The Silent Sex

In 2017, I adapted and directed a show at the Yale Cabaret that was based on material from my dissertation research. Below is the program note I wrote at the time, which further details the project. I am currently working towards remounting the project—stay tuned for further iterations.

Note from the creator

When writing my dissertation, I sit in silence, reading words that were meant to be spoken, by women who fought to be heard. This project is an answer to that silence. Based on my dissertation research, which focuses on the rich tradition of female solo performance in twentieth-century America, this project seeks to resurrect and amplify the voices of female solo artists, past and present.

I named the show after a collection of monologues, titled The Silent Sex, written by May Isabel Fisk and published in 1923. I chose this title, because like Fisk, I appreciate its irony. In Fisk’s time, referring to women as the “silent sex” was a sarcastic remark, a winking allusion to the perception that women talk too much. But Fisk’s monologues also make clear that there’s a second, subversive meaning of her title: that women are not so much the silent sex as the silenced sex.

The careers and texts of the women I write about in my dissertation counter the silencing of women. With satire, humor, and heart, their monologues fight back against the forces that belittle, sequester, and demean female experience.

Through this project, I hope to bring the work of these women out of the library and into the light, because I believe that now more than ever we need theater pieces, which celebrate the outspoken woman. Within our current political climate, what better time to revive and commemorate the work of female artists who refused to be silenced?