When I discovered the Bechdel test – created by graphic novelist Alison Bechdel in her 1985 comic Dykes to Watch Out For – I found it a revelation. The Bechdel test is an irresistibly simple gauge of female representation and gender inequality in film. To pass, a film has to have two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. The test has been applied to plays too – as with the Twitter campaign @BechdelTheatre.
But although the test is useful, I worry when it is the only thing used to measure the feminism of a film or a play (a use Bechdel never intended). The ridiculously retrograde Twilight, for example, passes (doormat heroine, Bella, talks briefly to her mother about moving to a new town) while Gravity, which has a fierce, clever and interesting heroine, fails. Sometimes women’s conversations about men are feminist. Two women discussing being bullied at work by a man would make for a feminist drama – certainly preferable to a play in which two women briefly compared shoes but spent the rest of the time serving the narrative arcs of the men.
I’d go further: conversations about fancying or loving or sleeping with men can be feminist too. I don’t believe it is un-feminist to ask how we can have relationships with men (because some of us do want to); to ask what makes a man a feminist and what we can expect from men; to ponder how we can achieve equality in our romantic lives. As I wrote my play How to Date a Feminist, I knew it would fail the Bechdel test because these questions are its major concerns.
So I wanted to think about other ways of challenging myself to make feminist theatre. The ongoing inequality (according to the latest research, women are only playing 39% of stage roles in the UK, writing 32% of the plays and directing 39% of them) inspired the Sphinx test, a series of questions for playwrights to consider. Questions such as: is there a woman centre stage? Is she active rather than reactive? Is she compelling and complex?
I’ve asked myself other questions too. How many of the cast are women, and what percentage of the dialogue do they speak? Do the female characters have agency? Do they make choices? Do they drive their own stories (or, indeed, their cars)? Do they have a strong arc? Are they victims or do they have power or seize power? Do their stories empower them or punish them? Does the play address issues of concern to women, and to feminists? Does the play support the status quo or does it invite the audience to imagine, to think, to make change?
If the play is funny, do the women have any funny lines? One particular bugbear of mine is comic plays where the men monopolise the wit, and the women are earnest, heartfelt or (worst of all) long-suffering. I was determined not to reinforce the madly outdated idea that feminism can’t be funny, so I hope my play passes this test, at least.
The questions don’t stop once a play goes into production – in fact, a director can make a huge difference by reinterpreting a play through a feminist lens, or casting gender-blind. Other questions to ask might be: how many of the creative team are women? Are they respected in rehearsal? Are the actors asked to wear costumes that make them feel uncomfortable? (The Casting Call Woe blog, now an Edinburgh show, is a roll-call of failures on this front.) And how is the play marketed? More than one producer asked if I could call my play something that didn’t involve the word feminist, which they felt was too in-your-face, too political, or too boring-sounding. In the end, keeping the title felt like a feminist statement I could make before the lights even went up on the first scene.
How to Date a Feminist previews at the Arcola theatre, London, from 6 September