ABSTRACT
Contemporary feminist playwrighting and performance has reshaped the modern dramatic/theatrical canon, and signalled its difference from mainstream (male) theatre. A recently published survey of the British stage from 1890 to 1990 by Innes (1992), testifies to this difference by concluding with an (all too brief) section on the emergence of feminist companies and dramatists, kept separate from the main body of the (male) survey Innes explains the rationale of this ‘organizing principle’ as being due to the way in which ‘the feminist playwrights consciously reject conventional forms as inherently masculinist, and as a consequence their criteria demand separate treatment’ (Innes: 7). He also states that it is in the context of emergent companies ‘performing for special interest groups’ that ‘some of the more challenging new writing has emerged, the most highly developed being feminist drama’ (ibid.). Innes’s own emphasis is on the feminist playwrights (though he treats only two: Gems and Churchill), which reflects a traditional academic approach to theatre which prioritizes the dramatic at the expense of the theatrical. As a consequence, the consideration and documentation of the performance context suffers, because what gets written about are the plays-possibly reviewed in production, but rarely analysed for their performance style, staging potential, etc.
