Women, Modernism, and Performance

by Penny Farfan

Overview

This interdisciplinary study considers a variety of texts and modes of performance in order to clarify the position of women within—and in relation to—modern theatre history. Penny Farfan identifies the different objectives, strategies, possibilities, and limitations of feminist-modernist performance practice. She focuses on Henrik Ibsen, Elizabeth Robins, Ellen Terry, Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Edith Craig, Radclyffe Hall, and Isadora Duncan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521837804
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/14/2004
Pages:	188
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Penny Farfan is Associate Professor of Drama at the University of Calgary.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations; List of abbreviations; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. From 'Hedda Gabler' to 'Votes for Women': Elizabeth Robins's early feminist critique of Ibsen; 2. Feminist Shakespeare: Ellen Terry's comic ideal; 3. Unimagined parts, unlived selves: Virginia Woolf on Ellen Terry and the art of acting; 4. Staging the ob/scene; 5. Writing/performing: Virginia Woolf between the acts; 6. Feminism, tragedy, history: the fate of Isadora Duncan; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...marks the culmination of a decade of research and will doubtless open new avenues of thought for theatre historians, performance theorists, literary scholars, and anyone interested in what the author calls 'feminist performance practice in the modernist context'." -English Literature in Transition, Michel W. Pharand, Hokkaido Bunkyo University

"...the text provides a fascinating and fresh lookat midern theatre history and serves as a provocative model for historical research." - Margaret F. Savilonis, independent scholar

"Farfan's judicious reappraisal of her modernist revolutionaries—we might think of them as General Gabler's daughters—makes an invaluable contribution to feminist theatre history." Letters in Canada 2004 Andrew Sofer

"Penny Farfan's new interdisciplinary study, Women, Modernism, and Performance broadens the definition of performance beyond what some readers may expect, but the payoff that comes from her series of linked essays will excite those interested in any of her title terms. Farfan brackets these essays effectively, introducing the scholars of feminist studies, modernism, and theatre with which her interpretations most resonate, while also revealing the architecture of the book for the reader." - Kate Egerton, Indiana University South Bend

From the Publisher