Challenging the Limits of Societal Gender Roles through Doubling and Transgressive Casting

This chapter utilises Judith Butler and Sara Ahmed&s;s work on gender performativity and being a feminist killjoy, respectively, to consider how Gunderson&s;s Emilie and Backhaus&s; Men on Boats challenge traditional gender roles. Men on Boats&s; use of ahistorical, transgressive gender casting challenges preconceived notions regarding the necessity of masculine performance to enact feats such as mountaineering and boating. Similarly, Emilie hinges on the use of the play within the play and two actresses playing the same role to double the power of the titular Emilie du Châtelet and enable her the ability to challenge patriarchal oppression from eighteenth-century scientific organisations. Through these differing methods, both playwrights encourage audience members to consider what gender is and how it is enacted on the stage and in historical narratives.