Materializing Habit to Make Visible

Abstract

This article investigates how the performance of Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady foregrounds the matter of visibility as a construct shaped by habitual patterns of perception, which in turn frames cultural bodies in ways that are marginalized, obscured and often misunderstood. Through the lens of habit, this play reveals how entrenched ways of seeing contribute to ‘habitual suffering’, the phenomenon where repeated exposure to simplified cultural representations leads to a diminished grasp of individuals’ multi-layered identities. The play’s interrogation of the audience’s passive consumption of the protagonist, Afong Moy, as a spectacle within a museum setting, resonates with Judith Butler’s theory of ‘frames’. Drawing on this conceptual framework, this article dissects the mechanisms through which habitual perspectives are formed and perpetuated. In doing so, it questions the spectators’ complicity in these processes and explores the potential for performing arts to disrupt and reconfigure the habitual gaze.

By examining the paradoxical role of habit that simultaneously provides comfort through routinization and dulls sensory acuity, the article elaborates on how visibility is materially affected by the repetitive nature of human behaviour. It further suggests that the performing space can serve as a concrete medium to manifest, challenge and alter the ingrained way audiences engage with and interpret otherness, promoting a more nuanced and empathetic approach to cross-cultural encounters.

Notes

1 The co-production of The Chinese Lady, written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Ralph B. Peña, premiered at Theatre Row in New York City in November 2018. All excerpts presented in this article are taken from the script as published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.