ABSTRACT
Throughout her playwritirig career, Sarah Daniels has relentlessly probed the fault-lines of contemporary society, tackling issues that are sites of contention between conservative attitudes and liberal/radical reappraisals. Daniels's handling of such potentially explosive subjects as power relations between the sexes, the position of women, lesbianism, pornography, male violence, and sexual abuse is itself subversive and challenging. By considering some of Daniels's thematic concerns, her dramatic treatment of them, and the critical responses they have provoked, this essay demonstrates the ways in which the playwright's subversion of theatrical convention and expectation challenges normative social attitudes. It concludes that the most transgressive aspect of her work is the foregrounding of female experience in a culture that is still overwhelmingly male-defined.
