feminist theatre (my secret love)

COLLECTIVE CREATION AND THE CHANGING MANDATE OF NIGHTWOOD THEATRE

Rubess observes that two realizations are important for a collective to function effectively; first, it must be acknowledged that not everyone can do everything, so people should be encouraged to do what they are best at and also to discover other things they can do along the way. Second, each collective member must be committed to and understand why they are working as a collective. The first point explains why, even with the collective creations, the programs from Nightwood productions generally list certain people as being responsible for particular functions, while the show itself is credited to the group as a whole. The second point signals the greatest potential danger of working collectively, which is the question of "ownership." Part of the problem may be inherent in the process of collective creation itself, in that "job descriptions" may be largely self-defined and therefore easily subject to dispute. Individuals who put a lot of time and effort into a project are not always able to give up a sense of personal "ownership" of that work for the greater good of the company, and there are many who argue that they should not have to. But the issues can be further complicated when the collective members are assumed to share the same feminist principles; unspoken assumptions can be made that everyone is more in agreement than they really are, and individuals can be afraid of voicing dissenting views for fear of looking "not feminist enough." Apparently, collective creation may involve a discrepancy between process and product; in some cases a beneficial feminist workshopping process (as in the annual Groundswell festival, for example) may not necessarily result in a written script, while in the case of an example like Smoke Damage, an extremely troubled collective process still resulted in a valuable feminist play.⁽⁸⁾ It is the combined efforts and enthusiasms (or lack thereof) which spark the creative process in a collective; individual moments of genius may not add up to an overall production, but the multifaceted result of collective effort may convey something about the process and the feminism of its participants which is valuable on its own terms.