Arabic theatrical identity has been the subject of much research and debate. This thesis focuses on the Syrian playwright Sadallah Wannous (1941-1997) and his search for both a Syrian, and more broadly, an Arabic theatrical identity in the twentieth century. It approaches Wannous’s body of work from a chronological point of view. Starting with his early work in the 1960’s and the 1970’s, to his latest work in the 1990’s the thesis considers Wannous’s search for an Arabic theatrical identity in his Manifestos for A New Arabic Theatre (1970), his ‘Theatre of Politicisation,’ and the ways in which Wannous’s work was influenced by Arabic theatre pioneers such as Al Qabbani (1836-1902), Al Naqqash (1817-1855), Sannu' (1839-1912) and later, Idris (1927-1991) and Al-Hakim (1898 – 1987). This thesis focuses on Wannous’s use of traditional oral performances such as storytelling in a western, Brechtian style to achieve his ‘theatre.’ It considers the ways in which the Brechtian-inspired playwright believed in the role of theatre as a force of change in society, particularly as it related to the problematic of the democratic process and civic engagement in post-colonial Syria. Towards this aim, Wannous paid special attention to audience reception, inasmuch as he felt that it represented a microcosm of society at large. Given a particular combination of political, social and economic influences, my thesis will trace how and why Wannous’s hybrid dramaturgy fell short of being able to provoke audiences into considered or even impulsive reactions. In addition, my thesis outlines the socio-political circumstances that faced the Middle East, and specifically, Syria i.e., the war against Israel. It focuses on how Wannous felt the need to write and, having reconsidered his ideology, reappeared in the 1990’s (after being diagnosed with cancer) to produce work that was stylistically changed by his addition of more mature characters and more in-depth stories. Each phase of his work is accompanied by a detailed analytical study of pertinent examples of his plays.

This thesis investigates the performance of dreams and dreaming in a few early modern English and Spanish plays, namely William Shakespeare’s 'The Taming of the Shrew' and 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream', Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s 'Life Is a Dream' and 'Sometimes Dreams Come True' and Aphra Behn’s 'The Young King'. Chapter 1 introduces the cultural milieus in which my case studies operate and validate my comparative approach by calling attention to the fact that both dramas attend to similar preoccupations regarding traditional rank and gender hierarchies. Furthermore, it provides an account of the dream theories in force at that time and underscores that dreams are seen as either negligible or very significant entities. Chapter 2 elucidates why I have chosen to study the dreams within the selected plays focusing on their phenomenal, generic and ideological attributes. Phenomenological analysis allows me to prove that the dreams I consider are deeply sensory occurrences that look and feel like reality and vividly expose disturbing (male) habits of power attainment and safeguarding. The plays at issue predictably terminate with the celebration of the (socio-political or religious) values of the patriarchy; nonetheless, I argue that the lifelike dreams have throughout cast doubt on the legitimacy of the beliefs that prevail on- and off-stage and, hence, cannot be simply set aside at the end of the performance. Chapter 3 considers 'The Taming of the Shrew' and 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream' in order to: 1) show that in these two comedies powerful male figures exploit dreams to shape the visual/ideological perceptions of socially inferior characters; and, 2) verify that the simultaneously illusory and tangible quality of dream (and performance) is not easily dismiss-able as ‘airy nothing’. Chapter 4 and 5 respectively explore 'Life Is a Dream' and 'Sometimes Dreams Come True' and demonstrate that the dreams in question paradoxically endorse and query the philosophical and religious core of these two plays. In fact, life may be a dream, but in it the acquisition of political authority matters very much; Catholic dogma may be true, but it only comes to life via (supposedly insubstantial) dreams. By investigating 'The Young King', the last chapter of this thesis again proves the phenomenal and cultural weight dreams acquire on early modern stages: the dreams within this tragicomedy intensely reveal the artificiality of established gender positions and powerfully portray ‘natural’ male pre-eminence in an equivocal light.

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This thesis is a study of Beckett's later plays (those written in English as a first language) beginning with All That Fall. There are three main areas of investigation. Part One considers the importance of structure in Beckett's writing and the extreme precision with which his plays are patterned. The circular movement found in most of the plays is seen to reflect Beckett's constant theme of the human life cycle, in a precise fusion of content with form. Part Two, the bulk of the study, considers the evolution of the plays through their various drafts. The exploration of a large body of draft material affords some insight into Beckett's characteristic approach to his writing, his working method and the craftsmanship with which the plays are shaped, both structurally and linguistically. A tendency for ambiguity to develop and increase as the drafts progress is discovered in the plays. Part Three considers the plays in performance and discusses the various aspects of Beckett's dramatic technique in the writing, acting and direction of the plays. The innovatory quality of Beckett's dramatic ideas is observed in his work for the different media of stage, radio, cinema and television. The discussion thus seeks to increase our understanding of Beckett's plays in English by studying not only the structures ultimately arrived at, but the process of gestation also and finally by observing their efficacy in production.

The aim of the thesis is to document images of women in English and French theatre, between 1848 and 1914, which challenged the stereotypical image of women as passive wives and mothers in the'doll's house! The methodologies employed are not restricted to dramatic criticism, but draw upon a udder net of feminism, semiotics, and social history, in order to place the plays, roles and actresses in the theatre of their time. As a comparative study, it documents interchange, interaction and difference, between the theatre of England and France. The images are divided into three groups, viz., the 'female outcast', the 'third sex' and 'revolting women'. Section one documents a range of femme fatale images, including the courtisane; the Magdalen; Cleopatra, the royal seducer: Medea, the outcast queen, and the dangerous women of melodrama. The second section begins with studies of the male impersonators of music hall, notably Vesta Tilley, and the principal boys of Victorian and Edwardian pantomime. Male impersonation on the 'serious' stage is then considered, in a study of actresses in the cross-dressing role of Shakespeare's Rosalind, and Bernhardt's travesti roles, in particular her Hamlet. The third section considers the révolt6e of the social drama, and debate surrounding the rationale of motherhood, and the hostile reactions to the issues of abortion and infanticide. A chapter on Manchester's Gaiety theatre indicates the importance of the 'new theatres' in providing a udder and more realistic, representation of women, while the final study examines drama which portrayed the difficulties for women trying to survive independently of men, indicating the economic disadvantages and prejudices which drove many women into prostitution. Overall, the three groups of images represent three strategies for power and their success and failure is indicated and assessed. The capacity of theatre for social debate is highlighted, and the contribution of women in the creation of radical images is re-evaluated, thereby making a significant contribution to women's studies and to nineteenth century theatre studies.

This thesis attempts an analysis of some of the major themes and characteristics in Ford's work in the light of the interests and concerns of his dedicatees. The first part, after a discussion of the Ford canon and its chronology, considers four prominent aspects of his writing. The first chapter examines the dislike evinced by many of his characters for food, and the second the distrust of language so frequently registered in his work, and the way in which this leads ultimately to the writing of unsatisfactory plays. The next chapter then goes on to suggest that these two elements of Ford's plays may perhaps be linked by his perception of personality as fragmentarily located in disparate parts of the body, all exerting conflicting claims to represent the totality of the self. The last chapter of the first half of the thesis is concerned with the attempt in The Broken Heart to find an alternative, nonverbal means of communication, and also examines the possibility that the feeling conveyed in Ford's plays of the unsatisfactoriness of physical food may be connected with the sense of spiritual starvation in The Broken Heart. It is further suggested that this in turn might perhaps reflect a preference on Ford's part for the Catholic rather than the Anglican communion. The possibility of Ford having Catholic sympathies is further examined in the first chapter of the second half of the thesis, which explores the careers and family connections of Ford's dedicatees, including their close links with Catholicism. The second chapter attempts to show that Perkin Warbeck can be read as a panegyric on the ancestors of Ford's dedicatees, with the covert implication that the dedicatees, too, were worthy of greater political power and respect than they in fact enjoyed. The final chapter examines how this meaning might, like that of The Broken Heart, have been conveyed on the stage visually rather than verbally, and the conclusion then reviews the way in which Ford's attempt to forge a private language tested his theatre to its limits, and suggests that the unsatisfactory plays of his later years were an inevitable result of his perception of his dedicatees as, both deserving of success and unable to achieve it.

The object of this thesis is to produce an academically rigorous historical study of the political and religious influences on the Alsatian language theatre. To achieve this end, four research targets were established, designed to produce Conclusions, the evidence of research being listed in the Bibliography. The research targets were each to express a part of the study, being: - Political history and culture of the region. - History and present political situation of the language. - History and politics of the theatre in the language. - Influence of the Church in the theatre in Alsace. Additionally, the thesis includes an analysis five Alsatian plays which I feel embody the spirit of the theatre in the language, as evidence of my assertions in meeting the research targets.

This thesis explores masochism as a performance trope investigating the relationship between the politics of cultural production and masochistic performance practices. By examining the work of a number of contemporary artists, particularly artists whose work is concerned with broaching or subverting the physical and psychical limits of the body, this thesis asserts that masochistic works present a provocation and resistance to patriarchal discourses of power, in particular those practices and disciplines of power/ knowledge responsible for the constitution of 'desirable' subjectivity. For the purposes of this thesis 'desirable' denotes both a Foucauldian sense of the 'docile' social subject conforming to the disciplinary technologies of society, combined with the idea of high modernity's capitalist driven economic dependence on the perpetuation of consumer 'desire'. In order to undertake this investigation, an understanding of theoretical and cultural masochism has been utilised in relation to certain forms of performance practice. Drawing upon an understanding of Julia Kristeva's notion of the abject and the cultural construction of the 'obscene' and their significance in relation to the constitution of the subject, this thesis analyses the points at which the abject, the obscene and the discourse of masochism intersect and interrogate acculturated ideas concerning the acceptable limits of re/presentation and the social subject. Through a discussion of the diverse range of perspectives on masochism, coupled with it's abject and 'obscene' inflections, this thesis considers the utility of masochistic actions in investigating contemporary subjectivity and its temporary, masochistically induced loss. In so doing this thesis extends its analysis to elaborate the cultural and socio-political significance of presenting/ representing alternative subjectivity through means of masochistic performances that work in opposition to the patriarchally constructed, sado-masochistic cultural economy of 'desire'.

The aim of this thesis has been to document the English careers of the two nineteenth-century Italian International actresses Adelaide Ristori and Eleonora Duse. The English careers of Duse and Ristori are discussed in the light of both the nineteenth-century debate which developed in England on the role and nature of the actress, and the reception of foreign stars on the English stage and the ensuing discussion on the way foreign theatre stars conformed to, or contravened, prevailing images of English womanhood. Chapter 2 looks into the role and status of the actress from the mid-nineteenth-century to the fin de siecle by deploying critical tools offered by feminist theatre criticism. It is an attempt to define the role of the nineteenth-century actress as a professional woman and draw attention to the voyeuristic nature of nineteenth-century theatre where actresses were put on display: on the one hand they were admired and visually possessed by their audiences, but on the other, they were doomed, as women who made a public show of their bodies, to be social outcasts. Chapter 3 attempts a chronology of foreign actresses on the English stage and focuses on their reception which provides a basis for comparison between English and foreign nineteenth-century actresses. Chapter 4 and 5 respectively, reconstruct Ristori's and Duse's English careers. Issues tackled in the previous chapters resurface here to provide a critical angle in trying to evaluate their reception in Victorian England. The conclusion endeavours to pull together the different lines of this study and points to possible lines of research to be pursed in the future in the field of women in theatre.

This thesis is an attempt to identify and reposition the work of a number of women playwrights whose work was produced on the London Stage between 1918-1962. The existing academic assumption about these playwrights is either that they have no significant place in a history of the drama, or that their work was not rooted in feminist ideology. The thesis sets out to analyse their work in the context for which it was created; a time in which both women's lives and the British theatre, were transformed by war, cultural change and a change in their status within the public domain. As such, the plays are examined in relation to social, cultural and ideological developments and change, which particularly affected both women's lives and the perception of what it meant to be a woman. Similarly, the emergent theories of femaleness and femininity, which grew in number during the period under examination and are outlined in the thesis, have a relevance to a reading of the dramatic texts in question. There are, as far as I am aware, no other detailed studies of plays by women playwrights of the period analysed here. As such, it is hoped that this thesis constitutes at least the beginnings of such a study. Some of the plays quoted here, were treated in less detail and within a far less theoretical framework in a Masters thesisWhich was submitted in 1988.