Women on the stage in early modern France
Subtitle: 1540-1750
By: Virginia Scott.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9780521896757
Subjects: Actresses -- France -- Biography; Theater -- France -- History
Genres: Biography
Description: "Focusing on actresses in France during the early modern period, Virginia Scott examines how the stereotype of the actress has been constructed. The study then moves beyond that stereotype to detail the reality of the personal and artistic lives of women on the French stage, from the almost unknown Marie Ferré - who signed a contract for 12 livres a year in 1545 to perform the 'antiquailles de Rome or other histories, moralities, farces, and acrobatics' in the provinces - to the queens of the eighteenth-century Paris stage, whose 'adventures' have overshadowed their artistic triumphs. The book also investigates the ways in which actresses made invaluable contributions to the development of the French theatre in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and looks at the 'afterlives' of such women as Armande Béjart, Marquise Du Parc, Charlotte Desmares, Adrienne Lecouvreur, and Hippolyte Clairon in biographies, plays, and films"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Preface; 1. The actress and the anecdote; 2. 'So perverse was her wantonness': antitheatricalism and the actress; 3. In the beginning: 'Twelve Livres per year'; 4. 'Those diverting little ways': 1630-1640; 5. 'Mademoiselle L'Étoile': 1640-1700; 6. 'Embellished by art': 1680-1720; 7. Lives and afterlives: 1700-2010; Works consulted.