Disturbing masculinity: gender, performance and ‘violent’ men

Abstract

This article examines a theatrical and social performance by focusing on an open-air festival where a prison theatre group performed. It explores the interplay between the sanctioned violence of the state, in which I became implicated, and the use by the actors of gender performances to disturb identity construction. I explore the ways in which an artistic project that I thought of as resistant to hierarchies and the status quo can suddenly become part of the hegemony and related violence it seeks to resist. The article frames the analysis of the performances by connecting theories around the politics of recognition with applied theatre processes. I argue that the theatre group used performance to negotiate an alternative politics of recognition. I also draw on Judith Butler's use of Hannah Arendt's scholarship on the political importance of appearance to locate the personal and political significance of bodily presence and visibility in public spaces. I suggest that the processes involved in creating theatre and performances, rather than the issue or content of the theatre, are personally and politically significant, particularly in negotiating an alternative identity and recognition for black men labelled violent.