Women and Victorian Theatre [Paperback]

This important book chronicles the growing role of women playwrights, managers and actresses in the Victorian theatre.Victorian women were exhilarated by the authoritative voice and the professional opportunity the theatre offered them. In this book Kerry Powell chronicles the development of women's participation in the theatre as playwrights, actresses and managers and explores the making of the Victorian actress, gender and playwriting of the period, and the contributions these made to developments in the following century.Victorian women were exhilarated by the authoritative voice and the professional opportunity the theatre offered them. In this book Kerry Powell chronicles the development of women's participation in the theatre as playwrights, actresses and managers and explores the making of the Victorian actress, gender and playwriting of the period, and the contributions these made to developments in the following century.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.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. ...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 lã&