Abstract
This chapter examines two productions by queer theatre company Sisters Grimm, Summertime in the Garden of Eden (2012, 2013) and The Sovereign Wife (2013), which present queer, camp, politically subversive reworkings of historical narratives. Set in the nineteenth century in America’s Deep South and Australia respectively, both plays interrogate the racial politics of national history, employing a complex use of drag that operates across a range of identity categories including gender, sexuality, class and race. By queering mainstream cinematic representations, they deconstruct myths of national identity and expose a history of racism and misogyny. By exploiting the challenge to gender authenticity central to drag performance, Sisters Grimm highlight the socially constructed and performative nature of all identity categories, especially that of race.
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French, S. (2017). Queering History, Race and Nation in Sisters Grimm’s Summertime in the Garden of Eden and The Sovereign Wife. In: Staging Queer Feminisms. Contemporary Performance InterActions. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46543-6_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46543-6_5
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