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Suffrage drama

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A suffrage drama is a play or piece of performance art meant to sway public opinion during a woman's suffrage movement.

Pro-suffrage plays

Suffrage dramas in favor of women's suffrage often portray strong female characters who illustrate the qualities of a rational, informed voters. They are meant to imply the obsolescence and inaccuracy of gender stereotypes that justified denying women the vote, such as separate spheres philosophy[1]. Such characters often convince male or female anti-suffragists to revise their beliefs and support women's suffrage. Other plays satirize anti-suffragists as buffoons or narrow-minded individuals opposing progress. Many of these plays deliberately required few props and no sets. This was to allow amateur acting companies to perform the dramas at minimal cost, allowing them to be more widely performed and spread pro-suffrage sentiment. Due to the low cost of organizing a performance, suffrage plays were often performed in the drawing rooms of private residences and in small professional theaters [2].

Vereinigtes Königreich

Theater played a crucial role in the United Kingdom women's suffrage movement. Pro-suffrage acting organizations such as The Actresses Franchise League and Edith Craig's Pioneer Players formed alongside more political entities like the National Society for Women's Suffrage to campaign for the vote using drama and lectures. Only actresses were permitted to join the The Actresses Franchise League. However, the AFL vowed to "assist all other [women's suffrage] Leagues wherever possible" by creating and performing "propaganda plays" and hosting informative lectures on the subject [3]. The United Kingdom was home to many of the premiere suffragist playwrights, including Cicely Hamilton (author of Diana of Dobson's[4]), George Bernard Shaw (Press Cuttings[5]), Beatrice Harraden (Lady Geraldine's Speech[6]) and Bessie Hatton (Before Sunrise[7]). Contemporary plays concerning the women's suffrage movement continue to be written and performed in Britain, such as Ian Flint's Woman (2003), Rebecca Lenkiewicz's Her Naked Skin (2008) and Sally Sheringham's The Sound of Breaking Glass (2009)[8].

British suffrage organizations and magazines also fostered similar equality movements in India by writing articles about and sponsoring Indian performance art. [9]

America

Although many suffrage dramas were written by British authors and playwrights, a number of American writers contributed to the overall body of pro-suffrage plays. Many of these authors were well known in their own right: Charlotte Perkins Gilman authored "Three Women", "Something to Vote For", "The Ceaseless Struggle of Sex: A Dramatic View", and the suffragist/World War I correspondent Inez Milholland composed "If Women Voted"[10]. Organizations such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association viewed theater as an effective way to spread pro-suffrage sentiment and provided suffrage dramas to professional and amateur theaters [11][12]. Other American dramatists who contributed to the genre include Miriam Nicholson, Elizabeth Gerberding, Salina Solomon and Mrs. Charles Caffin[13][14]. Unfortunately many of the suffrage dramas circulated by the NAWSA have been lost, and the only evidence of their existence has been found in surviving order pamphlets for the plays [15].

Anti-suffrage plays

Some of the earliest plays to address the question of women's suffrage were written in opposition to extending the vote. These plays satirized the notion of revised (and more equal) gender roles by portraying women as incapable of influence afforded to men or characterizing suffragists as "unwomanly" grotesques. Little research has been done into the prevalence or popularity of these anti-suffrage plays [16]. One notable example that transitioned from small parlor performances (like the pro-suffrage plays performed by amateur actors) to widespread popularity in the United States is The Spirit of Seventy-Six; or, The Coming Woman, A Prophetic Drama (1868) by Ariana Randolph Wormeley Curtis and Daniel Sargent Curtis. The play was written following the Civil War, as many abolitionists were beginning to shift their focus to different social issues, such as women's suffrage. The play is meant to be an absurdest fantasy depicting what life would be like if women and men traded gender roles. For example, women in the play wear men's clothing, smoke cigars, and hold all political offices while men struggle to tend to children in the home. The play implies that by enfranchising women they will all become horribly masculine, and suggests that radical suffrage activists campaign to "cover their own undesirability or incompetence"[17].

References

  1. ^ Spender, Dale, and Carole Hayman, ed. How The Vote Was Won and Other Suffragette Plays. Methuen, 1986. 34-87. Print.
  2. ^ Finnegan, Margaret Mary. Selling suffrage: consumer culture & votes for women. Columbia University Press, 1999. Print.
  3. ^ http://www.thesuffragettes.org/campaigning-performance/afl-pioneer-plays-key-individuals/
  4. ^ Cockin, Katharine. Women and Theatre in the Age of Suffrage: The Pioneer Players 1911-25, Palgrave (2001)
  5. ^ http://books.google.com/books?id=THvKxFMgf7oC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=press+cuttings+george+bernard+shaw&source=bl&ots=bC08_gv6yG&sig=ka7bNuJe-iYJ9vtgzidGlXA7rmc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=-nhuT_zVBKnm0QGTi7HNBg#v=onepage&q&f=false
  6. ^ Crawford, E. The women's suffrage movement, a reference guide, 1866-1928. 1st ed. Psychology Press, 2002. Print.
  7. ^ Crawford, E. The women's suffrage movement, a reference guide, 1866-1928. 1st ed. Psychology Press, 2002. Print.
  8. ^ http://www.thesuffragettes.org/campaigning-performance/contemporary-performance/plays-about-movement/
  9. ^ http://www.thesuffragettes.org/resources/chronology-of-suffrage-plays/
  10. ^ https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/suffrage/comesofage/suffrage-plays-4.html
  11. ^ https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/suffrage/comesofage/suffrage-plays-1.html
  12. ^ Spender, Dale, and Carole Hayman, ed. How The Vote Was Won and Other Suffragette Plays. Methuen, 1986. 34-87. Print.
  13. ^ https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/suffrage/comesofage/suffrage-plays-4.html
  14. ^ https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/exhibits/suffrage/comesofage/suffrage-plays-3.html
  15. ^ Finnegan, Margaret Mary. Selling suffrage: consumer culture & votes for women. Columbia University Press, 1999. Print.
  16. ^ Friedl, Bettina. On To Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Northeastern, 1990. Print.
  17. ^ Friedl, Bettina. On To Victory: Propaganda Plays of the Woman Suffrage Movement. Northeastern, 1990. Print.

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