Women and Victorian Theatre

by Kerry Powell

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521471671
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/11/1997
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.63(d)

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.

Editorial Reviews

"...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

From the Publisher