那特琪《親密內衣》中的性、空間、和再現

Abstract

那特琪《親密內衣》中的性、空間、和再現正如她的前輩羅蘭‧漢斯伯瑞一樣，非裔美國女劇作家琳‧那特琪擅長描述黑人的奮鬥和堅毅精神。在2006 年美國奧勒岡州艾許蘭看到《親密內衣》時，我就被劇作家娓娓道出一個驕傲卻害羞的女裁縫的方式，以及此戲特有的優雅風韻及感官感受深深吸引。雖然琳‧那特琪只有46 歲，她確實是當代美國劇作家引領風騷中的一位。(她的Ruined 得到2009 年普立茲戲劇獎。) 《親密內衣》清楚的分為二部分，第一幕講的是三十五歲的艾絲特結婚前住在狄克森太太出租宿舍的日子，第二幕則是她嫁給巴貝多男子喬治‧阿姆斯壯的婚姻生活。本戲背景是發生在1905 年紐約下曼哈頓，戲一開始時，艾絲特就在她宿舍房間裡，努力的為同宿舍裡一個那天要結婚的女孩縫製婚紗束腹。房東狄克森太太鼓勵她回去參加客廳的婚禮宴會。艾絲特不大想去，因為她覺得自己長相平凡，老是不受男人青睞。但後來她還是聽從房東太太的話，出去參加婚宴慶祝，把狄克森太太給她帶來的信放在一邊。接下來舞台上出現一個巴貝多籍在巴拿馬工作名叫喬治‧阿姆斯壯的年輕帥哥，他以說話方式念出他的信，信中希望他可以跟艾絲特做朋友。因為從事貼身內衣工作，艾絲特常常在她寄宿舍臥室中縫製內衣，在她顧客家中的臥室裡協助她們試穿，也在一個正統猶太人馬克先生的布店兼臥室中採買布料。雖然艾絲特及馬克先生二人背景身世懸殊，他們二人之間卻發展出一種很含蓄的情愫。在范布仁太太的臥室裡，艾絲特幫上流社會白人社交名媛試穿最新款式的馬甲。在互吐秘密時，艾絲特把喬治給她寫信的事告訴她。范布仁太太主動幫不識字的艾絲特寫回信。後來，在黑妓梅蜜的香閨，艾絲特幫她的好朋友試穿與范太太類似的馬甲。梅蜜也幫艾絲特回了一封信。然而狄克森太太對這種不切實際的信件往來卻嗤之以鼻，還把喬治的第四封信給撕了。喬治在第五封信中跟艾絲特求婚，而艾絲特也答應嫁他。聽到艾絲特說她要結婚了，馬克先生起先吃了一驚，後來立刻從店裡找出最好的婚紗料子送給她當禮物。艾絲特搬出宿舍，新婚第一晚與喬治搬入一個空空的套房。因為受到種族歧視的關係，喬治來到美國三個月都找不到工作。由於他知道艾絲特縫製內衣賺了不少錢，而且都縫在一條色彩五顏六色的拼布被子裡，他就不斷的跟艾絲特吵著要錢。先是要酒館（梅蜜工作的那間）喝酒的小錢，後來是要所有的錢去投資馬廄生意。在此同時，艾絲特也不再去跟馬克先生買布，因為他們同時都可以感受到他們彼此喜歡對方。有一天艾絲特去找范布仁太太給她送裝潢布料時，范布仁太太因為太寂寞了吻了艾絲特。她這個舉動嚇壞了艾絲特，艾絲特告訴她她們無法再當朋友了。後來，去找梅蜜時，梅蜜給她看一個恩客送她的一樣禮物──一件日本絲綢做的休閒外套，艾斯特就了解她先生正背著她與梅蜜交往，因為這件外套 是艾絲特特別給喬治做的結婚禮物。為了挽回他的心，艾絲特當晚也穿上梅蜜穿的性感馬甲要取悅喬治，可是喬治並不高興，於是艾絲特把拼布被裡所有的錢都給了他。雖然出門時，喬治信誓旦旦的說他們可以重建婚姻生活了，可是他一到酒館就把錢拿來賭博而且還輸光了。艾絲特此時去找梅蜜告訴她，她所愛的恩客就是她的先生，她懇求梅蜜若喬治來敲門找她實現雙飛的計畫，請梅蜜不要開門跟他走。在艾絲特哀求下，梅蜜忍痛讓門外的喬治久久敲門到最後離開。劇尾，艾絲特搬回她在狄克森太太那兒原有的房間，恢復她以前扮演的角色，但心中充滿希望，因為她懷孕了。在非裔美國戲劇的歷史傳承中，琳‧那特琪沿襲像奧古斯特‧威爾森這樣的前輩，替被消音的非裔美國人發聲。因此，《親密內衣》側重在艾絲特的有苦有樂艱困的一生，描述這位獨立的非裔美國女裁縫如何在1905 年的曼哈頓奮鬥過日子。然而，和其他男性非裔劇作家不同的一點是琳‧那特琪讓她的戲充滿了女性特有的巧藝。《親密內衣》讓觀者印象深刻的是豐富的觸摸愉悅感，私密的女性空間，隱密的身體接觸，猶太男人和非裔女人間不平凡又含蓄的愛情，以及一個加勒比海來的男子和一個非裔美國女子短暫通信件後發展出來的奇怪婚姻。在本計劃中，我將援用空間理論來閱讀《親密內衣》一劇中的私密空間和性別議題。採用空間理論可以幫助分析大的社會政治空間脈絡的意義，也可以分析角色與小的私密空間的關係，小的私密空間例如劇中艾絲特的宿舍臥室、范布仁太太的臥室、梅蜜的香閨、馬克先生臥室兼布店，以及艾絲特和喬治的套房。本戲的女作家似乎意指這些有私密性的女性空間可以顯露出女性的力量。因為本戲角色有黑人、白人、男人、女人，我們因此無法不面對《親密內衣》中種族和性別的重要議題。因此，我也將探究非裔美國人的歷史特殊性，女性主義和戲劇的關係，及非裔美國女性的特殊性。在男作家所寫的權威戲劇史中，例如畢格斯比的《現代美國戲劇》及伯可威茲的《二十世紀美國戲劇》中，很少提到非裔美國女作家。就因為這些男性權威的忽視，女性戲劇理論家，如Pam Morries, Liz Goodman, Elaine Aston, Michelene Wander 和Sue-Ellen Case 都強調女性發聲的重要性，尤其是像黑女人這樣的少數族裔的女性，因為她們曾在歷史上被禁止發聲。因此，這些女性主義戲劇學者的觀點也會被用來分析《親密內衣》中的性別議題。因為在本劇中固定的男強女弱的性別角色被挑戰及顛覆，巴特樂的性別表演概念也會被納入來閱讀劇中的性別議題。最後，本計劃也將援用非裔美國女理論家貝兒‧胡克絲的理論及黑女人發聲的概念來審視艾絲特在1905 年曼哈頓的再現意義。因此，本研究援引空間理論、女性主義、戲劇研究和非裔美國女性觀點探究琳‧那特琪《親密內衣》中非裔美國女性的新發聲及賦加能力。

Sexuality, Space, and Representation in Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel Like her predecessor Lorraine Hansberry, female African American playwright Lynn Nottage excels in depicting black’s striving and tenacious spirit. When I saw her play Intimate Apparel in Ashland Oregon in 2006, I was mesmerized by the way she tells the life of a proud and but shy seamstress and the elegant air and sensual sentiment the play evokes. Though only 46 years old, Lynn Nottage certainly poses herself as one of the leading contemporary American playwrights. (Her Ruined has won her a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2009). Neatly divided into two parts, Intimate Apparel depicts 35-year- old Esther Mill’s unmarried life at Mrs. Dickson’s boarding house in Act One and her married life with Barbadian George Armstrong in Act Two. Set in lower Manhattan in 1905 the play begins with Esther diligently working on the finishing touches of a wedding corset for a girl at the boarding house. Mrs. Dickson, the landlady, encourages her to go back to the wedding party at the house. Esther is reluctant because, ashamed of her plain look, she finds herself often neglected by men. But she gives in and goes out with Mrs. Dickson without reading the letter brought by her landlady. The letter is then narrated on stage by a young and handsome Barbadian laborer in Panama named George Armstrong, addressing to Esther in hope of making a friend with her. Making intimate apparel for a living, Esther often makes the lingerie in her boarding house bedroom, meets her clients in their bedroom for try on, and purchases fabric from an Orthodox Jew Mr. Marks in his store-cum-bedroom. Though their backgrounds immensely different, Mr. Marks and Esther develop reserved attachment toward each other. In Mrs. Van Buren’s bedroom, Esther helps the upper class white socialite belle try on her fashionable bodice. While exchanging secrets, Esther discloses George’s letter to her. Mrs. Van Buren offers to write the reply for illiterate Esther. Later at black prostitute Mayme’s boudoir, while Esther helps her best friend try on a similar bodice, Mayme also writes a letter for Esther. However distrusting George, Mrs. Dickson warns Esther of such unpractical correspondence and tears up George’s fourth letter. In his fifth letter George proposes and Esther decides to accept the proposal. Informed by Esther about her decision to get married, Mr. Marks is shocked first but he immediately gives her the best wedding fabric as his present to her. Esther moves out of the boarding house and shares with George their backgrounds at their wedding night in a spare studio flat. Due to racism, George has not been able to find a job for three months after he came to America. Because he knows Esther has made a lot of money by making intimate apparel and stored it in the crazy quilt, he keeps bugging her first for little money for drinks at the pub where Mayme works then for all the money for investing on a stable business. Meanwhile, Esther stops visiting Mr. Marks because they both can feel that they like each other. One day when Esther visits Mrs. Van Buren for business again, Mrs. Van Buren kisses Esther out of loneliness but this act only shocks Esther who decides they cannot be friends any more. Later when Mayme shows her the gift from a customer—a Japanese smoking jacket, Esther learns that her husband has an affair with Mayme because the gift is exactly the jacket she made for him as a present for their wedding. To keep her husband’s heart, that night Esther tries to entertain George by putting on the same bodice Mayme wears, but when this act fails she gives him all her savings in the quilt. Although he promises her resolutely to rebuild their life upon leaving, George soon gambles away all the money at the pub. Esther then goes to see Mayme and tells her the man she loves is actually her husband and she begs Mayme not to answer the door when George comes knocking on her door with the plan to run away with Mayme. Pleaded by Esther deplorably, Mayme lets George keep knocking on the door without answering until he leaves. At the end of the play Esther moves back to her old room at Mrs. Dickson’s boarding house, resuming her old role, but with hope, because she is pregnant. In the legacy of African American drama, Lynn Nottage follows his male predecessors like August Wilson to articulate the silenced life of African Americans. Hence, Intimate Apparel foregrounds the laughter and tears of Esther Mills’s tough life as an independent African American seamstress endeavoring to build her life in 1905 Manhattan. Furthermore, distinguishing herself from her male counterparts, Lynn Nottage imbues her play with uniquely feminine craft. Intimate Apparel impresses the spectators with its rich tactile sensory pleasure, the private feminine space, the covert body contact, the uncommon but reserved love affair between an Orthodox Jewish man and an African American woman, and the odd marriage between a black Caribbean man and an African American woman based on a short period of mutual correspondence. In this project, I plan to apply the spatial theory to the reading of the private space and gender in Intimate Apparel. Drawing supports from the spatial theories help analyze the significance of the bigger socio-political spatial context and the relationship between the characters and the smaller private spaces as specified in the play like Esther’s boarding house bedroom, Mrs. Van Buren’s bedroom, Mayme’s boudoir, Mr. Marks’s store-cum-bedroom, and Esther and George’s studio flat. The female playwright seems to suggest that the privateness of these feminine quarters manifests an usual feminine power. Because the play consists of black and white men and women characters, one cannot eschew the prominent issues of race and gender in Intimate Apparel. Therefore, I will also discuss the historicity of African American, the connection of gender, space, and drama, and the specificity of African American woman in drama. In canonical and representative books like both C. W. E. Bigsby’s Modern American Drama (1992) and Gerald M. Berkowetz’s American Drama of the Twentieth Century (1992), there is really little space for female African American playwrights. Because of these male authorities’ negligence, female drama theorists such as Pam Morries, Liz Goodman, Elaine Aston, Michelene Wander, and Sue-Ellen Case all assert the importance of the articulation of women, particularly minority women such as black women, once silenced in history. Therefore, these feminist drama scholars’ viewpoints will be incorporated into the analysis of Intimate Apparel to dissect the topic of gender. Moreover, because the fixed gender roles of assertive male and vulnerable female are challenged and subverted in this play, Judith Butler’s concept of performative gender will also be included to read the gender issue in the play. Finally, this research resorts to female African American theorist bell hooks’s theory and concept of black women’s articulation to further scrutinize the significant representation of Esther Mills in 1905 Manhattan. Therefore, with the application of the spatial theory feminism, drama studies, and African American perspective, this research intends to shed light on the new voice and empowerment of black American woman in Lynn Nottage’s Intimate Apparel.