most Western drama, Hothouse involves a recognition
scene. In this recognition scene, the characters learn
something about themselves that change them, and that they
have to accept in order to become a better person. This
recognition is what makes the resolution of the play possible.
In most traditional drama, the recognition usually depends
upon some truth about the past being revealed, so that the
protagonist will know the truth and become a better person for
it (see the classic example of Qedipns Ben or hegbeth).

In Hgthouse, there are past truths that are revealed.
However, these truths are not what make the resolution
possible. The fact that these truths are not known is not
what keeps the characters unhappy and unable to get on with
their lives. Instead, "both Jody and Roz are caught in
elemental confusions about their own identities."28 They both
are trying to define themselves in terms of their men, and

both seem to feel that they cannot make it without their men.

56
both seem to feel that they cannot make it without their men.
IRoz and Jody need to realize that this is not true and that
'they can make it together without men.

There is not a revelation in Hothouse which brings about
a major change in the character. Rather, the recognition
involves the characters' finally seeing who they really are,
and their acceptance of that person which brings about the
resolution of the drama. Jody realizes that she must try to
learn to be independent from her mother, grandmother and
boyfriend, accept who she is and try to see out of her own
eyes, and yet still love and care for the women she lives
with. And Roz must accept the fact that she is a mother, and
a daughter, not just a wife and a lover, and learn how to
accept the love and comfort from the women around her, and to
return that love and comfort.

With the resolution of hohhogse depending more on self-
acceptance than on any revelation of the past, Terry seems to
be telling women that they should not dwell on the past, nor
on the reasons that they are in the situations in which they
find themselves. Instead, Terry would perhaps assert, women
must to learn to accept themselves for what they are, and to
learn how to be self-reliant while at the same time remember-
ing that there is love and support to be found in other
women.

thhgnee is a play that does what it sets out to do. It

presents a very realistic story about women, their Oppression

57
and their powerlessness. Terry shows the audience how men
have caused women intense emotional and physical pain for
generations but yet she also shows the women in the audience
‘that this pain does not need to be endured forever. Terry
illustrates the strength and power of love and support that
can exist between women. She shows women that they can rely
on each other to ease the pain that.men inflict upon them, and
to find the strength that they will need to survive. It is
this key to survival, this illustration of women "making it"

which makes Hothouse an important piece of feminist drama.

58
Appmoaching Simone

One of Megan.Terry's most important works, and certainly
her' most. critically' acclaimed, is lher’ biographical 'work
Appmgaehing Simone, based on the life of Simone Weil. Terry
completed this play for presentation at the centennial Of
Boston University on February 26, 1970. In Boston, the
production was presented with Boston University students, and
directed.by Maxine Klein, It ran for only four nights, before
it moved to New York's La Mama Experimental Club at the
invitation of Ellen Stewart. Here, the production only ran
for a total of five performances, and was widely acclaimed by
the critics as one of the best plays of the seasons.
Approaching Simone also won the Obie Award for Best New Play
of the 1969-1970 season.1

Appmgeehing Simone is based on the life and writings of
Simone weil, a French, Jewish philosopher, theologian, and
educator of the 1930's and 1940's. Simone Weil was a unique
individual with a highly developed mind, "...whose intense
desire was to be an active and responsible citizen of Western

'3 Even though she was "born female, French and

Civilization.
Jewish, she allowed none of these labels--or the stereotyped
expectations associated with them--to predetermine the set of
her mind and her soul."3

Simone Weil lived her life selflessly and compassionate-

ly, and was a true hero not only to her country, but to women

everywhere and from every generation. She wrote for socialist

59

and Communist magazines, worked in factories with the working
class, helping them to strike for their. rights, she was active
in the Spanish Civil War, and through her writings she
explored metaphysical issues and ". . .the relationships between
spirituality and politics."6

Simone lived passionately, with a profound sense of
social responsibility. "She struggled much of her life to
justify in her mind what she felt in her heart--that it is
every person's right to have good done to her or him."5
Because of these beliefs, Simone lived a life Of sacrifices.
When she was young, she sent her sugar to the soldiers on the
front, she taught.young people.in unconventional ways that she
felt were right and necessary (even though they cost her her
job) and she worked manually in factories and on the front at
war to help others and so she could know what the people in
these situations were going through. Even in her death,
Simone sacrificed. Simone Weil died in 1943, at the age of
thirty-four, from starvation. She refused to eat as long as
soldiers involved in World War II were starving at the front.

It is this great personality, this great mind, this
great, selfless hero that Terry chose for her work Appnoaching
Simpne. This work is a series of vignettes from Simone's
life, in which "...Simone exemplifies the gradual liberation

of a woman as she transforms herself into a creative person

by the concerted efforts of her own will."6

60

The play contains Terry's signature technique, the trans-
formation, as all of the cast, except for the actor playing
Simone, transforms throughout the piece to play a variety of
characters from different events from different stages of
Simone's life. However, the actor playing Simone does not
change. In fact, as Terry says in her stage directions, "No
matter what age Simone is during a scene, she always behaves
and speaks as if she were somewhere near thirty."7 This
technique serves to focus all Of the attention on the
character of Simone, and does not give the audience a chance
to identify with, or sympathize with any of the supporting
characters. As Phyllis Jane Wagner states: "All roles except
hers [Simone's] are played by ever-transforming members of the
ensemble; she alone remains intransigently herself throughout
and thus, as supporting characters change with the changing
circumstances of her life, audience
attention is focused on Simone from the beginning Of the play
to the end."8

The play opens with a song which illuminates Simone's
intense mind, and her desire to find truth and genius. The
Chorus proclaims, "IF THE FOOL PERSISTS IN HIS FOLLY HE WILL
BECOME WISE. . .ANYONE CAN BECOME/ANYONE CAN KNOW TRUTH/ ONLY
MAKE THE EFFORT OF ATTENTION/ STAY IN THE DARK INSIDE YOUR
HEAD TILL IT LIGHTS YOUR WAY/ ATTENTION, PULL YOUR WILL/
GENIUS IS INVISIBLE."9 This song is a introduction to Simone,

her writings, and her life long desire to find the truth.

61

Following this choral introduction, Terry presents scenes
from Simone's childhood. The first of these includes Simone,
her parents and her brother carrying heavy luggage. Simone
is upset.because no one will let her carry any luggage because
she is too little. She insists on carrying her share,
carrying the same amount of luggage that her brother carries.
Already, in this early scene, Terry has illustrated the unique
sense of responsibility that Simone felt throughout her life,
as well as her desire to be strong and to not be limited by
the her size or the fact that she was a girl.10

The next two scenes illustrate Simone's desire at an
early age to develop her intellect and to find genius inside
of herself. She studies Racine with her brother determined
to do as well as he in school, and "...turns away as if

'", when a visitor, after hearing

slapped by an invisible hand'
that Simone's brother has done very well in mathematics at
school, says that "He's the genius, and (pointing at Simone)
she's the beauty."12

Following these scenes are three more scenes illustrating
what a unique child Simone was. In these scenes, Simone
refuses to wear stockings because the workers' children do not
have any, mails her sugar (which was somewhat scarce during
wartime) to the soldiers on.the front because "They don't have
any,"3 and chooses to watch the sunset rather than play with

the other’ young children. Terry's Simone is a rather

extraordinary young child who enjoys the peace and solitude

62
of nature over the company of other children, and who
selflessly shares her advantages with people less fortunate
than herself.

Following these scenes of Simone's childhood is a scene
which Terry calls "Simone at Fourteen--When and Why She Wants
to Kill Herself."1” Simone is alone in her room with a
migraine headache in this scene, and the other members of the
ensemble become "aspects of her self-doubt, self-loathing, and
pain and anguish," which "appear to torture her."15

The members of the ensemble tell Simone that she is
stupid, that she is just a girl, and that she will never
amount to anything. "Simone's fears tell her that she has no
talent, that she is stupid and awkward, that her mind is as
slow as her ‘miserable body': that she is ‘nothing but a
girl'...the pain she suffers is proof, it must be some kind
of punishment. She will ‘never know the truth,‘ her mind is

"1" Her fears and anxieties build and build and

too dim.
ultimately suggest suicide. Simone almost concedes, for she
shouts "If I can't find the way to justice and truth, then I
don't want to live! I'm mediocre! Only the truly great can
enter that transcendent kingdom where truth lives."17

But then Simone hears another voice. It is a calmer
voice, her own voice of reason. This voice brings the will
to live back to Simone with "ANYONE CAN KNOW THE TRUTH/DESIRE,
DESIRE/ ONLY MAKE THE EFFORT OF ATTENTION/ FOCUS ON THE DARK

INSIDE YOUR HEAD/UNTIL IT LIGHTS YOUR WAY/ THE SIMPLEST MAN

63

MAY KNOW TRUTH/ IF HE REACHES OUT EVERY DAY. "‘8 Simone, even
at fourteen, has a great moral desire to know the truth, and
to live a truly great (rather than mediocre) life. And
already, at fourteen, Simone is experiencing the limitations
placed on her due to the fact that she is a woman, and is
choosing to ignore these limitations, to go beyond them and
achieve greatness even though she is a woman. With Simone's
choice not to kill herself, and not to be limited by the fact
that she is a woman, Terry makes the statement that anyone,
even a young girl, can achieve this greatness, and know the
truth. The fact that the character who makes this realization
is a woman, makes the feminist statement that women are
capable of knowing the truth as well as men.

As the play progresses, the audience is taken through
scenes of Simone's young adulthood. These scenes include an
evening in a nightclub with a few of her friends, in which
Simone expresses her concern with the treatment of black
people in African colonies, her concern with the happenings
in Germany, and her deep desire to work with her hands.19

Two other scenes from this period of Simone's life show
her in the classroom teaching philosophy to teenage girls in
rather unconventional ways. She takes her students hiking,
and talks to them about how to live, and about how she has
chosen.not to fall in love (because she enjoys her freedom too
much). These scenes also show Simone going in front of the

school boards of the two schools and getting fired at one for

64

taking the students on an unauthorized field trip and for
putting the writings of her students into print (after all,
the school board says she was "not authorized to print the
work of nobodys"a5, and at the other for an unauthorized hike
and for insubordination. But Simone goes peacefully, in the
first incident proclaiming when told that she was fired "That
is a fact that I accepted in advance."a, and in the second
incident proclaiming, "It is the condition of my teaching."n

Simone refuses to be mediocre. She rejects the status
quo. She is willing to lose her job rather than sacrifice
either her morals or her greatness. She wants to live, and
to teach her students how to live morally and with greatness.

The next few scenes deal with Simone's experience of
working in a factory. She has taken a job in a factory "to
study the relationship of the worker to his work", and to have
some "contact with real life"23

Act Two begins with a short scene in which Simone is
writing a letter to her brother, asking him to speak to a
physicist for her about one of her calculus theories. This
scene is a very short scene, which is included to show one of
Simone's theories, and to illustrate her supreme intellect.
It is followed by a musical scene between Simone and the
chorus which explores some of her more mystical, philosophical

writings. "There is something sacred in every person,"“’

says
Simone. With the chorus she goes on to explain that what is

sacred in a person is not his/her personality, nor his/her

65

thoughts. Simone explains to the chorus (and the audience)
that "There is something in.all of us that goes on indomitably
expecting, in the teeth.of all experienceaof crimes committed,
suffered and witnessed, that good....That good and not evil
will be done to you. It is this faith above all that is
sacred in every human being."25

After this scene, which gives voice to some Of Simone's
thoughts and.writings, Terry returns to incidents in Simone's
life in which she sacrificed herself to help other people.
Included in this section of the play is a scene in which, in
spite of her frailness, Simone helps a group Of unemployed men
split rock on the roadside. The scene then jumps back to the
factory in which Simone and.the other workers are striking for
higher pay and better representation. Simone does not need
to help these people. She does not need to suffer with them.
She comes from a family that has the wealth to support her in
a much nicer fashion. Nevertheless, Simone, with her unique
sense of social responsibility, sacrifices herself, and helps
people who are not as advantaged as herself.

Next, Terry turns to the political life of Simone Weil.
One scene takes place at a meeting of leftist coalition
parties. Simone is giving a speech against Stalin's attempts
to "purge" Russia. Her anti-Stalin views are not very popular
with the other people present at the meeting, and Simone is
run off.26 She feels that the others in the meeting, along

with other politicians are going to drive her country into a

66
useless war, and so she decides to go fight in the Spanish
Civil War, a war which she feels is just.

While is Spain, Simone refuses to use a rifle. She also
is appalled at the fact that the people she works with laugh
at the men that they shoot. She is angry and realizes that
they are fools and nothing but.pawns in the war'between.Russia
and Germany.”' She is so angry about this that she
accidentally spills hot oil (she is at camp, cooking for the
soldiers) on herself and is severely burned.28 The fact that
Simone is injured while cooking, a traditionally "female
activity" is both ironic and feminist. For in the midst of
a great war, Simone is only hurt by stereotypical "womanly
duties".

Simone's parents come.to Spain.to bring her home, and.the
next scene, entitled "Visitation"”’takes place while Simone
is alone in her room suffering from her injury and the illness
that it has brought. As Simone laments the fact that she is
sick, and that she cannot work, she cries out to God" At this
point, the rest of the ensemble enter the stage and lift
Simone up, "...giving her a total caress. They hum. They
take her pain into their bodies, until all but five who lift
her up to God are feeling the pain that she had."""‘0 The
ensemble then undress Simone, and put her clothes on their
bodies, then they put her down and exit.

Simone is now "transfixed, warmed and filled with divine

love."31 She sings a poem of George Herbert's entitled "Love

67

III". Terry selected this poem because of a statement Simone
Weil wrote in her Notebooks: "Examples of perfect poems, .i.e. ,
having a beginning and end, and a duration which is an image
of eternity. There are a few of them...‘Love' of Herbert is
one.":32 Terry chose this poem to illustrate the feeling that
Simone had after her "...mystical experience of God's love"."‘:3
This scene then flows into»a song which explains Simone Weil's
thoughts on God. Simone sings that she believes that God
created man so that he could be loved and that it is men and
women's responsibility to become the type of being that God
needs to love him. As Wagner points out: "This is the
beginning of Simone's mystical vision of human life and Of her
carefully constructed arguments for the value of human
suffering . "3“

In the scenes that follow, Terry further explores
Simone's experiences with religion. In one, Simone has gone
to a Catholic Priest for help in finding work, and also to
speak with him about Christ. The Father wants to baptize
Simone, but she refuses. She tells him, "I prefer to stand at
the door of the church," and later, "I don't want to belong
to any groups. I want to be invisible, so that I can move
among all groups” I'm.suspicious of structures, and especial-
ly the structure of the Catholic Church, it has been totali-
tarian since the time of the Roman Empire."36 This scene
illustrates what a clear and independent thinker Simone was.

She does not accept the status quo, or the established church

68
simply because of society's expectations. Rather she
questions the church, explores it, and searches further for
the answers to her religious questions.

The next scene takes place in Harlem. This time Simone
and a friend have decided to go to a church with a predomi-
nately black congregation. They listen to the sermon and to
the gospel music, and are overcome with emotion. They join
the congregation in song and.dance just before the scene ends.

These scenes deal with Simone's thoughts and explorations
in religion and show what a truly great thinker and mystic
Simone Weil was. She feels the need to reach out to God, and
does so, but yet will not allow herself to be baptized. She
does not trust organized religion (perhaps because it leads
to mediocrity?), and chooses rather to remain separate from
society to seek her own spiritual salvation.

The rest of the play deals with Simone's work for her
country during World War II. One scene deals with her trying
to convince the officials to allow herself and other women to
go to the front to help the male soldiers. She appeals to the
Officials ". . .to get [her] out of a this painful moral

situation. "37

She feels the deep moral need to help her
country, and this is one way she could do so.

In this scene, Simone is championing the power of all
women. She tells the officials that the women could comfort
and nurture the men at war, and bring a bit of human kindness

back to it. She is not only pleading with the Officials to

69

let her help and fulfill her moral responsibility, but also
to recognize and utilize women's unique abilities and powers.

The next scene involves a speech Simone gave protesting
the war. She explores the stupidity of France's involvement
in the war, and explains that the original objective is lost,
and that the war is one of empty words and meaninglessness.
But her audience does not listen to her and the war goes on.

Simone's next speech is to the wounded in the hospital.
She addresses these men to comfort and enlighten them. She
tells them, that because of their affliction, they are more
aware of life that those at the front who die unawaref38 She
tries to prepare them for death, and "to awaken them to Grace,

"39 At the very end

to the necessity of self-transcendence...
of the scene she tells them: "You have the opportunity and the
function of knowing the truth of the world's affliction.
Contemplate its reality!""‘0

In the final scene, Terry explores the situation
surrounding Simone's death. She has committed suicide by not
eating, She would not eat as long as there were people in
France starving. Woman One says: "She wouldn't eat. She
wouldn't eat the bombs of the Germans, she wouldn't eat the
furnace of the Nazis. She swallowed the pride of France, but
it didn't stick to her ribs.""1

Even in her death, Simone is a selfless individual. And

even in her death she was concerned with people less fortunate

than herself. Terry has illustrated in Appmgeehingiimpne not

70
only what a powerful mind Simone Weil had, but also what a
caring, patriotic and socially responsible individual she was.

Apppoaching Simone is a uniquely feminist piece of drama.
It is one of the few dramatic works ever written with a self-
aware, independent, female protagonist who is not identified
through her relation to a man, and who is a truly great and
extraordinary hero. It is also one of the few biographical
dramas with a feminine hero.

As author C.W.E. Bigsby noted in his book A Cmiticel
Introduction to Twentieth Centupy American Dmema Vol. Three:
Beyond Broadway, traditional drama, written.by men throughout
history paint three stereotypical portraits of women. The
women in these dramas are usually portrayed as "the pure
mother, " "the corrupting seductress, " or "the threatening

emasculator.""’2

Rarely are women characters in plays written
by men portrayed as individual, intelligent, and autonomous
people.

The feminist dramatists rebelled against this tradition
in the 1970's and began to write plays with strong, individual
women who were not identified through their relationships to
the men in their lives, but who were either completely
autonomous, or struggling for their autonomy. As playwright
and critic Honor Moore stated, "When autonomy became an issue
for many women, women's individual struggles became material

for drama . "‘3

71

We is one such drama. It is a drama
which rebels against the traditional. It is does so by
presenting a positive description of a female historical
figure who struggles for her identity (or autonomy) and her
individual liberation. It is unique also because Simone is
not identified by her relationship to the men in her life.
And finally, it is unique because it presents women from a
feminist viewpoint. It shows a woman who does not need men
and who is just as intelligent and strong (if not more so)
than the men around her.

The play is a powerful statement for women everywhere--
it shows women what they are capable of doing if they set
their minds to it, and gives them and excellent role-model to
follow as well. As Phyllis Jane Wagner says: "In the play,
the character Simone exemplifies the gradual liberation of a
women as she transforms herself into a creative person by the
concerted efforts of her own will. She is not only the first
self-aware protagonist to appear in any of Terry's plays, but
the first heroic figure as well..."“

Terry indeed wrote this play with the intention of
providing other women with a role-model. She states ". . .we've
been living in a homosexual society...Men run everything...
Women and children have no rights or status, they're only

" £5

reflections or extensions. . . She feels that this narrowness

in society has really limited women:

72
Women haven't had the time or the Opportunity or just

haven't take the power in their own hands to create a
model outside of themselves of what's in here, of what
they really know. They've imitated masculine models.
And when I saw this through Simone, I began to get a
picture of the possibilities of how to construct--out
there for people to walk into--what's going on in here,
or what was going on in Simone. Then people will say,
‘My God it is possible; women are free to do this and
can.' And once several women have built a few
structures, they're going to be building structures all
over the place. Because all you have to do is show that
it's possible, and then all kinds of people will start
adding to it . ‘6

Terry also says she feels the need "...to come out and be as

strong as I can for other women. They need models, they need

to know that a woman can make it and think clearly in a

womanly way. All the heroes are dead and killed or
compromised and women need heroes. That's why I wrote
Apngeghing Simone.“7

And so, Terry has written a play with a model of strength
for women. Through the life and writings of Simone Weil,
Terry shows women that they too can research, learn and know
the truth, that they can.to anything men can do, and that they

to can be role-models and/or heroes.

73

But App:_o_eehing_§_imgne does not speak only to women.
Terry also remembers that she wrote the play because she so
admired Simone's "supreme intelligence", her dedication and
the fact that she was so unselfish.“ Terry wanted her
character to be a model not only for women, but for all
people: "To ‘save men and their society' was indeed one of
Terry's hopes in writing Approeching Simone--to save human

""9 This drama is intended to

beings and their society.
celebrate Simone Weil's supreme mind and being, to help save
all society and, to provide a strong role model for women
everywhere.

The technique and style used by Terry to achieve these
goals is very effective. Terry once stated "I have been
consciously building my technique so.that I could write a play
about her."50 This technique that she built turned out to be
a very powerful and theatrical mix of styles and techniques
used by Terry in her early works. There are elements of
realism (or at least selected realism), of musical drama, and
of the transformational drama in Apngeehing_§imgne.

As mentioned before, Terry only uses the transformation
technique in the depiction of the minor characters of the play
in order to focus all of the attention onto the character Of
Simone. This technique works well as does the structure of the
piece. In this work, as in most of her other works, Terry

does not choose an chronological, narrative structure.

Instead she chooses an episodic structure which illustrates

74
many different events in Simone's life. As Helen Keyssar
notes "Terry's architectural, episodic style lends itself well
to a biographical drama, in which.the epiphanic as well as the
ordinary moments of Simone's life and death are equally
embraced."51

Another’ technique employed. by Terry' that. is highly
effective is the inclusion Of many words spoken and written
by Simone throughout her life. She also includes poetry that
Simone admired. All of these interjections illustrate what
a powerful mind Simone had, and strengthens the audience's
admiration for this hero.

This style, these techniques, and the sheer'theatricality
of Terry's presentation are what make this drama work. As
theatre critic Catharine Hughes notes: "Miss Terry's
achievement...lies in the surprising theatricality with.which
she- invests that seemingly untheatrical life. Mere
particularly impressive in this regard is her successful
employment of any number of experimental theatre approaches
that, in other hands, have too often seemed mere
gimmicks. . . " .52 I

Through these techniques, and her style and structure,
that Terry consciously developed for this piece, she has
written a powerful piece of drama. This drama speaks to
everyone by showing them a truly powerful mind and soul. More

importantly, however, is the fact that Terry has also written

a truly powerful piece of feminist drama. With Apppgeehing

75
Simone, Terry has shown the world that female heroes do exist,
-that female individuality and autonomy is possible, and she

has given women all over a role-model to follow in their own

struggles for autonomy.

76

Amemicen King's English fog Queens

The last piece of feminist drama by Terry to be analyzed

in this study, American King's English for Queens is perhaps

more didactic and feminist than the three plays mentioned
previously. American King's English for Queens was written
by Terry in 1978, and was first staged in March and April of
that year at the Omaha Magic Theatre, where Terry was and
still is a playwright in residence.

This play "...examines language's crucial rOLe in the
development of sexist attitudes and stereotypes...".1 It.also
examines the oppression of women in the American family due
to expectations due to the English language.

Mezieen King's English fem Queens, like Egthouse is
another of Terry's "family" plays.2 The family that the story
is centered on is the Connell family, which includes the
mother and the father, three daughters, Susu, Kate, and Jamie,
one son, Doug, and a feral child that the children have found
while out on the prairie snipe hunting, whom they name Silver
Morgan.

The first act deals with the Connell family before they
bring Silver Morgan home. The play begins (after a brief
introduction by Silver Morgan) with a playful scene between
the children and their parents one night before the children
are put to bed. Throughout this scene, the children play
around with the English language and with sounds. The

children question the English language, and wonder why they

77

cannot make up their own language. The children ask "English,
why English?", ask "why isn't it called Patricia/ Or
Amerakish?", and declare "I'm singing pig!/I speak star./ I
speak alfalfa./ I speak crow. etc". But to all of this
nonsense, their father replies "It's English! English!/ To
speak all this you've had to use English./ All you know is
your mother tongue."3 Later in the scene, the children find
out that one of their ancestors was Spanish, and they delight
in this, and.play around with the Spanish language. But.by the
end of the scene they are told again that they must use
English, their mother tongue. This scene illustrates the
possibilities of playing with language ". . .and the realization
that English isn't the only ‘medium' through which the human
mind can communicate with itself and with others."‘

The next scene involves a confrontation between the
eldest daughter, Susu and.her fatheru .As her father stops.her
to tell her to take out the trash, she stalls for time by
saying "Yeah, but...".5 This. phrase ‘upsets the father
tremendously, and he calls the family to together to make an
example of Susu. He does not want his children to say 'Yeah,
but..." because "There is no such word as ‘yeahbut'." And,
after all, "The way one speaks shows one's intelligence." He
does not want other people thinking that his children are
stupid, and therefore wants them to speak properly.6 This

scene shows the importance that people place on language, and

78
that the type of language that a person uses can communicate
what type of person s/he is.

In the following scene, the audience sees for the first
time the direction that the play is going. This scene is
between the mother and the youngest daughter, Jamie, who has
spotted a rabbit in their garden. Jamie tells her mother "The
rabbit's eating our lettuce", to which the mother replies "Is
he?". This confuses Jamie and she replies "No. I said the
rabbit."7 The scene that ensues is an argument between mother
and daughter about the rabbit in the.gardenm The mother keeps
calling the rabbit a "he", and this confuses the young girl,
who associates the pronoun "he" only with her father, who is
at work, and who cannot be out in the garden eating lettuce.
The young girl tells her mother "You told me Momma rabbits
have babies," and then asks "How can he have babies."8 In her
mind, since rabbits have babies, the rabbit must not be a.
"he", but rather a "she". The confusion mounts between mother
and daughter, and is not resolved. Jamie finally leaves the
room frustrated, after asking her mother "If all the rabbits
are boys, are all the cats girls?" In a worksheet made out
by Terry, for use by leaders of discussions which followed the
Omaha Magic Theatre's production of the play, the playwright
idescribes the scene: "Confusion. and. ‘miss-communication'

caused by the generic pronoun ‘he'."1o This is the first

(iepiction of the sexism of English in.American King's English
masseus-

79

Next, the play moves into the kitchen. The mother, Julia
is making stew and.wondering about "the meaning of life." She
is feeling oppressed by her role as wife and mother, and is
recalls herself at the age of sixteen when she told herself
"Julie, you're sixteen. Life has just begun...Julie, Julie.
Let's have fun!" She tries to ignore this voice "...by
throwing herself into making veal stew for the family."11

This message of this scene is a familiar one in feminist
drama. The women Of these dramas Often find themselves
yearning, confused, and feeling depressed. They feel this way
when they realize what that their whole lives are taken up
with family responsibilities and.with filling the stereotypi-
cal gender role of wife and mother. Similar messages can be
found in plays such as Tina.Howe's Birth and.AEter’gimth, Anne
Commire's Shey, and Myrna Lamb's Apple Pie.12

While Julia is in the kitchen making stew, and wondering
about her life, the children play a game in the living room.
The game that.they are playing is some sort of career game for
little girls. The game is full of stereotypical language
which reinforces limitations that society places on children
by stereotyping certain careers. For example, the careers
that this game promotes for girls are ballet dancers, nurses,
teachers, airline hostesses, and models. The game also
[explains the necessary qualities that a person must have in
<3rder to succeed in these occupations. The nurse and teacher

must have patience, and the airline hostess and model must not

80

have sloppy make up. ‘When Doug gets a card that says that his
make up is sloppy, he gets mad and tells his sister that she
cannot be a model either because she is too fat. He gets very
upset however, when he gets a card that says that he is
emotional, which is good for and actress or a model.13

As Terry says about this scene, "Much of the language is
taken from an actual commercial game for little girls. Its
description of job roles and qualifications implies that only
females do these jobs...the girls and the boy argue over what
job roles are possible or appropriate, using lots of control-
ling and put-down language like: ‘You're too little,"too
short,’ ‘too fat,‘ ‘too emotional,' ‘lazy,' ‘crazy,' ‘dopey.'
Male ballet dancers are characterized as ‘too short,"

'3‘. This scene shows the

stewardesses as mere ‘waitresses."
limitations that language and stereotypical gender roles can
place on children as they grow up and look to the future and
their careers.

The next scene involves the mother, father and the eldest
daughter, who comes home from a school activity and announces
that she is in love. This upsets her father, who tells her
that "Romantic love is neurotic."15 He tells her that he
admires societies in which.marriages are arranged, After she
leaves the room, the father tells the mother that he is
worried about their children not knowing about the value of

the dollar, and that he does not want a "...foolish dreamy

child."16 The scene is changed a bit when Julia begins singing

81

a medley Of love. songs that were popular when they got
married. Her husband, however is not romanced and sings his
own song about microwave ovens and other kitchen appliances.

The languages Of the mother and the father are very
different in this scene. The father's is a language Of the
dollar, while the language of the mother is romantic. These
two languages do not seem.to:mix, and.have limitations on each
of these two characters because of the expectations that they
create.

The final scene of the first act again explores the
effect that sexist language and stereotypes can have on young
children. This scene takes place in the family's bathroom,
where Doug and Dad are having a "man to man talk". During
this talk, Dad shows Doug how to stand, and how to hold

"W He also tells his son: " A man protects

himself like a man.
his sisters, his wife and his mother, And his father when his
father can no longer protect himself," and later, after he has
slapped Doug when Doug insists that he is going to marry
Mommy, "Don't cry; Men don't cry. If you cry, I'll make you

"w This scene shows the

wear your sister's clothes to school.
unfair expectations that fathers place on their sons at an
early age, by telling them that they are men. As one critic
says, "Men's behavior is seen as a function of what they are
called: Doug is a boy at nine years old, but when called a

‘man' he can he one. Crucial to the meaning of ‘man' is its

negative, i.e., not girl, the ultimate degradation."19 This

82

scene, then, shows the limitations and oppressions that are
placed on children due to the sexist language that surrounds
them, and to the stereotypical expectations that society has
of them due to their gender.

Act Two begins with a transformation for the actors.
They are no longer a family, but rather big kids and little
kids out on the prairie on a snipe hunt. As they hunt, the
big kids tease the younger kids by telling them that they are
too little, and not old enough to go on a snipe hunt. They
also antagonize the little kids by insulting them with the
comment: "You hang out with girls."20 The little kids,
however, despite the teasing, catch what they believe to be
a snipe, but which in actuality is a feral girl raised by
prairie dogs. .As soon as the little kids catch the snipe, the
big kids exit, shocked. This scene explores the power of
language, and the way that people use it as weapons. .As Terry
states, "It's the language of ‘ageism' (Older' kids vs.
younger) and initiation, or put-down, power and barter."21

The actors all transform back into their original
characters in the Connell home, and wait for Dad to come home
to show him "the snipe". When he gets home, however, he is
not ready to see their surprise. He has received bad news at
the office, The business that.he works for has been sold, and
he thinks that he may loose his job. While loosing his job
is not actually ‘very likely, they' have taken away' his

secretary, which has made him very angry. He announces that

83

he is going to have to learn to type, and that he feels badly
for the way that he treated his secretary: "I'm sorry, dear
Lord, I ever asked her to comb her hair. I'm sorry, dear
Lord, for yelling at her to replace her lipstick after lunch.
I'm sorry, dear Lord for making her bring me and Bill coffee
eight times a day with three sugars and heavy on the cream.";22

And then he tells his family that they are going to have
to start watching what they spend. He tells them that they
can no longer go to McDonald's, that they have to get rid of
the microwave, the television, the cars, and the minibikes.
The children.are devastated, They decide that now is the time
to show their father their "snipe", and at this point they let
the feral girl out.of the.bagu .At first the father's inclina-
tion is to shoot it, but the rest of the family protests,
which shocks the father as he claims: "Mutiny! In my own
house! Why did you bring up my children to be so
independent? "23

This scene examines many aspects Of language,the effect
that it has on people, and traditional stereotypes. First
Terry examines "The language of business from corporate
economics to office skills..." She also "reveals how the
males expect the females to dress and act at the office, and
the threat to Dad's ego when his job is in danger, his
secretary is taken away and he has to learn how to type."“
Also this scene explores "The language of affluence--Of

‘microwave,' ‘mini-bikes, ' and ‘McDonald's'..."25 The power

84
of these two languages and the effects that they have on the
American family are explored by Terry.

After a short scene in which Doug visits the feral girl
in the cage that the Connells place her in, and tells her that
he does not like her, comes the final scene of the.play; This
scene takes place in the family room near the feral girl's
cage. The three Connell sisters have snuck down to see her.
The girls decide to teach the girl how to speak. Susu says:
"We have to think of a way to teach.her to talk without making
her feel that being a girl is not as good as being a boy."
They decide that the best way to do this is to work as a team.
Susu tells her sisters: "I want to try. Women have got to get
it together, and if we can't do it in our own home, where can
we?" and later: "It's not just a scientific experiment with
the Snipe, but to see if we can learn to work as a team. Boys
do it all the time."27

The girls decide that the best way to teach the "snipe"
to talk is to first try and communicate with her in her own
language of chirps and barks. They do so, and seem to be
making a bit of progress, seem to be communicating with the
feral girl when Doug and Dad enter. Dad sees that the feral
girl is touching Kate, and gets angry and decides to take the
snipe to the zoo. 'The.girls however, make him change his mind
by communicating with him in his own language: the language
of money. The girls convince their fatherthat they can teach

the girl how to speak, and clean her up and make her look like

85

Miss.America4 They argue that this would.make them famous and
that they could sell their story to a magazine for at least
twenty-five thousand dollars.28

The father agrees, and they all decide to name the girl.
Silver Morgan is the name that they decide on, Then the girls
decide that they will let the men on their team (and let them
help teach Silver to speak) only if they play by their rules.
Kate tells them "...all the money we take in from our work
with our captured creature is to be shared equally. And each

"29 Dad is willing to agree, but Doug

member has only one vote.
hesitates: "But two men against five women?" he asks. His
mother (who has entered the room) replies "But Dougie--why do
you make yourself think that way? Why, we're W
beings," and he answers "We are? Are we human beings and men
too?"30

The feminist message in this section of the scene is
clear. The girls have found that they can work well together,
just like the men, and the men are forced to realize it. The
fact that the.girls get.their'way, and.overcome the Oppression
that the male members of the family are placing on them makes
a strong statement that women are capable, intelligent human
beings who will overcome the sexism of the family and of the
English language.

The play ends with the whole family working together to

teach Silver how to speak. They succeed in their endeavor by

winning confidence of each other and of Silver, and.by the end

86
of the play she is speaking English. At the very end Of the
play Doug and Dad ask the essential question of the play: "Do
you think like you talk or talk like you think?"31 And the
Connell family realizes the power of the English language and
the limitations that it can.have and.has over the human beings
that speak it.

Amenican King's English fom Queens is a feminist drama
which explores many language and gender issues. The play asks
questions, and offers lessons "...about the uses and abuses
Of languages, sex roles, concepts of romance and the

"32 In this work, Terry explores how all

socialization process.
of these issues effect women and children.

Many feminist themes are explored in American King's
English Tor Queens. Besides being a play concerned "...with
how'we use everyday language to define the status of women.and

T” it is also a play about sexual

children within the family,
stereotypes, about the Oppression of women that family can
cause, about the silliness of the excessively money-oriented
individual, the detrimental effect Of the commercialism and
materialism of today's society, about the need for women to
find their power by working as a team and forcing men to give
them their deserved equality. All of these themes are
secondary to Terry's primary theme of the effect of language
on the American family, but all contribute to the overall

feminist attitude of the work. They also are all themes that

can be found in other works by feminist playwrights.

87

Nevertheless, the prominent theme of the work is the
power of language. As one author said "Through the dialogue
that punctuates a family's interaction, the audience is shown
that language helps to determine sex roles, lead to expecta-
tions of others based on, and determines social control."‘“ And
another author notes of this play, and of three other of her
full-length plays (Babes in the Bighouse, The Tgmmy Allen
Shem, and grezil Fado), "Unlike the absurdists, Terry does not
investigate language to devalue it, nor meaning to abandon it,
nor action to replace them both. Instead, all of her
challenges testify her reluctance to allow the idea of
meaningless to mask the uses made of language, action and
meaning."35

In Amenicen King's English for—Queens, Terry shows the
power that language has to create sexual stereotypes that
limit women and children, to make a person seem to be
something just for the naming (for example, Silver Morgan is
a ‘snipe' until she is called a girl, then she begins to act
like one, and Doug is a boy until he is called a man, then he
begins to act like one), to make a person feel a certain way
(for example the romance language of the love songs that the
:mother and father listened to while growing up made them feel
in love), and to be used as weapons (for example the put-down
language of the children on the snipe hunt). Two final
language issues that Terry illustrates in this work is the

fact that people can communicate by other languages than just

88
the spoken word (for in this work, they communicate by singing
and by body language as well), and the question that she.wants
to pose to the audience with the work: "DO you talk like you
think, or think like you talk." All of these language issues
explored in this drama, and the other female themes that it
deals with make it a truly feminist play.

In style and technique, American King's English for
Qneene is fairly typical of Terry's more recent works while
at the Omaha Magic Theatre. There is still the element of
transformation in this work, the characters sometimes
transform into animals, pieces Of furniture, and different
children for the snipe hunt. Terry proves this technique
again to be effective in her work, for the transformations in
this piece succeed at keeping the audience's attention, and
keeping them from over-sympathizing with the characters and
not listening to the message of the work.

Another interesting technique that Terry uses in this
work, and in many other works as well, is the inclusion of
music. In fact. Amenicen King's English fog Qneens is
described as a musical (it is included in an anthology called
MWMW) - This
style helps to illustrate the Terry's belief that there are
forms of communication other than the spoken word. It also
helps to lighten the piece to make it more enjoyable.

A final element of style that needs to be discussed in

any analysis of e i an 's l'sh ue s is its

89

didacticism. Terry is very interested in making her audience
think with this piece. She closes the play with the essential
question that she wants her audience to think.about after they
leave the theatre, when she has the father of the Connell
family ask "Do you think like you talk or talk like you
think." She also included an after-the-show discussion with
the audience to further explore language issues with the
audience. Terry calls these discussions the third act of the
play.

Author Jean Natalle notes "The rhetorical impact of the
play is actually derived from audience participation during
the discussion period." These discussions are lead by a group
of experts in the fields of history, psychology, sociology,
English literature, theatre arts, philosophy, religion, and
linguistics, whom the Terry and the Omaha Magic Theatre calls
‘humanists' .36 Using a worksheet prepared by Megan Terry, the
humanists and the audience explored the effects of the English
language on women in America. These humanists were the same
experts that Terry relied on throughout the writing of this
play for research and ideas. Terry and others from the Omaha
.Magic Theatre met with the humanists once a week and shared
research during the developmental period of this drama. Terry
states "We developed our piece after absorbing as much as we
could from these brilliant and generous people."y'

These two practices, of thorough researching with experts

during the developmental phase, and of post-performance

90

discussions with the audience are not uncommon in the Omaha
Magic Theatre, or in productions of feminist theatre groups.
These practices are quite feminist in that they reflect this
group's long tradition of collaboration and of consciousness-
raising. They also help contribute to the didactism, or
rhetorical impact of the play. The discussions afterwards
were one way that Terry could guarantee that her audience
would leave the theatre thinking about the issues that she
felt were important, and questioning themselves. When asked
if her plays were written with the intention of getting the
audience to take action, Terry answered with a simple
affirmation, and said that action is what makes theatre so
exciting.38

This didactism and rhetorical force supplied by the
discussions makes this piece even more feminist. For feminism
is a political movement that wishes to provoke social change.
This play seeks not only to point out problems with the
American society, the American family, and its language, but
also to provoke social change, to get its audience to take

action to correct these problems.

91
Conclusion

In these four plays, C 1m Down M the , Hotho se,
Approaching Simone, and American King's English for Queens,
Megan Terry's feminist voice can be heard distinctly. These
four' plays truly fit ‘the «definition and. description. of
feminist.drama that.has.been studied.and.brought forth.by such
critics as Janet Brown, Elizabeth Natalle, and Dinah Leavitt.

These plays are written by a woman, about women and
their unique experiences, positive or negative, that they have
while being women. Calm Down hother is about many different
types of women and the way they perceive their bodies, the
limitations they place on themselves, and about them overcom-
ing their Oppression” Zflothonse is about a family of women who
learn to live and love each other, to take care of themselves
and to make it without men in their lives. Approaching Simone
is about brilliant woman with a very intelligent mind and
caring soul, who is able to overcome the limitations Of being
a woman, and become a fully autotomized individual. And
W is about a family who is
victimized by sexual stereotypes and oppression, but in which
the women end up taking a stand, and forcing their male
relatives to let them be equal.

These plays deal with a great number of subjects very
common to feminist drama. They all deal with family life to

some extent. Calm—Metre: and Hothouse deal with

commonplace activities of women, and with the activities of

92
women when men are not around. Calm Down Mother also deals
with reproduction, Amepican King's EngliSh for Queens with
sexual stereotypes, and Approaching Simone with the
heroization of a woman from history.

The most common thematic trends Of plays written by women
as set fourth.by Beverly Byers Pevitts (see chapter 2) are all
dealt with in these plays as well. For Terry treats the theme
of social oppression in all four plays, the theme of family
oppression in Amenican King's English for Queens, the theme
of mother-daughter relationships in Hothouse and Calm Down
Mother, the theme of autonomy for women in Approeghing Simone,
and the theme of friendship among women in Calm goyn hothen
and hothguse.

Furthermore, these plays all have innovative techniques
and structures that are so common in women's drama, They have
strong female characters, they have transformations, they have
song, they' have. direct audience address, and. they have
circular and episodic plots.

Finally, all of these plays have a didactic purpose.
Each is written to criticize society, and to evoke some sort
of though and/or action from its audience.

Megan Terry is more than just a feminist dramatist. She
is one of the first» As Helene Keyssar claims Megan.Terry may
truly be the mother of American feminist drama. When asked
how she felt about this title, Terry claimed that it was a

title Of honor, but that she could not be called "the" mother.

93
She said she was startled to read this title in print, and
wanted to say "But look at all the others." She claims that
Gertrude Stein, Maria Irene Fornes, Rosalyn Drexler, Rochell
Owens and JoAnn.Schmidman are mothers and leaders of the genre
as well as she.1

SO perhaps Terry can best be called "one of the mothers
Of modern American feminist drama". She certainly was one Of
the first, writing feminist works as early as the 1960's, and
one of the most innovative with all of her explorations into
new forms, structures and techniques for drama.

Because of her work, which she has managed to get
published and produced with great frequency in many theatres
across the nation, Terry has been.a great role model for other
women playwrights. She has shown women that it is possible
for them to succeed as playwrights, and has given them many
examples of just how playwriting should be done. As Keyssar
points out: "Since the early 1960's, Megan Terry has been a
sustaining force in feminist drama, nurturing other American
women playwrights and continually extending the reaches of her
own plays."2

Megan Terry has been a key figure in the birth, growth,
development and definition of a new genre of modern

literature, that of ‘the :modern..American feminist. drama.
Without these four works Qalm Donn Mohhez, Egthgnse,
MW. and MW.

94
along with her numerous other plays, this genre would not be
what it is today.

Ideas for further studies include a comparative study
between different works written in different stages in Terry's
career. Another interesting research topic would be a study
comparing Terry's work to that of other dramatists (male or
female), in order to trace her influences on the modern
theatre. Because of the diversity of Ms. Terry's work and of
the work of other feminist playwrights, the possibilities for

research and studies in this field are virtually endless.

95
Notes
C t I
1Beverly Byers Peavitts, "Feminist Thematic Trends in
Plays Written by Women for the American Theatre 1970-1979,"
diss., Southern Illinois University, 1980, 1.

Karen Malpede, ed., Women in Theetre: Compassion and
Hope (New York: Drama Book Publishers, 1983) I.

2

3Helen.Chinoy, and Linda Walsh.Jenkins, Women in Amenican
Theahze: Cemeers, Images, hovements: An Illustrated Anthology
and Sourcebooh (New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1981) 130.

‘Chinoy 129.

sPevitts 6.

6’Judith Olauson, The American Woman Playyright: A View
of innicism end Characterization (Troy, NY: The Winston
Publishing Company, 1981) 7.

7Rachel France, introduction, A Centnny OE Eleye hy
Temen, ed. France (New York: Richard Rosen Press, Inc., 1979)

15.
aHart, Lynda, introduction, k' a t ' em'nist
EsseYs_2n_Qontemeorarx_E2menls_Theatre. ed. Hart (Ann Arbor,

MI: University of Michigan Press, 1989) 2.
9Olauson 9.
1oPatti Gillespie, "America's Women Dramatist: 1960-80."
te 'c , ed. Hedwig' Brock
(Munchen: Max Heuber Verlag, 1981) 191.

"Gillespie 189 .

96

ghaphe; TI
1‘Dinah L. Leavitt, Feminist Theatre Groups (Jefferson,

NC: McFarland and Company, Inc., 1980) 9.
2Megan Terry, telephone interview, 9 May 1990.
3Leavitt 104.

"Janet Brown, Feminist Drama: gefinition end Cpitical
Analysis, (Methuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1979) 1.

5Elizabeth J. Natalle, Feminist Theatre: A Study in
Regeneeipn, (Methuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1985)
4.

6Leavitt 94.

7Chinoy 288.

8Pevitts 5.

9Natalle 5.

1oLeavitt 104.

11Chinoy 277.

12Jan Breslauer, and Helene Keyssar, "Making Magic Public:

Megan Terry's Traveling Family Circus," flexing_e_Speehegle;

s o O tem r WO n's eatr , ed. Lynda

Hart (Ann Arbor, MI: University Of Michigan Press, 1985) 170.

13Helene Keyssar, ' '5 ° t o O
W (London:

MacMillian Publishers, Inc., 1984) xii.
1"Leavitt 2.

1sLeavitt 5-6.

97
16Leavitt 4.
‘WPevitts 1.

'“Leavitt 98.

Chaphe; TTT

1Megan Terry, interview, In Their Own Words: Contemporary
American Playyrights, ed. David Savran (New York: Theatre
Communications Group, 1988) 242.

2Phyllis Jane Rose, "Megan Terry," Dictionag of Literai‘y
giography Vol, 7, ed. John MacNichols (Detroit: Gale Research
Company, 1981) 278.

3Rose 278.

‘Rose 278.

5Terry, interview, in Theim Oyn 243.

6Rose 279.

7Rose 279.

8Rose 279.

9Rose 279.

‘wRuby Cohn, ew ' a r mat'sts 1 60- 980, (London:
The MacMillian Press, Ltd., 1982) 63.

11Rose 280.

12Rose 280.

13Rose 281.

1"Rose 280.

”Rose 284.

16Rose 285.

98
17Rose 285.
18Rose 287.
19Keyssar 71.
2oRose 287 .

21Terry, telephone.

Qhapter IV

1Keyssar 62.

2Terry, telephone.

3Rose 281.

‘Phyllis Jane Wagner, introduction, Apprgeghing Simone,
by Megan Terry (New York: The Feminist Press, 1973) 9.

5Megan Terry, "Calm Down Mother", glays by eng Argon;
Temen, eds. Victoria Sullivan and James Hatch (New York:
Random House, 1973) 279.

6Terry, Calm 279-80.

7Wagner 9.

“Keyssar 62.

9Terry Calm 280.
10Terry Calm 281.

"Terry sale 282.

12Terry gelm 282.

13Terry gelm 282-3.

1"C.W.E. Bigsby, A Crihical Inhmpduetion he ggth genhnmy
Amerisan_Dramai_Yoli3i_§exond_BroadEax (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1985) 432.

99
15Terry film 285.
16Terry gein 286.
17Terry Calm 286.

18Terry Calm 289.

 

1"Terry Calm 291-2.

 

2°Terry galm 292.
21Terry Calm 293.
22Terry, telephone.

”Breslauer, 170 .

2"Lynda Hart, "Megan Terry," American Playmrights Since

1945: A Guide to Scholarship, Criticisml and Perfozmance, ed.
Philip Kolin (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989) 448.

25Bonnie Marranca and Gautam Dagsputa, e ic
Eleyiyrights: A gziti cal SugeyI Vol 1 (New York: Drama Book

Specialists, 1972) 183.
Z‘E‘Keyssar 55

27Terry , telephone .

”Terry, interview, In Thein Qyn 245.
”Arthur Sanier. "Megan Terry." W.

ed. James Vinsion (London: St. James Press, 1977) 782.

30Terry , telephone .

Chapter_Y
1Keyssar 56.

2Terry, telephone.
3Terry, telephone.

100
‘Terry, telephone.
sMarranca 190.
6Megan Terry, Hothouse (New York: Samuel French, Inc.,
1974) 11-12.

7Terry, Hothouse 16.

13Terry, hothouse 17.
9Terry, hothouse 26.
10Terry, Eothouse 37.

11Terry, Hothouse 43.
12Terry, Hothouse 44.

13Terry, Hothouse 52.

1('Terry, hothouse 53.
15Terry, hothouse 62.
16Terry, hothouse 79.
17Terry, hothouse 80.
18Terry, thhouse 81.
”Terry, hohhouse 82 .

”Marranca 150.

21Hart negen 454.

22Rose 287.

23Megan Terry, interview lntemiews with anhempgmen
Epmen_£leyyzighne, by Kathleen Betsko and Rachel Koenig (New
York: Beechtree Books, 1987) 397.

2I'Sue Ellen Case, EeminiMJheehme (London:
MacMillian, 1988) 124.

25Keyssar 56 .

101
z"W’Keyssar 56.
27Keyssar 57.

28Keyssar 58 .

ghaptem VI
1Rose 287.

2Rose 286.

3Wagner 9.

‘Rose 286.

5Rose 286.

6Wagner 10.

7Megan Terry, Approaching Simone,
Feminist Press, 1973) 43.

8Wagner 14.

9Terry, Simone 40-4.

1oTerry, Simgne 44.

11Terry, Simone 46.

12Terry, Simone 46.

”Terry. Simone 47.

1"Terry, Simgne 50.

15Terry, Simpne 50.

“Wagner .15.

17Terry, Simgne 52.
1“Terry, ' one 53.
19Terry, Simgne 55-7.
”Terry, Simpne 73.

(New York:

The

21Terry,
22Terry ,
23'Terry ,
Z”Terry ,
25Terry,
26Terry,
27Terry ,
:nTerry,
”Terry ,
30Terry ,
31Terry ,
3ZWagner
33Wagner
3“Wagner
”Wagner
3"’Wagner
37Wagner
38Wagner
”Wagner
“Terry ,
“Terry ,
“Bigsby
‘3Chinoy
“Wagner
‘“Wagner
‘“Wagner

Siege 73.

'mo e 77.
Simone 78-9.
Simome 86-

Simone 90.

Siam 96.
Simgne 101.
5.311% 101.
Sime 103.
Sm 103.
Simone 104.
18.
18.
18.
12.
13.
21.
19.
20.
m 131..
Simgne 132.
423.
185.
10.
12.

13.

102

103
"Wagner 13.
V “Terry, telephone.
“Wagner 12.
”Wagner 10
51Keyssar 7o.
5WCatherine Hughes, "An Avant-Garde Simone Weil, " America

June 6, 1970: 612.

Chapter VII
1Terry, interview In Their Gym 241.

2Rose 289.

3Megan Terry, "American King's English for Queens", Eigh
Enepgy Musicals izom the Omaha Magic Theatre (New York:
Broadway Play Publishing, Inc., 1983) 10.

‘Terry, Amepieen 73.

5Terry, Amenieen 13.

“Terry, Amenieen 16.

7Terry, Ameriean 18.

“Terry, American 19.

9Terry, Amepieen 20.

10Terry, Amenigen 73.

11Terry, Amezieen 73.

12Pevitts 68.

13Terry, Amezieen 27.

1‘Terry, Amenigen 73.

15Terry, Amenieen 31.

104

1"’Terry. Ameriszm 33-
17Terry, American 36.
“Terry. W 37-

1”Kathleen Gregory Klein, "Language and Meaning in Megan
Terry's 1970's ‘Musicals'," hegemn_gmeme Dec. 1984: 576.
20Terry, American 41.
21Terry, American 74.
22Terry, Merican 49.
23"Terry, American 53.
2"Terry, Merican 74.
25Terry, American 74.
2(Terry, American 59.
27Terry, flerican 59.
28Terry, Amepican 65.

29Terry. Matisse 67-
30Terry, e 'ca 67-8.

31Terry, e 'ca 69.
3"’2Marranca 192.

33Megan Terry, "Omaha Magic: Playwright's Theatre," The
Sgnthweshemn Beviey, 6.9 (1981): 17.

2"Natalle 87.

”Klein 574 .

3""I'erry. Omaha 17.
37Terran Omaha 17-

38Terry, telephone.

105
W
1Terry, telephone.

2Keyssar 53.

 

106
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ashina, Robert. "The Basic Training of Playwrights: Theatre
and the Vietnam war." Theatre Spring 1978: 30-8.
Barnes, Clive. "Megan Terry Studies Three Nymphomaniacs."
Eew Yorh Times 24 Oct. 1979: 49.
---. "Stage: Terry's ‘Simone': Woman Mystic's Suffering and
Courage Unfold in Play at La Mama." New York Times 9
Mar. 1970: 43.
Bermel, Albert. "On Stage: The Sound of Vietnam." Ne

Eeegem 21 Nov. 1966: 31.

Bigsby, C.W.E. A Critical Introduction to 20th Centnmy
American DramaI Vol. 3: Beyond groedway. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Braten, Enoch. Introduction. Eeminine Focus: The Ney ngen
.Eleyymighnem Ed. Braten. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1981: ix-xvi.

Breslauer, Jan and Helene Keyssar. "Making Magic Public:

Megan Terry's Traveling Family Circus." Mening_e

. 0
e U
0‘ - . ‘u ! : :‘. ‘ o! o, ‘uoo .‘ OII‘! ..

Theenmey Ed. Lynda Hart. Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press, 1989: 169-180.

Brown, Janet. 's ° ' ' 'o C 't
Anelyeie. Methuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.,
1979.

Case, Sue-Ellen. Eeminiem_eng_Theeh:el London: MacMillian,
1988.

107
Chinoy, Helen and Linda Walsh Jenkins, eds., Women in
e ic ea e: Careers Ima e Movements:

Illustrated Annhology and Sourcebook. New York: Crown
Publishers, Inc., 1981.

Cohn, Ruby. New American Dramatists 1960-1980. London: The
MacMillian Press, Ltd., 1982.

Croyden, Margaret. Luneties, Lgvems and Poets: The

Connemporamy Emperimenhal Theetre. New York: McGraw-
Hill Book Co., 1974.

Feldman, Peter. "Notes for the Open Theatre Production of

Keep Tightly Closed in a Qool, gmy glace." Tulane
Dmeme geview 10.4 (1966): 200-4.

France, Rachel. Introduction. A ntu O a s b
Ame;ieen_flpmeni Ed. France. New York: Richard Rosen

Press, Inc., 1979: 15-22.

Gilman, Richard. "Experiments in Theatre." heyeyeeh 21
NOV. 1966: 114.

Gillespie, Patti. "America's Women Dramatists: 1960-1980."
Esss2s_9n_Q2Etemporsrx_snerissn_nrsmai Ed. Hedwig Brook
and Albert Wertheim. Munchen: Max Heuber Verlag, 1981:
187-199.

Gunton. Sharon. ed. Q9ntem29rar2_Litsrsrr_§ritisism_Y91s
12; Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1981: 438-41.

.Hart, Lynda. Introduction. c c : ' st

EsssYs_9n_Q9ntemnorsrx_E2menls_Thestrei Ed. Hart. Ann
Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1989: 1-18.

108

---. "Megan Terry." American Playyrights Since 1945: A
Snige he SeholemshipI Criticism,.and Performance. Ed.

Philip C. Kolin. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989: 448-
56.

Hughes, Catherine. "An Avant-Garde Simone Weil." Ameniee
6 June 1970: 612.

---. "Theatre Goes to War." America 20 May 1967: 739.
Keyssar, Helene. Feminism Theatre: An Introguction to

s O t ora British and American Wom .

London: MacMillian Publishers, Inc., 1984.

Klein, Kathleen Gregory. "Language and Meaning in Megan

Terry's 1970's ‘Musicals'." hodern Drama Dec. 1984:
574-83.
Kreigel, Harriet. ngen in gpeme, New York: New American

Library, 1975.
Kroll, Jack. "Waiting for God." Eeyeyeek 16 Mar. 1970: 64.
Leavitt, Dinah L. £eminie;_Theehne_§mgnpeT Jefferson NC:
McFarland and Company, Inc., Publishers, 1980.
Locher, Frances Carol, ed. t ors V 7- .

Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1979: 438-41.

MainierO. Lina. ed. W New York:
Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1982.
Malpede. Karen. W New York:

Drama Book Specialists/Publishers, 1974.
Malpede, Karen, ed. W ° e ' ass' e

New York: Drama Book Publishers, 1983.

109

Marranca, Bonnie and Gautam Dagsputa. Ame;igen_gleyy;ighpei
A Critical Survey Vol, 1. New York: Drama Book
Specialists (Publishers), 1972.

Natalle, Elizabeth J. Feminism Theatre: A Study in

Persuasion. Methuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, Inc.,

1985.
Olauson, Judith. The Amemican Woman Playnrights: A View of
Qmiticism eng Characterizetion, Troy, NY: The Winston

Publishing Company, 1981.

Orzel, Nick and Michael Smith. Eight gleys from Ofi-Off-
Breegwey, Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Inc., 1966.

"The Open Theatre [1963-1973] Looking Back." Perfomming
Arts_gournal 7-3 (1983): 25-48-

OwenS. Rochelle. S22ntane9us_Q9Ebustioni_Eight_New_Amerissn
Pleys, New York: Winston House, Ltd., 1972.
Pasolli, Robert. A goon gn phe Qpen Theehpe. Indianapolis:

The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1970.

Pevitts, Beverly Byers. "Feminist Thematic Trends in Plays
Written by Women for the American Theatre 1970-1979."
Diss. Southern Illinois University, 1980.

Poland, Albert, and Bruce Mailman, eds. The_Q£fi;Qffi;
Emeegyey_gpghl Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill

Company, Inc., 1972.

110

Richards, Stanley. Introduction. The gest Shop; glays Of
TESS. Ed. Richards. Philadelphia: Chilton Book Co.,
1968.

Rose, Phyllis Jane. "Megan Terry." gictionamy Oi Litememy
giggmephy Vol. 7. Ed. John MacNichols. Detroit: Gale
Research Company, 1981: 277-90.

Sanier, Arthur. "Megan Terry." Contemporamy Dramatists.
Ed. James Vinsion. London: St. James Press, 1977.

Schuleter, June. "Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool, gmy glece:

Megan Terry's Transformational Drama and the
Possibilities of Self." Shudies in Amemiean Drama,
1255;p;eeenhl Ed. Philip Kolin and Colby H. Kulman.
N.p.: University of Mississippi Press, 1987: 59-69.

Shepard, Richard. "‘Viet Rock' Starts Two Week Run at

Yale." Eey_xgmh_Timee 10 Dec. 1966: 34.
Sullivan, Victoria. Introduction. Eleye_gy_eng_Ahenn

figmeny Ed. Sullivan and James Hatch. New York: Random

House, 1973: vii-xv.

Taylor. Karen Malpede- W New
York: Drama book Specialists/Publishers, 1972.
Terry. Megan- MW nigh

W New
York: Broadway Play Publishing, Inc., 1983: 2-75.

---. Apngeehing_SimgneT New York: The Feminist Press,
1973.

111

"Calm Down Mother." Pleys By end Ahout Women. Ed.
Victoria Sullivan and James Hatch. New York: Random
House, 1973: 275-293.

"Cool is Out! Uptight is Out!" New Yomk Times 14
Jan. 1968, sec. 2: 17.

Eoum Pleys hy Megan Termy. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 1966.

hothouse. New York: Samuel French, Inc., 1974.

Interview. in Thei; Oyn Weeds: Contemporemy Amemigen
Elayyrights. By David Savran. New York: Theatre
Communications Group, 1988: 240-56.

Interview. nte 'ew w' ontem or WO
Eleyymighhe. By Kathleen Betsko and Rachel Koenig.
New York: Beechtree Books, 1987: 377-401.

"Introduction to Viet Been," Tnlene Dmeme Review
11.5 (1966): 5-7.

"Omaha Magic: Playwright's Theatre." e SO es e
Beyiew 6.9 (1981): 17-23.

Telephone Interview. 9 May 1990.

"Two Pages a Day." The_gmeme_3eyiey 21.4 (1977): 59-
64.

"Who Says Only Words Make Great Drama?" The_hey_xg;k

Timee 10 Nov. 1968, sec. 2: 1+.

Todd. Susan. ed. E9men.snd.Theatrer_Qslling_the_fih9ts-

London: Faber and Faber, 1984.

112
Wagner, Phyllis Jane. Introduction. Approaching Simone. By

Megan Terry. New York: The Feminist Press, 1973: 9-34.