Split Britches: Lesbian Practice/feminist Performance

The Split Britches theater company has defined postmodern lesbian/feminism on stage in the U.S. for the past decade and is arguably the single most important experimental theater company to have emerged during this time. Split Britches: Lesbian Practice/Feminist Performance is a long- awaited celebration of the theater and writing of Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw, and Deb Margolin, who make up the troupe and who have won two Obies and other distinguished awards for their performance skills, ensemble work, and textual innovation. Their work addresses the central icons of high and popular culture from the perspective of lesbian and feminist gender twists and power inversions--from Weaver and Shaw's lip synching satires (Shaw's send-up of Perry Como, Weaver's Southern dish of Tammy Whynot), and their butch-femme seductions in Belle Reprieve, to Margolin's parodic stagings of a Jewish comedian in the vaudeville spectacle of Beauty and the Beast, to the queer challenges of transexuality in Lust and Comfort.