Bechdel Test

BECHDEL TEST Does a Latina Playwright Need Permission to Write about Women’s Bodies?

Commissioned by New Theatre Magazine

Written by Elaine Romero

The invitation for the commission came in early 2016. It was for a Chicago storefront theatre’s Bechdel Fest. I liked the idea of having my work be a part of an evening of plays that intentionally met the Bechdel Test. The interpretation of the Bechdel Test was fairly streamlined. Our plays were to focus on scenes between women about something other than a man. I assumed, erroneously, that we would all be writing feminist plays. I mean, we writing in the spirit of Alison Bechdel, right?

Feminism felt on a positive uptick in early 2016. There was a woman running for president, and we were in a different place in our conversation about white feminism and women of color. We seemed on our way to a different future—a future that felt it would free us, and make us defy the obvious odds we live with daily, the fight for gender parity in a given theatre season, or the make-up of the Senate, or the Supreme Court. We learned it was true. We were on our way to a different future. It just wasn’t the different future we’d prognosticated.

Timing is everything when it comes to plays and life. I dreamed of this play during a moment in time and that moment quickly found itself eclipsed by another. We live in a time of eclipsing conversations. We can barely grasp one concept of Russian collusion when a new affinity group lands under the onslaught of a presidential Tweet. We run to the rescue, and we find ourselves, again, eclipsed, undone by our own good intentions. We never see the eclipses coming, but they blacken out our light every time.

The Bechdel play was to be written for a scrappy, now award-winning, company. We’d have a development timeline, a dramaturg, and a guaranteed production in Chicago. We would float characters, a premise, and begin our discussion with a dramaturg (a male). It’s a bit of a Hollywood structure for my taste, but I decided it would be worth it to get another play out of a process, and I love having my work produced in Chicago, and I really liked the idea of being part of a feminist festival. What could go wrong?

I decided to write something body positive. Perhaps society had felt like it was shifting away from women being at home in their bodies and I wanted to show that in a different light. I wanted to challenge what I saw as a step backwards in our relationship to our bodies. When I first realized that there would be three nude women of color in the play, I consulted my dramaturg. He assured me that the theatre was 100% supportive about me writing what I wanted to write. I really adored him and I felt empowered to keep working. Sure, it might be hard to find people to work on this show, but I still believed that for an event called the Bechdel Fest, there would be women artists wanting to collaborate with me. The dramaturg and I continued a protracted process of development without hearing the script, without asking any questions, and without realizing we were about to be eclipsed.

That June, a story broke in the Chicago Reader.* It was an early precursor of the Me Too Movement. The article focused on Artistic Director, Darrell Cox, and the abuse he had perpetrated at his award-winning theatre over two decades. The article not only raised a question about Chicago’s love for gritty realism, but it’s entire storefront scene, built on the backs of, let’s face it, non-equity, unprotected actors. The revelations around Cox led to the end of that theatre, and it led to other stories of abuse in other theatres. The revelation of one theatre’s dark past revealed another and another. And somewhere in there was my play, Our Bodies, Yourselves, a play which dared feature nude women of color.

By the time summer was over, I began to realize we were having a hard time securing a director. Everyone said casting would be a problem. I honestly thought they were telling me they could not find three Latinx actors.

It was later, I realized that my play was interpreted as demanding too much of actors, asking them to give something for nothing. I’d have a director attached for a few hours, or I’d have a new person read it, and I would hear the following. “I just feel really bad about my body right now.” “I just don’t feel good about my weight.” Or, “I would not be willing to do this play myself. I can’t ask actors to do it.” Oh, and it’s a good play. It was as if I, a Latina playwright, was really Darrell Cox, using real women’s bodies to deviant ends.

I’d asked for a woman director. The team, of course, agreed. For some reason, that was getting hard as well. I fought harder for the play than I should have. I used every contact I had. I went to the most daring companies I could find (ones that did nudity regularly), and they’d be interested for a minute, and then they’d bail. Ultimately, the answer was always the same. Because of what had happened with Cox, nobody would work on the play. Nobody would even start to explore this play that takes place inside of a hot spring. Nude women. No. No. No. At that moment in Chicago, women’s bodies would be tone deaf because of what men had done.

On a very dark day, I fetched a play out of my computer called, Kissing Fire. I tweaked it to meet the Bechdel Test. Kissing Fire was directed by a man and presented as a staged-reading amidst fully produced shows. The director had the actors light matches at the beginning of the play. The play featured fireflies who had fallen in love with water droplets. Their destiny was to be extinguished. And in the end, as I saw my actors managing their matches, water glasses, and scripts, I thought about Our Bodies, Yourselves. I thought about how people weigh in on what we can do, or not do, with our bodies. I thought about how I’d been weighed in on as a Latina artist. I thought about how when we ignite something strong, it can still easily be extinguished or eclipsed by the forward thrust of collective action.

As a result, Our Bodies, Yourselves has never been performed.

*Read At Profiles the Drama—and Abuse—is Real, the Chicago Reader article by Aimee Levitt, here: https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/ profiles-theatre-theater-abuse-investigation/Content?oid=22415861