PROMETHEUS (B/F)OUND

A STARTLING NEW INTERPRETATION OF STREERUWITZ'S NEW YORK. NEW YORK.*

by Professor Susan Cocalis (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) & Professor Dr. Anton Chrobath (Universität Wien)

*Original Title: “Chicago. Chicago. Breaking Windmills in the Second City” for the symposium Streeruwitz Does America held at the University of Illinois, Chicago (Nov. 30 – Dec. 1, 2000) at the Newberry Library, Chicago. Resurrected in honor of Marlene Streeruwitz’s visit to the US in the fall of 2005.

At the recent IVG Conference held in Vienna, Austria, where I was presenting a paper dedicated to the problem of “das Dazwischen” in the dramatic works of Marlene Streeruwitz, I had the good fortune to be on the same panel as the eminent Streeruwitz scholar Professor Dr. Anton Chrobath of the University of Vienna. His topic was “Dokumentation im Fremdenverkehrsprospekten: Tourismus, Vermarktung und der Zerfall österreichischer Kultur in der zeitgenössischen Dichtung.” Professor Chrobath, an internationally respected pioneer in the field of “psychopathologischen textual analysis,” was so erudite and so convincing in his argumentation, that I arranged to meet with him on the following day to discuss the meaning of the Prometheus figure in Streeruwitz’s New York. New York. We met in a modest café just off the Ringstrasse in the vicinity of the University, and over the course of the afternoon we decided to collaborate on the project whose dramatic results I—in the absence of my colleague and co-author—shall present to you today.

Our initial premise was that Streeruwitz’s Prometheus figure from the play New York. New York, who is revealed to a group of Japanese tourists and, hence, to the spectator/reader, at the end of the play not as “the tortured mankind” expected by the tourists—but rather as a disgusting, mutilated, and still profusely bleeding horse’s cadaver (86)—, is in actuality a metaphor for the aggressive feelings the dramatist harbors toward the Aristotelian theater and its patriarchal conventions and that this figure does not actually represent Promethus but rather Aristotle himself. Since the Japanese tourists come from an entirely different theatrical tradition, they were not able to recognize the fraud that was being perpetrated on them, believing the cadaver to indeed be that of Prometheus. But they were wrong. There is much more to this scene than there seems to be , as I will now demonstrate to you.

Professor Chrobath felt that such hostility directed at the founding father of  Western Classical Theater was obviously rooted in early childhood trauma, probably incurred in the process of toilet training and associated somehow with drama. His hypothesis is that little Marlene might have been driven to tear out passages from the family’s leather-bound Collected Works of William Shakespeare to use as toilet paper and that she thus incurred the wrath of her father, who locked her into a small room until she repented her malicious attack on Western Culture. He further speculates that little Marlene, a willful child by all accounts, rebelled against the arbitrary power of the “phallische Ordnung” and refused to give in. She was eventually freed by the intercession of the school authorities, who became alarmed after her prolonged absence. Once out, Professor Chrobath suspects that the child went on to deface her father’s library, inking in periods after almost every word or phrase in many of his most treasured books. Since Shakespeare had initially gotten her into this traumatic situation, we believe that drama became the prime target of her rage. To this early childhood experience he attributes—and I concur—Streeruwitz’s later obsession with the “Aufloesung des Satzzusammenhangs.” One could think of it, in her case, as a prematurely young onset of the period.

As we began to pursue this line of argument, including doing field research in the “k.k. Piss- und Beduerfnisanstalt” at the Burggasse tram stop, we were looking for clues as to the dramatist’s obsession with toilets and the link to Prometheus/Aristotle. We discovered, however, a set of mysterious symbols that led us through the public restrooms of Vienna, Boston, New York City, and eventually Chicago to a startling discovery regarding the true meaning of the Prometheus figure, which, we were forced to conclude, was indeed a case of mistaken identity. Today I shall present you with the incontrovertible proof of Streeruwitz’s subversive project: “Schluss mit den Klassikern!” Her attacks on Western Culture we found to be part of a broader international feminist conspiracy to undermine patriarchal values and to transgender the very foundations of our theater. Our journey to these shocking truths, documented with both photographic and “hard” evidence, is what I shall recreate for you this afternoon.

While I was still in Vienna, Professor Chrobath, who has both an extensive and an intimate knowledge of the municipal public toilets, pointed out an odd symbol that he had discovered in his field research: it consisted of the numeral three enclosed in a red circle with a bar going through it. Enigmatic. Why would anyone prohibit the numeral three? Later, as we consulted the internet under “Beduerfnisanstalt/Wien” [Fig. 1], we discovered that certain subterranean facilities were “marked” and that these coincided with the symbol on the toilets [Fig. 2 & Fig. 3]. We didn’t know the significance of this at the time, but it seemed like more than a casual coincidence. We hoped that this confluence of events would eventually lead to Marlene Streeruwitz and we were right. That was as far as we got in Vienna.

Last month, however, when we both attended the AATG annual convention in Boston, I discovered an internet listing that also marked various local public facilities [Fig. 4] and we abandoned any plans to attend conference sessions in order to pursue this new lead. Imagine our surprise as a curious news event reported in the Boston. Boston Herald, "Toilet vandalism spurs posting of Hub guards," seemed to intersect with our own research. This provided us with our first significant breakthrough in this perplexing case. Aristotle, using the nickname Ari, had been seen in a local eatery in the vicinity of the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge but his friends reported that he had never returned from the restrooms and had disappeared [Fig. 5]. At first Robert Brustein and his troupe of Brechtians were suspected but we immediately knew to look elsewhere! This was Marlene Streeruwitz at work! As you can see in this newspaper photograph, there is a mysterious symbol affixed to Ari's portrait. Other crime-scene photos of the so-called “toilet terrorist” confirmed this connection [Fig. 6]. That Aristotle had been in this particular restroom and that he had been held captive there prior to his abduction was suggested by the following graffiti that not only flaunt the telltale symbol but that also cry out for freedom. That he was abducted by members of the international feminist conspiracy is also indicated by the headless mermaid brandishing a club over the C2 sign [Fig. 7].

Our search eventually led us to New York City, where, as the NY. NY. Post reported, the NY. NY. PD had discovred a suspicious deconstruction site masquerading as a “tank redemption center” in Brooklyn [Fig. 8]. We feared that they would unearth the body of our missing Aristotle but, as the NY. NY. Post proclaimed in these shocking headlines [Fig. 9], there was no need for worry. You can imagine our palpable excitement as subsequent excavations did link this contested site to Marlene Streeruwitz, who had happened to be visiting NY. NY at the time. For, as you can see from this crime-scene photo reprinted in the Post [Fig. 10], the enigmatic, dismembered remains of a life-sized dummy were obviously the work of someone inspired by her Sloane Square. Unless, of course, it was the dramatist herself performing these rites as a symbolic way of dismembering the canon of our Western Theatrical Tradition! [Fig. 11] The latter was confirmed when a toilet seat was discovered nearby as well as several other artifacts embossed with her signature symbol [Fig. 12 & Fig. 13]. I reported my suspicions to the NY. NYPD, but by then the suspect must have returned to her hideaway in Chicago. Chicago.At this point, Professor Chrobath and I had to part ways, as he was expected back in Vienna, but we maintained close phone contact throughout the following course of events.

Here, in the Second City, Streeruwitz’s terrorist activities intensified and traces of her demon doings turned up everywhere. As you can see from my own photographs, clues appeared throughout the city [Fig. 14]. They first led me to a run-down section of the town ostensibly inhabited by graduate students [Fig. 15]. In one building there I discovered a suspicious staircase, and so I enlisted the help of the Chicago. Chicago. PD, who raided the basement only to find that we were—again—too late! [Fig. 16 & Fig. 17] The trail  then led to a more upscale neighborhood near the North Lakeshore Drive apartments, where an accomplice of the dramatist is rumored to live [Fig. 18]. Ultimately, the trail took us to a small house in a park with a secluded, walled-in garden [Fig. 19]. Although the premises were empty at the time, it was clear that someone was living there and there were enough clues to warrant observation [Fig. 20]. Since the police did not want to get involved without more substantial evidence, I called an artist friend of mine, John Green—who is totally bald, so we call him “Baldy” Green—(he’s the brother of Dr. Mark Green of the County Hospital’s E.R.) and we staked out the garden to await the occupants’ return. As we learned all too soon, the suspects did live there and continuously engaged in the most unnatural and perverse activities. There was not only Streeruwitz and her admiring coterie of faculty and graduate students from the University of Illinois Chicago but also the missing Aristotle, very much in the flesh! Here you see him in an on-scene sketch from Baldy Green comporting with a student named Phyllis [Fig. 21]. When we tried to rescue him, he unfortunately wanted no part of our critical intervention. Indeed, he claimed to be having the time of his life and vowed that he had renounced all of his old views. Unfortunately, this piece of “hard” evidence that we managed to retrieve from the premises confirms this [Exhibit A] as well as explains the mysterious symbol, as you can see here.

The story does not end here, though. Shortly thereafter, Aristotle disappeared again and was rumored to be in California. Upon his return to Chicago. Chicago, he resurfaced, and we learned the true extent of Streeruwitz’s perniciious effect on the theater. As you can see from this recent photo in the Arts & Theater section of the NY. NY. Post, this transformation was, sadly, not limited to his philosophical views on the unities [Fig. 22].

To return to the questions we posed at the start of this talk, when I reported my unfortunate findings to rofessor Chrobath, he, after much reflection and drawing on the wisdom of his vast experience, came to the following insight. The Prometheus figure in Streeruwitz’s NY.NY. was never actually Prometheus at all, but rather Aristotle in disguise, who, even in the early 1990s had been in the clutches of the Austrians. The image of the bleeding equine cadaver  could have beenarrived at via the following logic: Aristotle’s philosophy was first introduced to Austrians and Europeans through the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, who stressed the Greek thinker’s blatant misogyny for his own ends, i.e., his theory that women come from “defective sperm” and are thus inhrently inferior to men. Streeruwitz, according to Professor Chrobath, in a blue funk about such injustice, must have changes Aquinus into “Equine-ass” in order to ectract her revenge upon the patriarch of Western Theater Tradition.

In light of these findings, my collaborator, Professor Chrobath—himself the unwitting victim of Streeruwitz’s calumny—and I wish to appeal to institutions of higher learning—such as the University of Illinois Chicago—to cease enabling such pathologically antihumanistic “art” by financially supporting Austrian artists of the ilk of Marlene Streeruwitz. We also urge such institutions to refrain from teaching and further disseminating, via symposia, such criminally negligent texts. We fervently hope that the Truth will prevail. I rest our case.