Women and Historical Agency in Contemporary British Plays
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Amelia Howe Kritzer
Abstract
Recent British plays indicate that the struggle for equal access to historical agency continues in contemporary society. While a number of history plays reveal attachment to outdated attitudes in their exclusion of women, a significant body of work has emerged emphasizing the conflict women face between pursuing the kind of career choices that lead to historical agency and fulfilling expected roles and responsibilities in the family. The 2010 program of plays Women, Power and Politics commissioned and performed by the Tricycle Theatre in London offers a wide-ranging panorama of the possibilities and limitations for contemporary women in politics and invokes the energy of the Woman Suffrage movement and other political campaigns as women seek to transform their cultural and social conditions.
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© 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Articles
- Introduction: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Anthropo-Scenes: Theater and Climate Change
- ‘Provincializing’ Post-Wall Europe: Transcultural Critique of Eurocentric Historicism in Pentecost, Europe and The Break of Day
- Utopian Histories: Transforming Past Ideals in Stoppard’s Plays
- A Historiography of Protest and the Politics of Commemoration in Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica
- Je Me Souviens – Re/Writings of History in Contemporary Canadian Drama
- David Greig’s The American Pilot and Earlier Dramatizations of Political Hostage Takings
- Time and Temporalities in Contemporary British War Plays – Roy Williams’s Days of Significance and Owen Sheers’s The Two Worlds of Charlie F.
- Women and Historical Agency in Contemporary British Plays
- From History to ‘Ourstories’ in Martin Crimp’s Metanarratives
- Locating History on the Contemporary Stage
- Reviews
- Vicky Angelaki. The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, x + 228 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback); available as eBook.Clara Escoda Agustí. Martin Crimp’s Theatre: Collapse as Resistance to Late Capitalist Society. CDE Studies Volume 24. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013, xi + 336 pp., $ 140.00 (hardcover or eBook), $ 210.00 (hardcover and eBook).
- Sophie Bush. The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, viii + 337 pp., £ 16.99 (paperback and eBook).
- Peter Fifield and David Addyman (eds.). Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies: New Critical Essays. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 244 pp., £ 58.50 (hardback), £ 19.99 (eBook).Katherine Weiss. The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Critical Companions. London: Methuen Drama, 2013, 286 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 16.99 (paperback).
- Anne Cremieux, Xavier Lemoine and Jean-Paul Rocchi (eds.). Understanding Blackness Through Performance: Contemporary Arts and the Representation of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 282 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback).
- Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson and Barbara Hatley. Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era. Studies in International Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xiii + 253 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback).
- Clare Wallace. The Theatre of David Greig. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, ix + 259 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 15.29 (paperback).
- Gareth White. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, x + 224 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback), $ 29.00 (paperback).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Articles
- Introduction: Theater and History – Cultural Transformations
- Anthropo-Scenes: Theater and Climate Change
- ‘Provincializing’ Post-Wall Europe: Transcultural Critique of Eurocentric Historicism in Pentecost, Europe and The Break of Day
- Utopian Histories: Transforming Past Ideals in Stoppard’s Plays
- A Historiography of Protest and the Politics of Commemoration in Lucy Kirkwood’s Chimerica
- Je Me Souviens – Re/Writings of History in Contemporary Canadian Drama
- David Greig’s The American Pilot and Earlier Dramatizations of Political Hostage Takings
- Time and Temporalities in Contemporary British War Plays – Roy Williams’s Days of Significance and Owen Sheers’s The Two Worlds of Charlie F.
- Women and Historical Agency in Contemporary British Plays
- From History to ‘Ourstories’ in Martin Crimp’s Metanarratives
- Locating History on the Contemporary Stage
- Reviews
- Vicky Angelaki. The Plays of Martin Crimp: Making Theatre Strange. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012, x + 228 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback); available as eBook.Clara Escoda Agustí. Martin Crimp’s Theatre: Collapse as Resistance to Late Capitalist Society. CDE Studies Volume 24. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2013, xi + 336 pp., $ 140.00 (hardcover or eBook), $ 210.00 (hardcover and eBook).
- Sophie Bush. The Theatre of Timberlake Wertenbaker. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, viii + 337 pp., £ 16.99 (paperback and eBook).
- Peter Fifield and David Addyman (eds.). Samuel Beckett: Debts and Legacies: New Critical Essays. London: Bloomsbury, 2013, 244 pp., £ 58.50 (hardback), £ 19.99 (eBook).Katherine Weiss. The Plays of Samuel Beckett. Critical Companions. London: Methuen Drama, 2013, 286 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 16.99 (paperback).
- Anne Cremieux, Xavier Lemoine and Jean-Paul Rocchi (eds.). Understanding Blackness Through Performance: Contemporary Arts and the Representation of Identity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, 282 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback).
- Denise Varney, Peter Eckersall, Chris Hudson and Barbara Hatley. Theatre and Performance in the Asia-Pacific: Regional Modernities in the Global Era. Studies in International Performance. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, xiii + 253 pp., $ 85.00 (hardback).
- Clare Wallace. The Theatre of David Greig. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013, ix + 259 pp., £ 50.00 (hardback), £ 15.29 (paperback).
- Gareth White. Audience Participation in Theatre: Aesthetics of the Invitation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, x + 224 pp., $ 90.00 (hardback), $ 29.00 (paperback).
