Feminist Theatre: An Introduction to Plays of Contemporary British and American Women by Helene Keyssar, and: Feminist Theatre: A Study in Persuasion by Elizabeth J. Natalle (review)

Book Reviews 119 We can now see where Archer belongs in the history ofIbsen criticism: very close to the throne itself! CHARLES LELAND, ST. I \UCHAEL'S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO HELENE KEYSSAR. Feminist Theatre: An Introduction to Plays a/Contemporary British and American Women. London: Macmillan 1984. Pp. v, 223, illustrated. £14: £4.95 (PB). ELIZABETH J. NATALLE. Feminist Theatre: A Study in Persuasion. Metuchen, N..J.; Scarecrow Press 1985. Pp. v, 155 . $15.00. With the recent resurgence of the women's movement has come not only a heightened interest in recovering lost or forgotten works by women writers but also a greatly . increased output and availability of works by contemporary female artists. As Helene Keyssar and Elizabeth J. NatalIe demonstrate in their very different looks at Feminist Theatre. this renewed creative activity is nowhere more evident than on the British and American stage. Based on personal interviews with theatre practitioners, first-hand experience of performances, and studies of published and unpublished scripts, both of their books testify to the vitality of feminist theatre. Keyssar's introductory study, published in the Macmillan (and Grove Press) Modem Dramatists Series, draws attention to the growing numbers of women now writing and having their plays produced in the United States and Great Britain. Natalie's work, published by the same house that brought out Janet Brown's pioneering Feminist Drama , highlights the collective and ideological aspects of feminist theatre by considering how theatre groups that began appearing across the U.S. in the late I¢oS have given "a dramatic voice to the new feminist movement." Both authors situate the emergence of feminist theatre in the context of this movement as well as of the general climate of political activism and theatrical innovation characteristic of the I 960s. They both recognize feminist theatre's debt to the strategy of consciousness-raising and to the women's movement's insistence that, "the personal is political"; both authors highlight feminist playwrights' efforts to rethink the hierarchical aspects of play production as well as play construction. But their very different perspectives lead them to paint contrasting pictures of feminist theatre's historical background. While she acknowledges the importance of "new theatre" groups' experiments with transformation teChniques and ensemble work, Kcyssar identifies the female playwrights catalogued in her second chapter as key precursors of feminist theatre. Invoking the names of the tenth-century Hrosvita,_ Aphra Behn, and Anna Cora Mowatt, Keyssar unfortunately goes on to dismiss these women's plays as mere "relics." But the remainder ofher second chapter, in offering an often pointed critique of plays from Susan Glaspell's Trifles to Doris Lessing's Play with a Tiger, convincingly traces the initial stages in the development ofa coherent genre offeminist drama. Natalie disagrees with Keyssar about whether such a coherent genre yet exists and cites 120 Book Reviews reformist or didactic playwrights ranging from Aristophanes and Henrik Ibsen to Bertoh Brecht and the Living Newspaper as precursors for an emergent feminist theatre. In contrast with Keyssar's wideA canging overview, she then focuses her historical discussion on the evolution of American feminist theatre groups over the past twenty years, examining their connections with other feminist organizations. Keyssar's book is thus much broader than Natalle's in scope and quite different in its methodology. The study ofa large numberofwomen's plays has led Keyssar to discover a specifical1y feminist dramatic aesthetic, based on the convention of transformations, or "the theatrical manifestation of metamorphosis of contexts, actions and, most crucially, ofcharacters," rather than on the recognition scene she sees as fundamental to traditional (male) theatre. Her suggestion that all traditional theatre utilizes the recognition structure is in keeping with the other sweeping generalizations that occasionally mar her otherwise sound commentary. But Keyssar's critique of the recognition strategy as essentially reinforcing the status quo and undermining the possibility of real change is a provocative and significant one for feminist theatre studies. Her gradual elaboration of transfonnations and related techniques in the plays she studies also adds up to a helpful catalogue ofbasic characteristics offeminist theatre. Keyssar applies this notion of transfonnation to the plays of some thirty playwrights. Chapters devoted entirely to the...