Abstract

The more or less direct representation of life stories which characterized many feminist plays in Québec in the 1970s and 1980s opened paths toward a richly creative range of dramaturgical and performative strategies making innovative uses of narration and narrators. Women's voices, speaking or writing about girls' and women's real experiences (outside stereotypes and taboos), demanded to be heard on stage starting in the 1970s. While explicit biography and autobiography in Québec women's theater have grown muted, voices telling stories (usually those of individuals previously silenced or rendered invisible through established theater convention), drawing spectators' attention to elements in the story, functioning as narrators, and speaking from one of various layers of spaces between fiction and reality are now heard in a number of plays by women. Since narration has not been a primary device in traditions of theatrical representation, it is interesting to study some of the innovative and effective ways in which women have been dramatizing their corporeal presence and their coming to voice in scenically congenial contexts, along with their ways of seeing and knowing the world through their women's eyes.

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