追尋的女人：汀馞蕾珂．渥騰貝克的女性主義喜劇

Women on Quests: Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Feminist Comedies

本論文擬研究汀馞蕾珂．渥騰貝克（Timberlake Wertenbaker）如何運用不同的喜劇類型和技巧來呈演在不同社會、環境中女性的追尋自我、追求自由，成就風格特殊的喜劇，即「女性主義喜劇」。第一部份以《瑪麗．崔列佛斯的美德》（The Grace of Mary Traverse, 1985）為主，渥騰貝克改造復辟時期喜劇中的「放浪子歷程」（Rake's Progress），呈現瑪麗跨越階級和性別的界限，打破父權社會建構的單一身份—女兒，開創女性多重、複雜、流動的身份。該劇反映英國在自七○年代以來婦女運動的風潮之下，女性對改變現狀的期待和希望，而當中女性和政治權力的議題，則是對柴契爾夫人執政的省思。第二部份探討《為國之故》（Our Country’s Good, 1988），渥騰貝克運用「後台喜劇」（backstage comedy），刻意暴露幕後演員／囚犯的背景和狀況、對演出的角色的看法、以及排演的進展，和幕前的戲成有趣的對比，更重要的，是和嚴苛的殖民地刑罰生活成強烈的對照。《為國之故》強調戲劇如何成為殘酷現實生活中改變個人、凝聚社群的一股力量，而新的生命意義，尤其明顯見於女囚犯瑪莉和麗芝。第三部份論述《飛落原野的鳥兒》（Three Birds Alighting on a Field, 1991），渥騰貝克善用「風尚喜劇」（comedy of manners）來嘲弄、諷刺英國八○年代末的資本主義社會中，藝術品淪為買賣的商品，以及不同階級、種族汲汲營取的各式行為。然而，透過對藝術、傳統之價值的真切瞭解，碧蒂逐漸改變，體悟身為女性和英國人的意義，而茱莉亞最後肯定自我，在英國社會中坦然以印度人自居。本文結論將闡釋西蘇（Hélène Cixous）在〈梅杜莎的笑〉（“The Laugh of the Medusa,” 1975）中對「笑」（laughter）的論述，藉此徵顯三部喜劇的女性主義幽默和精神，並將之定義為「女性主義喜劇」。

imberlake Wertenbaker. The first part discusses The Grace of Mary Traverse; premiered in 1985, the play tells an eighteenth-century tale of a young woman’s “Rake’s Progress.” By means of disguise, Mary transgresses the gender boundary in the patriarchal society and pursues self-knowledge and freedom. The second section deals with Our Country’s Good, opened at the Royal Court Theatre in 1988. The comedy re-writes the story of the first theatrical production, Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer, by a bunch of convicts on the shores of Britain’s new colony of Australia in 1789. Employing the genre of backstage comedy, Wertenbaker dramatizes the transforming power of the theatre, which eventually enables the transformations of the convicts through rehearsal and acting; the changes are especially obvious in Mary Brenham and Liz Morden. The third part considers Three Birds Alighting on a Field; produced in 1991, the work uses the theme of art trade to problematize the identity issue—sexual, social, cultural, and national—in 1980s Thatcherite England. By utilizing the dramaturgy of comedy of manners, Wertenbaker presents her scathing satire on the commodification of modern art in London and the upper echelons of British society; nevertheless, two female characters, Biddy and Julia, do have flashes of discovery about themselves in their pursuits of art. Finally, the paper brings forth Cixous’ “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975) in which she calls for a liberation of the feminine repressed within patriarchal cultures by wielding the power of subversive and destructive laughter; Cixous’ political manifesto offers a discourse on feminist humor. The feminist humor praised by Cixous, as the paper concludes it, is precisely the spirit of Wertenbaker’s three comedies; the feminist comedies make Wertenbaker distinctive in contemporary British theatre.