Out of the prisonhouse : British radical feminist theatre and Sarah Daniels' Ripen Our Darkness and Masterpieces

Petra Kalavská

doi:10.5817/BSE2025-1-9

Out of the prisonhouse : British radical feminist theatre and Sarah Daniels' Ripen Our Darkness and Masterpieces

Vol.51,No.1(2025)

Petra Kalavská

https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2025-1-9

Stable URL (handle):
http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/digilib.83011

PDF

Abstract

The present article concentrates on British radical feminist drama, particularly on Ripen Our Darkness (1981) and Masterpieces (1983) by Sarah Daniels, the British feminist playwright, and aims to suggest that radical feminist theatre responds to the call of the French literary critic Hélène Cixous for writing specifically by and for women. The article studies the influence of radical feminist theory on radical feminist theatre in Britain and explores new forms and styles which enable radical feminist playwrights, and Sarah Daniels in particular, to re-examine and fragment classic realism. The analysis of the two plays, which achieved mainstream success and which Daniels wrote at the beginning of her career, aims to propose that the theatrical style corresponds with the character of the plays as Daniels supports the radical feminist debate by subversive and innovative theatrical strategies which complement the feminist character of her work.

Keywords:
British radical feminist theatre; feminist theory; Ripen Our Darkness; Masterpieces; Sarah Daniels

Pages:
169–187

References

Aston, Elaine (1995) An Introduction to Feminism and Theatre. London: Routledge.

Aston, Elaine (ed.) (1997) Feminist Theatre Voices: A Collective Oral History. Loughborough: Loughborough Theatre Texts.

Aston, Elaine (2016) Introduction. In Daniels, Sarah Masterpieces. London: Methuen Drama, x–xxii.

Aston, Elaine (2020) Restaging Feminisms. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Aston, Elaine and Griffin, Gabriele (2004) Introduction. In: Fairbanks, Tasha Pulp and Other Plays. London: Routledge, xi–xxvii.

Aston, Elaine and Reinelt, Janelle (2000) The question of the canon. In: Aston, Elaine and Reinelt, Janelle (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 151–155. | DOI 10.1353/mdr.2001.0052

Bartleet, Carina (2003) Sarah Daniels' Hysteria Plays: Re-presentations of Madness in Ripen Our Darkness and Head-Rot Holiday. Modern Drama 46 (2), 241–260. | DOI 10.1353/mdr.2003.0049

Brownmiller, Susan (1993) Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. New York: Fawcett Columbine.

Carlson, Susan (1994) Women and Comedy: Rewriting the British Theatrical Tradition. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Case, Sue-Ellen (2008) Feminism and Theatre. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cixous, Hélène (1981) The laugh of the medusa. In Marks, Elaine and de Courtivron, Isabelle (eds.) New French Feminisms: An Anthology. New York: Schocken Books, 245–264.

Daniels, Sarah (1991) Plays One: Ripen Our Darkness, The Devil's Gateway, Masterpieces, Neaptide, Byrthrite. London: Methuen Drama.

Debling, Heather (2008) "How Will They Ever Heal…?" Bearing Witness to Abuse and the Importance of Female Community in Sarah Daniels's Beside Herself, Head-Rot Holiday, and The Madness of Esme and Shaz. Modern Drama 51 (2), 259–273. | DOI 10.1353/mdr.0.0045

Dolan, Jill (1994) The Feminist Spectator as Critic. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Dworkin, Andrea (1992) Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: Women's Press.

Dymkowski, Christine (1996) Breaking the Rules: The Plays of Sarah Daniels. Contemporary Theatre Review 5 (1), 63–75. | DOI 10.1080/10486809608568382

Dymkowski, Christine (1994) Questioning comedy in Daniels, Wertenbaker, and Churchill. In: Reitz, Bernhard (ed.) Contemporary Drama in English. 33–44. http://57333770.swh.strato-hosting.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/cde01.pdf. Accessed on September 26, 2023.

Firestone, Shulamith (1972) The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution. New York: Bantam Books.

Gilleman, Luc (2010) Drama and Pornography: Sarah Daniels's Masterpieces and Anthony Neilson's The Censor. Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 25 (1), 75–97. | DOI 10.1353/dtc.2010.0002

Godiwala, Dimple (2003) Breaking the Bounds: British Feminist Dramatists Writing in the Mainstream Since c. 1980. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Goodman, Lizbeth (1993) Contemporary Feminist Theatres: To Each Her Own. London: Routledge.

Griffin, Susan (1978) Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her. New York: Harper and Row.

Lorek-Jezińska, Edyta (2012) The witch's story: revision and theatricality in Bryony Lavery's Witchcraze. In: Guttfeld, Dorota, Linke, Monika and Sowińska, Agnieszka (eds.) (Re) Visions of History in Language and Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 48–66.

Lovenduski, Joni and Randall, Vicky (1995) Contemporary Feminist Politics: Women and Power in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Millett, Kate (2000) Sexual Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Milling, Jane (2012) Modern British Playwriting: The 1980s: Voices, Documents, New Interpretations. London: Methuen Drama.

Minwalla, Framji (1990) Sarah Daniels: A Woman in the Moon. Theatre 21 (3), 26–29. | DOI 10.1215/01610775-21-3-26

Ortner, Sherry (1974) Is female to male as nature is to culture? In Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist and Lamphere, Louise (eds.) Woman, Culture, and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 67–87. | DOI 10.1017/s0047279400004347

Peacock, Keith D. (1999) Thatcher's Theatre: British Theatre and Drama in the Eighties. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Reinelt, Janelle (2000) Caryl Churchill and the politics of style. In: Aston, Elaine and Reinelt, Janelle (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Modern British Women Playwrights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 174–193. | DOI 10.1017/ccol9780521594226.014

Rich, Adrienne (1980) Compulsory Sexuality and Lesbian Existence. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (4), 631–660. | DOI 10.1086/493756

Rich, Adrienne (1995) Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. New York: Norton.

Stephenson, Heidi and Langridge, Natasha (eds.) (1997) Rage and Reason: Women Playwrights on Playwriting. London: Methuen.

Metrics