Animal drag: Sex, race, and the theatrical animal

Examining ideology and human identity as communicated through animal characters is key to understanding how animal performances both shape and perpetuate cultural norms. However, there has been little theoretical inquiry into human performances of animals, and all too often animals are interpreted in apolitical terms. How do we interpret human identity through the performative excesses of animal acting? Where does performing "animal" begin and performing "human" end? Is it really possible to separate the two? In order to explore these issues I consider the performance of animal characters in a variety of theatrical genres and performance contexts from children's theatre to the sexual subculture of pony play, including the musical A Year With Frog and Toad (2003), Mark Medoff's Prymate (2005), Stephen Svodoba's The Penguin Tango (2006), Marc Acito's Birds of a Feather (2011), Rebecca Wilcox's book The Human Pony (2008), and the documentary Born in a Barn (2004). By looking at humans performing animals in a range of contexts, I uncover similarities in the practical conventions of animal performance and trends in the construction of human identity through animal performances. The central question of this project is how human identity is constructed through animal characters in the contemporary United States.;The first goal of this project is to develop terms that distinguish various types of animal acting and take into account the varying degrees by which particular animal performances foreground the human body. I establish a spectrum that includes various forms of animal acting from performances that involve no animal costumes or animal-like qualities to performances that involve full-body animal suits.;The second goal of this project is to examine how animal characters are raced, gendered, and sexualized in performance. I interrogate the intersections of animality with human identity in performance, questioning why certain portrayals of animality correspond to particular constructions of human identity. I contend that performances of animal characters have little ability to challenge the human/animal divide as they have more to do with communicating assumptions about human identity than with animals themselves.