ABSTRACT
Gregory Doran’s 2002 RSC production of The Island Princess was part of his ‘Jacobethan’ season at the Swan, while his 2003 staging of The Woman’s Prize (The Tamer Tamed) was partnered with his main-house production of The Taming of the Shrew and presented as a proto-feminist riposte to that play’s apparent misogyny. In these two plays, as well as Fletcher and Massinger’s The Sea Voyage (discussed here in productions from 2015 and 2016), strong female characters ultimately capitulate to patriarchal control. As well as engaging with Fletcher’s conflicted portrayal of strong women, this chapter considers how The Island Princess’s narratives of colonialism and racial and religious difference coincided awkwardly for the RSC with post 9/11 geopolitical events.
