Identity: Rhonda and Joanne

Hey team!

Below is a small excerpt from an essay I wrote last year in my 2P97 Canadian Theatre class on the "Rhonda and Joanne Bar Scene"

in accordance with theories from Dr. Marlene Moser's essay on Judith Thompson. Please excuse the writing structure, syntax, grammar, etc, -- this was initially a personal reflection on a presentation that I've quickly tweaked and formatted into a small argument. There's much more I could include, but I just wanted to post this as brief insight for now! I also have a copy of excerpts from Dr. Moser's thesis which I will submit to the blog.

Cheers!

-Erica

According to Dr. Marlene Moser’s thesis, Postmodern Feminist Readings of Identity in Selected Works of Judith Thompson, Margaret Hollingsworth and Patricia Gruben, characters within Judith Thompson’s plays define their personal identities and that of their counterparts “depending on the shifting relations of power within [the] narratives” (qtd. in Harvie, “Constructing Fictions” 84) of a given scene. Whomever is in possession of power in a scene thus determines the personal identification of each character, seen particularly in the confrontations between Rhonda and Joanne in Lion in the Streets. This scene in Thompson’s play is focalized on the “catching up” of two best friends at a bar, one of whom (Joanne) is dying of cancer and struggling to cope and even tell the other (Rhonda) of this ailment. As Ric Knowles states in Moser’s excerpt, “the identities of the characters seem to be contingent on the changing stories they tell of themselves and one another,” (qtd. in “The Dramaturgy” 228), and this notion is articulated through narratives that both of these characters share. Through Joanne’s accounts of her personal “stories” to Rhonda, she contemplates death; implying that she is uncertain of her own value in life and is thus searching for meaning in her existence with illness that has begun to degrade and devour her. This type of consumption is referred to in Moser’s thesis as the “abyss” (qtd. in “Judith Thompson Interview” 95) and it represents a type of “death...what you don’t know” (qtd. in “Judith Thompson Interview” 95); an unspoken uncertainty of one’s existence that represents the inner struggles that individuals face in their own lives. This particular scene serves as catalyst, or segue into Isobel’s definition of identity for the rest of the play. It is at the conclusion of this very scene that Isobel realizes the truth of her own existence (or lack thereof), and comes to understand that she is dead and has been nothing but “bones for seventeen years” (Thompson 31). Joanne attempts to control her death and shape her own identity using the concept and picture of Shakespeare’s Ophelia from the play Hamlet in order to cope. She wishes to die like Ophelia herself, and personify this very picture as though her reason for existing has now come down to her desire to command fate and die the way she wants to. Thompson therefore makes a very interesting choice for Joanne, as the description of her ideal death serves as a metatheatric representation for this search for identity. Identity is no foreign theme in Hamlet, as there are constant references to characters falling into a similar abyss, recapitulated in Hamlet’s infamous “to be or not to be” (Shakespeare III, i, 57) soliloquy. Like Hamlet himself, Joanne is contemplating the meaning of her own life and is reflectively using this picture as a fantastical escape from the harsh reality of her illness.

There are essentially two power shifts in this scene which define the personalities of both of these characters: one existing between Rhonda and Joanne and the other between Joanne and herself as she is standing on the battlefront between reality and the chasm of identity erasure. In finally admitting the existence of her disease to Rhonda, Joanne simply refers to it as “shadows” (28) and never directly says the word “cancer”. Thompson’s direct use of the word “shadow” implies something dark and clandestine, like the meaning of Joanne’s life and Isobel’s “lion” that looms over the entirety of the play. The subsequent shift in power is seen among both characters, as each try to cope and understand the situations of the other. This shift is epitomized through the power object of the cigarette which Rhonda gives to Joanne, compelling her to explain her desires of a fantastical Shakespearean death. In handing Joanne the cigarette, Rhonda provides her with the power of speech as this object attributes characteristics of a metaphorical “talking stick”. Once she is in possession of the cigarette, she is permitted to freely express her deepest inner desires; the cigarette potentially manipulated/inhaled in accordance with climactic moments in her speeches to indicate a continuation of her thoughts and an attempt to regain her composure and return to reality. This once again provides a microcosmic symbol to the notion of identity, as the power is then passed off from Rhonda to Isobel following this scene, who realizes the truth of her own identity and creates a stepping stone in the path for the rest of the play.

Works Cited:

Moser, Marlene Cecilia. "Compiled Excerpt for Presentations Honouring Dr. Marlene Moser."

Postmodern Feminist Readings of Identity in Selected Works of Judith Thompson, Margaret

Hollingsworth and Patricia Gruben. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1998. Print.

Shakespeare, William., Wise, Jennifer and Walker, Craig S. ed. “Hamlet”.

The Broadview Anthology of Drama Plays from The Western Theatre: Volume One

Toronto, ON. National Library of Canada Cataloging, 2000. 325. Print.

Thompson, Judith. Lion in the Streets. Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 1992. 25-31. Print.