Acting the part : gender and performance in contemporary plays by women

Abstract

Acknowledging performance as a process through which gender identities are constituted, the thesis explores attempts in women's theatre to subject these very constructs to creative deconstruction. It offers a study of plays by Caryl Churchill, Sarah Daniels and Timberlake Wertenbaker. Setting their work in the context of prevailing discourses of representation, the analysis delineates the ways in which plays by women interrogate the Western tradition of meaning and perception. The thesis proposes theatrical performance as a strategic engagement with the very means by which women's position is constituted. Therefore, it argues that in women's dramatic work, the possibility of resistance, of agency and choice occurs in the playful adaptation of dominant discourse, allowing for new figurations of subjectivity. Exploring the difficulties and limitations involved in this strategy, the study evaluates how plays by women release a potential for transgression which dislocates the structures of representation.