Women and Victorian Theatre
Victorian women were exhilarated by the authoritative voice and the professional opportunity the theater offered them. In this book Kerry Powell chronicles the development of women's participation in the theater as playwrights, actresses and managers and explores the making of the Victorian actress, gender discourse and playwriting of the period, and the contributions these made to developments in the following century.
- First study to provide insight on women in the Victorian theatre, as managers of companies, actresses and playwrights
- Will be of interest to women's studies markets
- Contains illustrations from productions
Reviews & endorsements
"...the study itself winningly chronicles the attempts by men to maintain control of the theater and the emergent, threatening role of women as managers and playwrights as well as actresses. Especially welcome is its contribution in bringing to light a tradition of female playwrights--a phenomenon deemed an impossibility in the rhetoric of the Victorian theater despite their increasing numbers as the century drew to a close." Joseph W. Childers
"...a very useful book..." Martha Vicinus, Victorian Studies
Product details
April 2011Adobe eBook Reader
9780511886324
0 pages
0kg
6 b/w illus.
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- List of illustrations: Preface
- Part I. The Making of the Victorian Actress:
- 1. 'Think of the power-'
- 2. Masculine panic and the panthers of the stage
- 3. Actresses, managers and feminized theatre
- Part II. Gender and Victorian Playwriting:
- 4. The impossibility of women playwrights
- 5. Textual assaults: women's novels on stage
- 6. Victorian plays by women
- Part III. Revolution:
- 7. Elizabeth Robins, Oscar Wilde and the 'Theatre of the Future'
- Notes
- Index.