Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance

Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance PDF Author: Amy Lehman
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786454717
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Spiritualists in the nineteenth century spoke of the "Borderland," a shadowy threshold where the living communed with the dead, and where those in the material realm could receive comfort or advice from another world. The skilled performances of mostly female actors and performers made the "Borderland" a theatre, of sorts, in which dramas of revelation and recognition were produced in the forms of seances, trances, and spiritualist lectures. This book examines some of the most fascinating American and British actresses of the Victorian era, whose performances fairly mesmerized their audiences of amused skeptics and ardent believers. It also focuses on the transformative possibilities of the spiritualist theatre, revealing how the performances allowed Victorian women to speak, act, and create outside the boundaries of their restricted social and psychological roles.

Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance

Victorian Women and the Theatre of Trance PDF Author: Amy Lehman
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786454717
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book

Book Description
Spiritualists in the nineteenth century spoke of the "Borderland," a shadowy threshold where the living communed with the dead, and where those in the material realm could receive comfort or advice from another world. The skilled performances of mostly female actors and performers made the "Borderland" a theatre, of sorts, in which dramas of revelation and recognition were produced in the forms of seances, trances, and spiritualist lectures. This book examines some of the most fascinating American and British actresses of the Victorian era, whose performances fairly mesmerized their audiences of amused skeptics and ardent believers. It also focuses on the transformative possibilities of the spiritualist theatre, revealing how the performances allowed Victorian women to speak, act, and create outside the boundaries of their restricted social and psychological roles.

Women and Victorian Theatre

Women and Victorian Theatre PDF Author: Kerry Powell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521471672
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
This important book chronicles the growing role of women playwrights, managers and actresses in the Victorian theatre.

Women's Theatre Writing in Victorian Britain

Women's Theatre Writing in Victorian Britain PDF Author: K. Newey
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230554903
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Women's Theatre Writing in Victorian Britain is the first book to make a comprehensive study of women playwrights in the British theatre from 1820 to 1918. It looks at how women playwrights negotiated their personal and professional identities as writers, and examines the female tradition of playwriting which dramatises the central experience of women's lives around the themes of home, the nation, and the position of women in marriage and the family. The book also includes an extensive Appendix of authors and plays, which will be a useful reference tool for students and scholars in nineteenth-century studies and theatre historians.

Women, Theatre and Performance

Women, Theatre and Performance PDF Author: Maggie Barbara Gale
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719057137
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
This collection addresses key questions in women's theatre history and retrieves a number of previously "hidden" histories of women performers. The essays range across the past 300 years--topics covered include Susanna Centlivre and the notion of intertheatricality; gender and theatrical space; the repositioning of women performers such as Wagner's Muse, Willhelmina Schröder-Devrient, the Comédie Français' "Mademoiselle Mars," Mme. Arnould-Plessey, and the actresses of the Russian serf theatre.

Actresses as Working Women

Actresses as Working Women PDF Author: Tracy C. Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134934467
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Using historical evidence as well as personal accounts, Tracy C. Davis examines the reality of conditions for `ordinary' actresses, their working environments, employment patterns and the reasons why acting continued to be such a popular, though insecure, profession. Firmly grounded in Marxist and feminist theory she looks at representations of women on stage, and the meanings associated with and generated by them.

Actresses as Working Women

Actresses as Working Women PDF Author: Tracy C. Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134934475
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Using historical evidence as well as personal accounts, Tracy C. Davis examines the reality of conditions for `ordinary' actresses, their working environments, employment patterns and the reasons why acting continued to be such a popular, though insecure, profession. Firmly grounded in Marxist and feminist theory she looks at representations of women on stage, and the meanings associated with and generated by them.

Auto/Biography and Identity

Auto/Biography and Identity PDF Author: Maggie B B. Gale
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719063329
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Arguing that women use autobiography and performance for expression and as a means of controlling their public and private selves, the contributors of these 11 essays examine the lives and work of a variety of artists ranging from actors as working women in the eighteenth century to monologists and performance artists today. Subjects include several performers, including Alma Ellerslie, Kitty Marion, Ina Rozant, Susan Glaspell, Adrienne Kennedy, Emma Robinson, Lena Ashwell, Tilly Wedekind, Clare Dowie, Janet Cardiff, Tracey Emin, and, in an interview, Bobby Baker, as well as essays on Latina theater and lesbians as performers constructing themselves and their community. Annotation : 2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

John Ruskin and the Victorian Theatre

John Ruskin and the Victorian Theatre PDF Author: K. Newey
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230276512
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
This is the first book to explore the involvement of John Ruskin with the popular theatre of his time. Based on original archival research, this book offers a fresh look at the aesthetic and social theories of Ruskin and his direct and indirect influence on the commercial theatre of the late nineteenth century.

Actresses on the Victorian Stage

Actresses on the Victorian Stage PDF Author: Gail Marshall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521620161
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Gail Marshall argues that the professional and personal history of the Victorian actress was largely defined by her negotiation with the sculptural metaphor, and that this was authorized and determined by the Ovidian myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. Drawing on evidence of theatrical fictions, visual representations and popular culture's assimilation of the sculptural image, as well as theatrical productions, she examines some of the manifestations of the sculptural metaphor on the legitimate English stage, and its implications for the actress in the later nineteenth century. Within the legitimate theatre, the 'Galatea-aesthetic' positioned actresses as predominantly visual and sexual commodities whose opportunities for interpretative engagement with their plays were minimal. This dominant aesthetic was effectively challenged only at the end of the century, with the advent of the 'New' drama, and the emergence of a body of autobiographical writings by actresses.

The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre

The Cambridge Companion to Victorian and Edwardian Theatre PDF Author: Kerry Powell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139826425
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
This 2004 Companion is designed for readers interested in the creation, production and interpretation of Victorian and Edwardian theatre, both in its own time and on the contemporary stage. The volume opens with a brief overview and introduction surveying the theatre of the time followed by an essay contextualizing the theatre within the frame of Victorian and Edwardian culture as a whole. Succeeding chapters examine specific aspects of performance, production, and theatre, including the music, the actors, stagecraft and the audiences themselves; plays and playwriting and issues of class and gender are also explored. Chapters also deal with comedy, farce and melodrama, while other essays bring forward new topics and approaches that cross the boundaries of traditional investigation, including analysis of the economics of theatre and of the theatricality of personal identity.