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Abstract
The canonical force of Renaissance drama contributes to its being a major player in the recent formations of many identities on the global stage. Crossing the Line begins with a single premise: the conviction that dramatic texts need to be considered not as inert relics but as a collection of scripts that offer theatre practitioners and audiences opportunities to negotiate identity. My analysis contends that theatre companies have transformed Shakespearean performance into a transnational text that serves as a shifting and evolving testament to how local communities grapple with contemporary identities of gender, sexuality, race, language and nation. My consideration of a 1994 Johannesburg production of Titus Andronicus, which sharply critiques the former apartheid regime, shows the extent to which nation-building is portrayed as dependent on racialized and gendered violence. The backlash that accompanied this cast's use of Afrikaans and African accents reveals Afrikaners' continued anxiety about British influence in the post-apartheid era. In my exploration of a 1999 Sydney production of As You Like It, I assert that the casting of Aboriginal actors in the roles of Rosalind and the deposed Duke renders the playtext's debates about land ownership instantly recognizable within an Australian political context. Mixed responses to the production's decision to sustain the homoerotic energies of Arden and to refer to the experience of the Stolen Generations suggest the tenuousness of diverse sexualities and settler culpability in Australian life. By framing theatrical performance as a social practice, I interrogate the ideological and material negotiations of theatre. These analyses demonstrate the ideological force of dramatic embodiment when theatre practitioners and audiences explore how these cultural identities play on stage.
