Playing Spaces in Early Women's Drama

Alison Findlay author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:19th Oct '06

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Playing Spaces in Early Women's Drama cover

This study examines the playing spaces for early modern women's drama.

From the Abbess of Barking to Aphra Behn, women manipulated dramatic venues and settings to re-negotiate their place in society. This study examines the playing spaces for early modern women's drama and how women played with space in scripts and performances.From the Abbess of Barking to Aphra Behn, women manipulated dramatic venues and settings to re-negotiate their place in society. This study examines the playing spaces for early modern women's drama and how women played with space in scripts and performances. Using selected texts from 1376 to 1705, Findlay shows how their drama operated in five key sites: homes, gardens, courts, convents and cities. Aristocratic houses, country estates and city streets are theatrically reconfigured as homes, empty shells and arenas of possibility. Courtly venues reveal queens as adept producers in the royal theatres of power, while convents and academies are playing spaces to explore the possibilities of female company. This book sketches theatre histories on to what is often a blank space, investigating the rich inter-textuality of spatial practices to provide a richer understanding of how early women's drama works.

"Playing Spaces offers a fascinating narrative. With any luck it should open the way for more such innovative and imaginative work—even bolder dialogues between art history, architectural history, and literary scholarship." - Sixteenth Century Journal

ISBN: 9780521839563

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm

Weight: 570g

272 pages