Springer Violent Women in Contemporary Theatres: Staging Resistance

This book brings together the fields of theatre, gender studies, and psychology/sociology in order to explore the relationships between what happens when women engage in violence, how the events and their reception intercept with cultural understandings of gender, how plays thoughtfully depict this topic, and how their productions impact audiences. Truthful portrayals force consideration of both the startling reality of women's violence ― not how it's been sensationalized or demonized or sexualized, but how it is ― and what parameters, what possibilities, should exist for its enactment in life and live theatre. These women appear in a wide array of contexts: they are mothers, daughters, lovers, streetfighters, boxers, soldiers, and dominatrixes. Who they are and why they choose to use violence varies dramatically. They stage resistance and challenge normative expectations for women. This fascinating and balanced study will appeal to anyone interested in gender/feminism issues and theatre. Review “The two books under review make for heavy reading. … Porter’s book focuses on specific variants of violence connected to specific character types and roles … . both studies offer substantial contributions to the field of theatre and drama.” (Anette Pankratz, Journal of Contemporary Drama in English, Vol. 8 (2), 2020) Review “This is an original contribution to the field of gender studies and violence in the theatre, providing a wide and varied spectrum of analysis. Nancy Taylor Porter revisits an extensive number of theatrical and dramatic pieces that deal with the theme of violence in order to discuss the diverse roles and purposes currently ascribed to female characters in contemporary theatre in English.” (Noelia Hernando-Real, Associate Professor of English and North American Literature, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain) “Violent Women in Contemporary Theatres makes an important contribution to gender and violence studies with a focus on theatrical representations of women not only as victims, but also as survivors and perpetrators of violent action. The book is comprehensive in its examination of the sociological, psychological, and feminist perspectives on “real-world” incidents of violence, wide-spread and mediated interpretation of these events often informed by stereotypical and essentialized notions of gender, and especially women who commit violent acts, and the power of theatre to disrupt and revise our preconceptions of gender and violent behavior with a multiplicity of motivations and contexts. Taylor Porter considers an impressive array of performative spaces with which to complicate and demystify both gender and violence: plays in various dramaturgical forms, using varying performance strategies, including stage combat; state-sponsored violence in the theatre of war; the boxing arena and street-fighting, and the private/public space of sexualized play.” (Sharon Friedman, Associate Professor, the Gallatin School at New York University, USA) From the Back Cover This book brings together the fields of theatre, gender studies, and psychology/sociology in order to explore the relationships between what happens when women engage in violence, how the events and their reception intercept with cultural understandings of gender, how plays thoughtfully depict this topic, and how their productions impact audiences. Truthful portrayals force consideration of both the startling reality of women's violence ― not how it's been sensationalized or demonized or sexualized, but how it is ― and what parameters, what possibilities, should exist for its enactment in life and live theatre. These women appear in a wide array of contexts: they are mothers, daughters, lovers, streetfighters, boxers, soldiers, and dominatrixes. Who they are and why they choose to use violence varies dramatically. They stage resistance and challenge normative expectations for women. This fascina