This thesis is focused on the intersections of queer theory and violence. Specifically, I look at how acts of violation define and inform queer subjectivity in theatrical representation. Many theatre artists and practitioners use violence to describe gay, lesbian, and queer people on stage. This document examines two queer playwrights from Great Britain, David Rudkin and Mark Ravenhill, and the ways in which they use violence to define and constitute the queer characters in their plays.
I am interested in violence as a single but important determining component of the ways in which audiences perceive queer characters. I will focus on how Rudkin and Ravenhill create characters through a dramaturgy that uses both sexuality and violence to formulate subjectivity. The thesis is comprised of three chapters, each of which covers different acts of violence. The first chapter is focused on the queer body as a combative force against acts of violation in David Rudkin’s plays Afore Night Come and The Sons of Light. Chapter two is an examination of male/male rape in Rudkin’s The Sons of Light and Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking. Chapter three continues to look at Mark Ravenhill, this time discussing violence against women in Some Explicit Polaroids and Mother Clap’s Molly House.
For better or worse playwrights, filmmakers, and other artists continually use violence to speak about and define gay, lesbian, and other queer bodies. One of the purposes of this document is to show just how much influence theatrical representations of acts of violence have on representations of the queer subject in the theatre.
