Corinne Rusch-Drutz:
(Re)Presenting
Mothering: The Unhappy Marriage of Motherhood and Theatre Practice
Since
the 1976 publication of Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born, a new
discourse
on patriarchal motherhood has reconceived contemporary notions of
mothering.
Rich was the first to recognize motherhood as an institution, seeing it
as a
nexus of social organization under patriarchy.
While the representation of motherhood has been ubiquitous in
dramatic
literature, the actual work of mothering remains, with the exception of
a
handful of references, a topic largely absent from writing on women’s
theatre
practice. Motherhood in relation to paid
work is receiving attention in a variety of occupational fields, but
the
theatre community has been reticent to acknowledge the ways that
motherhood
affects practice. This paper investigates the ways in which a group of Toronto
women theatre practitioners negotiate their identities as mothers with
the work
processes of the artistic institution.
The study will focus on theorizing difference among the
participants and
understanding their daily experiences in relation to extra-local social
arrangements. Topics include rethinking the boundaries of invisible
work
practices; reading the daily “work” of getting to work and how it is
made
invisible from local work processes; and the contrast between informed
work
contexts and engendered practice.