(M)Other Perspectives: Staging Motherhood in 21st Century North American Theatre & Performance

by Lynn Deboeck (Editor), Aoise Stratford (Editor)

Overview

This anthology examines maternity in contemporary performance at the intersection of a wide range of topics from nationhood to mental health, queer parenting, embodied dramaturgy, cultural practice, and immigration.

Across the breadth of these themes, we interrogate the cultural implications and politics of how we script, perform, receive, and define mothers, challenging many of the normalizing and patriarchal tropes associated with the mother-as-character. This book includes critical essays examining twenty-first century dramatic literature, first-hand ethnographic accounts of motherhood in practice, interviews, feminist manifestos, and artist reflections. In its deliberately curated variety, this collection seeks to resist homogeneity and offer instead a range of approaches to key questions: what versions of motherhood get staged, and why? And what do dramatic representations tell us about the role of mothers in our own fraught contemporary moment?

This collection will be of great interest to those in academia who are teaching, researching, or studying in the fields of Theatre and Performance Studies, American Studies, and Feminist and Gender Studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032303116
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/01/2023
Series:	Routledge Advances in Theatre & Performance Studies
Pages:	298
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Aoise Stratford is a Playwright, Dramaturg, and Lecturer at Cornell University in the Department of Performing and Media Arts.

Lynn Deboeck is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Theatre and Lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Utah.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Contributors Bio

INTRODUCTION: Mothers on Stage, in the House, and Behind the Scenes

Lynn Deboeck and Aoise Stratford

PART ONE: RESCRIPTING REPRODUCTION AND THE PREGNANT BODY

Introduction / Mother’s To Do List

(1) We Are BRAVE: Performed Motherhood as Sexual and Reproductive Justice Activism

Roberta Hunte

(2) Queer Mothering: You Don’t Have To Emerge From Nothing

Michelle Hayford

(3) Embodied Dramaturgy of Pregnancy and Motherhood in Grounded and Gloria

Sarah Johnson

(4) "You just know": Fertility-as-Currency in Expecting Isabel

Lynn Deboeck

(5) Representations of (Non) Choice: Birthmother Narratives from Marginalized Mothers in Contemporary Theatre

Tamar Neumann

PART TWO: MATERNAL/THEATRICAL LEGACIES

Introduction / Mother’s To Do List

(6) Persistent Anxiety and Absent Mothers in Lucas Hnath’s A Doll’s House, Part 2

Alison Walls

(7) "Unnatural" Mothers in Global Capitalism: Snow in Midsummer by Frances Ya-chu Cowig

Daphne P. Lei

(8) Abortion and the Monstrous Maternal in Suzan-Lori Parks’s Red Letter Plays

Aoise Stratford

(9) Scripting and Staging Immigrant Motherhood in Heather Raffo’s Noura

Suzi Elnaggar

(10) Mourning Mothers: Madness as Deviant Motherhood in Next to Normal

Lindsey Barr

PART THREE: MOTHERHOOD / NATIONHOOD

Introduction / Mother’s To Do List

(11) Negotiating Mothers: Exploring the Maternal Landscape in Danai Gurira’s Eclipsed

L. Bailey McDaniel

(12) "Mothers are the trickiest thing" Staging Undocumented Motherhood in Miss You Like Hell

Diana Benea

(13) Laboring for Their Country: Mother-Soldiers in Grounded and Welcome Home Jenny Sutter

Jacqueline Viskup

(14) Motherhood/Motherland: Performing Maternity and the Creation of a Citizen

Melissa Flower

(15) The Ties that Bind: Motherhood, Veiling, and Diasporic Subjectivity in Rohina Malik’s Unveiled

Megan Stahl

PART FOUR: MOTHERHOOD AS THEATRICAL LABOR

Introduction / Mother’s To Do List

(16) Radical Inclusivity: Rachel Hewitt and The Parent Artist Advocacy League

Daniella Vinitski Mooney

(17) Performing Performance Moms

Teresa Simone

(18) ASTR Field Conversation: Black Motherhood

Mysia Anderson, Maisha Akbar, Shondrika Moss-Bouldin, Nicole Hodges Persley

(19) No Further: Staging Motherwork and Maternal Relationships

Kristyl Tift

(20) A manifesto for care in the rehearsal room and the birthing room

Shawna Mefferd Kelty

(21) Jewish Mothers

Christina Hurtado-Pearson and Jessie Mills

CONCLUSION

Aoise Stratford and Lynn Deboeck

APPENDIX – Play List for Further Reading

Index