A stage of their own
Subtitle: feminist playwrights of the suffrage era
By: Sheila Stowell.
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1992
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 170
Subjects: English drama -- Women authors -- History and criticism; Feminism and literature -- English-speaking countries; American drama -- Women authors -- History and criticism; American drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism; English drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Women and literature -- English-speaking countries; Feminism and theater -- English-speaking countries; Feminist drama, English -- History and criticism; Women's rights in literature; Suffragists in literature; Suffrage in literature
Description: "A stage of their own reclaims for a contemporary audience a formidable body of lost feminist drama. Its starting point is the cultural crisis of the Edwardian age, and the revitalisation of the suffrage cause." "The founding of the Actresses' Franchise League and the Women Writers' Suffrage League are seen as instrumental in providing committed feminists with access to the public forum of theatre." "The suffrage cause was directly enlisted in a wide variety of pageants, duologues, and one-act plays as well as in a series of critically acclaimed full length dramas by such playwrights as Elizabeth Robins, Cicely Hamilton and Elizabeth Baker. Taken together, the "agit-prop" theatre of the suffrage cause and the era's more broadly based feminist drama represent an organised, coherent programme of women's playmaking that attempted to wrest from men the business of defining women. The result was a series of remarkable plays that asked audiences to think not only about the subjects of feminist debate, but the very aesthetic structures to which they had grown habituated."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [157]-164) and index.