Classic Plays by Women: From 1600 - 2000 (Aurora Classic Plays) - Softcover

Behn, Aphra; Sowerby, Githa; Centlivre, Susannah; Bagnold, Enid; Churchill, Caryl; Hrostwitha; Baillie, Joanna; Jones, Marie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1906582009 ISBN 13: 9781906582005

Publisher: Aurora Metro Books, 2010

Synopsis

Includes: the complete text of Aphra Behn's 'The Rover', Susanna Centlivre's 'A Bold Stroke for a Wife', Joanna Baillie's 'De Monfort', Githa Sowerby's 'Rutherford and Son', Enid Bagnold's 'The Chalk Garden', extract from Caryl Churchill's 'Top Girls', complete text of Marie Jones' 'Stones in his Pockets.' A unique anthology of classic plays by female dramatists in the UK from 1600-2000, this collection brings together an extraordinary body of work with enduring appeal. Staged in theatres by successive generations and proving relevant to contemporary audiences, the plays demonstrate the wit, theatrical skill and innovation of their creators in exploring timeless topics from marriage, morality and money to class conflict, rage and sexual desire. An essential resource for students, playwrights, colleges, universities and libraries, this collection also provides theatres with the opportunity to programme a range of theatrical classics by women.

About this title

Review

In her introduction to this collection of plays by female dramatists spanning four centuries, from 1600 to 2000, Susan Croft, a theatre historian, discusses why she believes it necessary to group these plays together at all. There is still an issue of visibility when it comes to writing by women, a lack of balance. She commends the work of the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond and its continued efforts in resurrecting neglected plays and celebrating the talents of writers like Susan Glaspell, but cites them as a welcome exception to the usual way of things. She holds up the fact that Rebecca Lenkiewicz s 2008 play, Her Naked Skin, was the first play by a woman to be produced on the National Theatre s Olivier stage as a more familiar situation when it comes to the staging of work by women writers. --Exeunt Magazine

Though Croft only skims the surface of the discussion of what constitutes a canonical text there s a lengthier and meatier debate to be had about that her selected plays demonstrate the diversity of women's writing, the richness of material out there, while also celebrating particular milestones. In this light she begins well before 1600 with an extract of Paphnuitus, a work by the medieval abbess Hrotswitha. Writing in the 10th century, her status as the earliest known woman writer for the stage has made her an iconic figure and Croft includes her as a torch-bearer for things to come. She follows this with an extract of Elizabeth Cary s The Tragedy of Marian, the first original published play by a woman, touching on the argument that this closet-drama has the feel of something written with a wider audience in mind. --Natasha Tripney

About the Author

Various female playwrights: bios within book. Editor, Dr Susan Croft has done extensive research and published widely on women playwrights. Her work includes: 'Art, Theatre and Women's Suffrage.' (Aurora Metro 2010); 'Votes for Women and other plays' (Aurora Metro 2009); 'She Also Wrote Plays' (Faber 2001). From 1997 to 2005 she was the Curator of Contemporary Performance at the Theatre Museum in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1906582009
• ISBN 13: 9781906582005
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 456
• Editor: Croft Susan