Plays by and about Women

Book Overview

Eight plays, all written in this century, in which leading women dramatists present their own pictures of their sex.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394718968
• ISBN13: 9780394718965
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 448 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 4.3" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

WOMEN Dramatists present their own pictures of their sex

Eight plays, in which leading women dramatists present their own pictures of their sex. The theater has always been considered a mirror of its time, and many twentieth-century plays have reflected changing views of women. A large number of these, however, have been by men. Here is a volume of eight plays, all written in this century, in which leading women dramatists present their own pictures of their sex. The plays were chosen because they both read and play well and because they deal specifically with women and their problems. THE PLAYS IN THIS VOLUME ARE Alice Gerstenberg's Overtones is considered the earliest example of a play that dramatizes the unconscious on stage. In it, Gerstenberg uses two actresses for both Margaret and Harriet to represent the single character of Margaret and Harriet. Each embodies a disparate part of the character's personality; or, to put it in Freudian terms, one is the id and the other the ego. In Overtones, Harriet and Margaret are the cultured and refined selves, while Hetty and Maggie represent the wild, primitive desires of these same women. Using two women to play one character was a unique convention that had not been seen before. This new technique, along with Gerstenberg's ability to write witty, interesting dialogue made the play an instant success. Overtones was first produced November 8, 1915, by the Washington Square Players at the Bandbox Theater in New York. At the time of its production, Sigmund Freud had recently made his first trip to the United States, and the publication of his works had spread interest in the workings of the unconscious mind. Freud's theories were a common topic of discussion and the play capitalized upon this fad. The play influenced many later playwrights including Eugene O'Neill, who used a similar technique in his play Strange Interlude Lillian Hellman's. The Children's Hour (1934), her first play, was considered shocking at the time; it concerns the devastating effects of a child's malicious charge of lesbianism against two of her teachers The Women is a comedy of manners by Clare Boothe Luce The play is an acidic commentary on the pampered lives and power struggles of various wealthy Manhattan socialites and up-and-comers and the gossip that propels and damages their relationships. While men frequently are the subject of their lively discussions and play an important role in the action on-stage, they are strictly characters mentioned but never seen. Play With a Tiger by Doris Lessing . It is about people who, having thrown over conventional morality, live emotionally from hand to mouth according to their own rules, often coming to grief in the process. The two central characters, an Australian woman and an American man, love each other but are too different temperamentally to marry. The most interesting aspect of the play is the middle section where the two characters, Dave and Anna, alone on the stage, create their pasts and futures in a game, which bre

Wonderful and Classic

All these plays show diffrent kinds of women all joinging in one way. Out of all 8 wonderful an experenced plays my favorite was The Children's Hour by Lilian Hellman dealing with a group of young girls in a school has allways been quite amusing to myself.