Treading the Bawds: Actresses and Playwrights on the Late-Stuart Stage (Women, Theatre & Performance) (Women, Theatre and Performance) - Hardcover

Gilli Bush-Bailey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719072506 ISBN 13: 9780719072505

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2006

Synopsis

Drawing on feminist cultural materialist theories and historiographies, 'Treading the bawds' analyses the collaboration between actresses Elizabeth Barry and Anne Bracegirdle and women playwrights such as Aphra Behn and Mary Pix, and traces a line of influence from the time of the first theatres royal to the rebellion that resulted in the creation of a player's co-operative. Bush-Bailey offers a fresh approach to the history of women, seeing their neglected plays in the context of performance. By combining detailed analysis of selected plays within the broader context of a playhouse managed by its leading actresses, Bush-Bailey challenges the received historical and literary canons, including a radical solution to the mysterious identity of the anonymous playwright 'Ariadne'. It is a story of female collaboration and influence with the spotlight focused on the very public world of women in the commercial business of theatre. -- .

About this title

Review:

She keenly appreciates the commercial factors shaping the development of late Restoration theatre. Bush-Baileys engaged, bottom-line theory of history is bracing. --Barbara Ravelhofer, Plays International Feb 2007

Synopsis:

This book breaks the traditional boundaries that have separated the histories of the first actresses and the early female playwrights. It brings the approaches of new histories and historiography to bear on old stories to make alternative connections between women working in the business of theatre. It traces a line of influence from the time of the first theatres Royal to the rebellion that resulted in the creation of a player's co-operative, and offers a fresh approach to the history of women, seeing their neglected plays in the context of performance.

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0719072506
• ISBN 13: 9780719072505
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240