{"id":816,"date":"2023-12-08T19:47:50","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T19:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/28\/?p=816"},"modified":"2024-01-21T11:18:40","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T11:18:40","slug":"a-dramaturgy-of-consent-yes-yes-yes-by-eleanor-bishop-and-karin-mccracken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.critical-stages.org\/28\/a-dramaturgy-of-consent-yes-yes-yes-by-eleanor-bishop-and-karin-mccracken\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dramaturgy of Consent: Yes Yes Yes<\/em> by Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

James Wenley<\/strong>*<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes Yes Yes<\/font> (2019) is a signature work by Aotearoa New Zealand practitioners Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken, supporting social change through the promotion of consent culture and healthy relationships to a target 14- to 22-year-old youth audience. A dramaturgy of consent embeds foundational concepts of consensual practice within a performance text, applying consent to a social and community context. Utilising an interview with the creators, this article explores how Bishop and McCracken have developed and activated a dramaturgy of consent through Yes Yes Yes<\/font>.

Keywords: <\/strong>theatre for youth, theatre for social change, Aotearoa\/New Zealand theatre, consent education, dramaturgy of consent, Eleanor Bishop, Karin McCracken<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes Yes Yes<\/em> (2019) is a signature work by New Zealand\/Aotearoa practitioners Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken, supporting social change through the promotion of consent culture and healthy relationships to a target 14- to 22-year-old youth audience. Yes Yes Yes<\/em><\/a> has played to thousands of rangatahi (young people) in schools and theatre venues across the country. Bishop and McCracken were motivated \u201cto make something we wish we had seen when we were sixteen. The show is almost like us talking to our sixteen-year-old selves\u2014the things we wish adults could have shared with us, and in a way we would\u2019ve liked to be talked to\u2014mature, honest, funny\u201d (qtd. in Richardson 4). As consent education is non-compulsory in New Zealand\/Aotearoa schools, Yes Yes Yes <\/em>makes a vital theatre-based contribution to sexual violence prevention; as Bishop advocates, \u201csexual violence is a community-based issue, and we strongly believe that it could end in our lifetime with a community-based effort\u201d (Bishop and McCracken, Interview 3).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken work at the forefront of feminist social practice theatre in New Zealand\/Aotearoa. Formalising their collaboration through the company EBKM<\/a> (pairing their initials), Bishop and McCracken categorise their work as \u201csocially minded, formally innovative, contemporary performance\u201d (Bishop and McCracken, \u201cEBKM\u201d). Their collaborations have investigated objectification and female desire (Body Double<\/em>, 2017, with Julia Croft), the causes and community impacts of rape culture (Jane Doe<\/em>, 2017 New Zealand\/Aotearoa version, and BOYS<\/em>, 2019 version), the emotional and social experience of heartbreak (Heartbreak Hotel<\/em>, 2023) and failure (Gravity & Grace<\/em>, 2022\/2024, adapted from the book Aliens & Anorexia<\/em> by Chris Kraus).<\/p>\n\n\n

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Eleanor Bishop. Photo: David St George<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 2022, Bishop and McCracken were awarded Aotearoa\u2019s foremost Bruce Mason Playwriting Award, the first writing team to win in the award\u2019s 40-year history (Standing Room Only). Their signature production, Yes Yes Yes<\/em>, evolved out of two earlier works created by Bishop as part of her MFA at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, Pittsburgh, U.S.: Steubenville<\/em> (2015) and Jane Doe<\/em> (2015). Bishop subsequently collaborated with McCracken to create a New Zealand\/Aotearoa version of Jane Doe <\/em>(2017), with McCracken as the play\u2019s solo performer. During Jane Doe<\/em>\u2019s tour to the 2017 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, prominent U.K. reviewer Lyn Gardner advocated for Jane Doe<\/em> to be \u201crolled out in classrooms across the globe.\u201d However, Bishop and McCracken (\u201cEBKM\u201d) recognised youth audiences require a strength-based approach to consent education, building on young people\u2019s existing skills and knowledge (Interview 1). Using Jane Doe<\/em> as the foundation, Bishop and McCracken created Yes Yes Yes<\/em> for a 14- to 22-year-old target age group.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Karin McCracken. Photo: EBKM<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A dramaturgy of consent is central to Yes Yes Yes<\/em>\u2019s form, content and message. Enthusiastic or affirmative consent is a prevailing model of consent-based practice, in which parties actively signal their consent to engage in intimate and sexual activities. Rape Prevention Education Whakatu Mauri Trust defines consent as \u201ca free agreement made together\u201d and an \u201centhusiastic yes.\u201d A dramaturgy of consent embeds these foundational concepts of consensual practice within a performance text, applying consent to a social and community context: the audience is fully informed about the show\u2019s content, and participation in the live experience is enthusiastically agreed by all parties and is free of coercion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes Yes Yes<\/em> carefully structures its consent-based dramaturgy around four main elements: an autobiographical story performed by McCracken describing the events leading to a positive sexual experience; a fictional story of a non-consensual experience featuring scripted material read by audience volunteers; pre-recorded interviews with young people discussing the show\u2019s themes; and the invitation for audience members to anonymously share their responses to the show\u2019s content to a live-text feed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article explores how Bishop and McCracken have developed and activated a dramaturgy of consent through Yes Yes Yes<\/em>. Alongside my critical analysis of the work (informed by multiple viewings of Yes Yes Yes<\/em>), it was important for Eleanor and Karin to have a strong voice in this article; therefore, I have included substantial extracts from an interview we conducted. Consent-based practice has also guided my critical approach, with Bishop and McCracken consenting to this article\u2019s development and approving it prior to publication. I begin by following the development journey of Yes Yes Yes<\/em> and how its form and content were influenced by antecedents Steubenville<\/em> and Jane Doe<\/em>. I then analyse how Bishop and McCracken activate Yes Yes Yes<\/em>\u2019 dramaturgy of consent in performance to achieve its aim of supporting strengths-based consent education for young people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Steubenville to Aotearoa\/New Zealand<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n
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Molly Griggs, Zachery Fifer & Colin Whitney in Steubenville<\/em> by Eleanor Bishop, Dan Giles, Savannah Reich, directed by Eleanor Bishop. Premiered at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, Pittsburgh, 18\u201320 March 2015. Photo: Louis Stein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 2013, Eleanor Bishop moved to Pittsburgh, U.S., to undertake an M.F.A. at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama, a period when the \u201cissue of sexual assault on college campuses was exploding\u201d (Prior and Tan). Bishop\u2019s response was to create Steubenville<\/em> (2015), based on a 2012 sexual assault in Steubenville, Ohio, perpetrated by two male Steubenville High Football players against a 16-year-old female at a party. The assault drew national attention due to \u201cthe lurid glee with which certain members of the community spread the news among their networks . . . it was possibly the first rape to be tweeted\u201d (Blankenship and Coen). Bishop incorporated verbatim transcripts from social media and subsequent court cases within Steubenville<\/em>, read aloud by performers. These transcripts were collaged with video interviews with female Carnegie Mellon University students and an adaptation of Disney\u2019s Sleeping Beauty<\/em>, \u201can allegory for the Steubenville case and rape culture in general\u201d (Hoffmaier).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steubenville<\/em>\u2019s postmodern dramaturgy of collage and deconstruction was influenced by New York\u2019s Wooster Group, with whom Bishop completed an internship as part of her M.F.A. Consensual care-based practices aided audiences\u2019 navigation of the show\u2019s sensitive content, with \u201ccounsellors and mental health professionals available for audience members before, during, and after the performance\u201d and talkback sessions held following each performance \u201cso the audience could work through the challenging issues in a community setting\u201d (Mayer). Bishop reworked Steubenville<\/em> into Jane Doe<\/em>, performed as a solo to make the work suitable for touring college campuses. References to Steubenville were removed, allowing the anonymous figure of Jane Doe to represent countless cases of assault across the United States, rather than representing a particular incident.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Karin McCracken in Jane Doe<\/em> (N.Z. Version) by Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken. Directed by Eleanor Bishop. Premiered at Auckland Fringe Festival, Auckland, NZ, 8\u201310 and 13\u201314  March 2017. Photo: Peter Jennings<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Bishop and McCracken collaborated for the first time on a New Zealand\/Aotearoa iteration of Jane Doe <\/em>in 2017. McCracken\u2019s experience as both a performer and facilitator with Sexual Abuse Prevention Network (now RespectED Aotearoa) made her an ideal collaborator. Reviewers Kate Prior and Rosabel Tan (2017) describe Jane Doe<\/em>\u2019s two main threads:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One is a storytelling thread, which consists of performer Karin McCracken telling stories of a sexual awakening via romantic comedies and first loves. The second is text inspired by court transcripts of several rape cases, read out loud by audience volunteers. . . . Other documentary textures woven through the piece are videoed interviews with university students which are re-voiced in real time by a headphone-wearing McCracken, as well as soundbites from US and New Zealand media reporting on rape trials. Finally, there are two moments in the work where the show is paused, and audience members are given the opportunity to anonymously text in any of their observations or feelings, which are then projected back to the room.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Following performances in New Zealand and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2017, there were calls for Jane Doe<\/em> to be supported for presentation targeting adolescent and young adult audiences. Kate Prior commented, \u201cI would really like to see this work in what feels like to me, it\u2019s home\u2014in gyms in high school or university spaces, with conversations exploding after it,\u201d whilst U.K. critic Lyn Gardner advocated that Joe Doe<\/em> \u201coffers such a useful space for debate that it would be good to see this New Zealand production rolled out in classrooms across the globe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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