Silly to Think and Never Question the Absurd: Integrating the female heroine in Absurdist playwriting
Sophie Davis
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Nihilist turned existentialist SOPHIE DAVIS is a Sydney-based playwright with a keen curiosity in fierce female protagonists, queer stories and dark comedies. In 2021 she graduated from the NIDA Writing for Performance Master’s degree. In 2019, Sophie attended a life altering production of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway and instantly decided to leave her job in production at Foxtel to pursue a career in the highly lucrative world of theatre. Since, she has been busy creating new work with NIDA, Blue Cow Theatre, Old 505 and alongside her twin brother in their production company ‘Sis and Chris.’ Most recently, Sophie was shortlisted for the 2021 Rebel Wilson Comedy Commission and the 2021 Canberra Youth Theatre commission for her new work in development ‘Strike Out.’ Sophie’s artistic endeavours are to expose through the intersection of playwriting and philosophy that which has historically been left out of the Western cannon underneath patriarchal structures.
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Abstract
This article set out to dismantle the masculine epicene inherent in Absurdist theatre through the intersection of theoretical and philosophical interrogation and writing practice. Early on in my investigation I contemplated how practice-based research could assist in my attempt to decentre the male body as the metaphoric default body in Absurdist playwriting. Initially, my strategy to achieve such a feat was to incorporate feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray’s theory of the ‘sensible transcendental’ to insert an existential female heroine into my neo-Absurdist play, Silly to Think. However, through the process of practice-based research it became abundantly clear that I wouldn’t accomplish this goal using my initial hypothesis and therefore it should be noted with great emphasis that the development of this paper was arguably more significant than the conclusive findings in isolation. The identification of changes, limitations and most importantly failures, not only informed my process but led to significant discoveries in the field of Absurdist theatre, resulting in deeper theoretical interrogation and consequential moments of insight, breakthrough, and evolution in writing practice and the potential for an entirely new written form.
This article set out to dismantle the masculine epicene inherent in Absurdist theatre through the intersection of theoretical and philosophical interrogation and writing practice. Early on in my investigation I contemplated how practice-based research could assist in my attempt to decentre the male body as the metaphoric default body in Absurdist playwriting. Initially, my strategy to achieve such a feat was to incorporate feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray’s theory of the ‘sensible transcendental’ to insert an existential female heroine into my neo-Absurdist play, Silly to Think. However, through the process of practice-based research it became abundantly clear that I wouldn’t accomplish this goal using my initial hypothesis and therefore it should be noted with great emphasis that the development of this paper was arguably more significant than the conclusive findings in isolation. The identification of changes, limitations and most importantly failures, not only informed my process but led to significant discoveries in the field of Absurdist theatre, resulting in deeper theoretical interrogation and consequential moments of insight, breakthrough, and evolution in writing practice and the potential for an entirely new written form.
| etudesdec2021davis.pdf |
