The purpose of this investigation is to determine the extent and nature of criticism in the plays of Jacinto Benavente. Source material included the writings of such prominent critics of Spanish literature as Walter Starkie, Federico de Onis, Richard Chandler, Kessel Schwartz, Emiliano Diez-Echarri, Jose Franquesa, Federico Sainz de Robles, and Valbuena Prat. Twenty plays which best exemplify Benavente's criticism of society were selected from the dramatist's 172.

Subjugated groups studied by discourses of feminism and postcolonialism are commonly oppressed by white, male, imperial power systems. As different marginalized groups are exploited by the same dominant ideology the disparate discourses should collaborate in an attempt to fight the powers of oppression en masse. This thesis will explore not only how feminism and postcolonialism should collaborate, but that they have already been doing so for hundreds of years. In the seventeenth century the playwright Aphra Behn was already exploring the discourses as inseparable, and three-hundred-years later, playwright Caryl Churchill continues to do the same. By studying conventions of drama throughout various theatre movements, such as Restoration and Epic theatre, I will show how class, gender, and race have always been cultural issues as long as Britain has had imperial status.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1974. Vita. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 557-576).

Prior to the fall of 2011, only eight African American female playwrights had ever been produced on Broadway. In this context, the 2011-2012 Broadway season made theatre history when it featured the work of three black women playwrights: Stick Fly by Lydia Diamond, The Mountaintop by Katori Hall and an adaptation of The Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess by Suzan-Lori Parks. This project, which focuses on Diamond’s Stick Fly and Hall’s The Mountaintop as Broadway debuts of new plays, seeks to situate these works within a post-black aesthetic that rejects narrow and limiting constructions of blackness. This project also recognizes the significance of Diamond and Hall as female African American playwrights whose texts allow for complex representations of black womanhood, and proposes that the relationship between post-blackness and black feminism is fluid and permeable, allowing us to better understand both the meanings of blackness and the experiences of black women. / text

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University. Graduate thesis production [book presented] as partial fulfillment for the Master of Fine Arts degree requirements, Boston University, School of Fine and Applied Arts, 1961.

The eighteenth century saw a remarkable increase in the number of works written by women, and also the number of women who made a living by writing. For the first time, being a writer was a viable career choice for a woman, and it was possible to support a family by writing, despite the backlash some individual writers, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, faced for their work. This thesis focuses on the work women did in the eighteenth-century theatre, and how they reconciled the demands of being a professional writer with their society's gender expectations. By analysing a variety of play texts written by different women, I show that they engaged critically with ideas about female virtue, the marriage market, and women's participation in the literary scene, the working world, and national politics. The plays of this period are relatively under-researched, and often do not appear at all in critical studies of eighteenth-century literature. My aim, therefore, is to rectify this situation, and to join other critics in rediscovering this interesting and vital era of female playwriting.

O presente estudo tem como objetivo apresentar e discutir as comédias escritas por George Farquhar, Love and a Bottle (1698) e The Beaux Stratagem (1707), que, respectivamente, foram revisitadas pelo dramaturgo irlandês Declan Hughes e pelos dramaturgos norte-americanos Thornton Wilder e Ken Ludwig. Este trabalho visa verificar quais razões motivaram os dramaturgos a (re)escreverem tais obras e investigar seu método de (re)criação, analisando as mudanças significativas que ocorreram em seus processos criativos. Ademais, entender quais estratégias provocadoras de riso são utilizadas por George Farquhar, por Hughes e Wilder- Ludwig é fundamental para esta pesquisa. O referencial teórico deste estudo baseia-se em obras sobre adaptação e apropriação como A Theory of Adaptation (2006), de Linda Hutcheon e Adaptation and Appropriation (2006), de Julie Sanders, assim como obras sobre o riso e a comédia de Restauração, História do riso e do escárnio (2003), de George Minois e A Companion to Restoration Drama (2001), organizado por Susan J. Owen. / This study aims to present and discuss the comedies Love and a Bottle (1698) and The Beaux \'Stratagem (1707) written by George Farquhar and, respectively, revisited by the Irish playwright Declan Hughes and by the American playwrights Thornton Wilder and Ken Ludwig. The objective of this dissertation is to identify the reasons that motivated the playwrights to (re)write such works and investigate the method of (re)creation, analyzing the important changes that occurred in their creative processes. Moreover, understanding which strategies to provoke laughter are used by George Farquhar, by Hughes and Wilder-Ludwig is essential to this research. The theoretical framework of this study builds on works about adaptation and appropriation as A Theory of Adaptation (2006) by Linda Hutcheon and Adaptation and Appropriation (2006) by Julie Sanders, as well as works on laughter and Restoration comedy, Histoire du rire et de la dérision (2003) by George Minois and A Companion to Restoration Drama (2001) organized by Susan J. Owen.

Victorian women used strategies that allowed them to not only work as actresses but also as directors, producers, translators, and playwrights, thus transforming theatre at the cusp of the New Drama. Female friendships were particularly integral to these strategies as women employed secretiveness and anonymity, charm and shrewdness, networking and collaborating in small and large groups to meet their creative and professional goals. Through these means of sociability women enlarged their spheres of influence beyond the stage. Elizabeth Robins is a superb example of these strategies, particularly when theatrical realism was her primary focus. Though she also collaborated well with men, William Archer and Henry James among them, it was Robins’s female friends who helped her to establish a London career. This project shows how Robins and her women friends contributed to the New Drama in dynamic, critical, and often-secret ways. Marion Lea and Robins finagled the rights to Hedda Gabler in 1891. Lea and Florence Bell helped Robins to translate plays for production and to develop new acting techniques suited to realism. After Lea left England, Robins and Bell joined Grein’s Independent Theatre Society to present their anonymously written protest play Alan’s Wife. These efforts illustrate the adaptive functions of female friendships. Through closer examination of their relationships, particularly the one Robins and Bell called a sisterhood, we see the nurturing functions of female friendships. This project explains some of the reasons why, despite being famous in their day, these women disappeared from history. It was not just because of male control of the theatre, but was also a product of their own desires to protect themselves. Secrecy had served them well in the 1890s, but their fame faded as even friends forgot them. Yet, since female socialization taught them to be group-focused, these women’s stories are highly pertinent to the history of the theatre, an art form that is collaborative by its nature. Through study of their work and their relationships, we can fill some gaps in theatre history, women’s history, and nineteenth-century history, adding resonance to their voices that may carry to coming generations.

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