The Restoration represents an exhilarating period of English history. With Charles II, the ‘Merry Monarch’ restored to the throne, the country saw artistic and literary talent flourish. Charles was an enthusiastic patron of the theatre and helped breathe new life into British drama, reopening the playhouses after the gray years of closure under Puritanical rule. One of the most significant innovations in Restoration theatre was the introduction of actresses on the English stage. This exciting new history is dedicated to the life and times of two of the Restoration’s most celebrated actresses: Mrs Elizabeth Barry and Mrs Anne Bracegirdle. It details their family roots, the beginnings and progression of their London stage careers, their retirement from the limelight, and their eventual demise. Their lives and work are set against the lively and often dangerous atmosphere that epitomized seventeenth-century London and its theaters, and the places where Mrs Barry and Mrs Bracegirdle lived and worked alongside their fellow players, dramatists and others of their times. There are references to the actresses’ admirers and lovers within and without the world of theatre. Along with more favorable critical appraisals, there are explicit and derogatory lines, satirically written, regarding their supposed reputations. This insightful biography places Elizabeth and Anne back in the limelight, and includes transcriptions taken from contemporary works, letters, poems and wills, all adding depth and color to this fascinating subject.

This book describes how and why women were permitted to act on the public stage after 1660 in England.

Featuring a range of large-scale, public and more intimate portraits of actresses, The First Actresses provides a vivid spectacle of femininity, fashion and theatricality from Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons. Ranging from oil paint to porcelain, these portraits illustrate the enduring popularity of portraits of women performers. Crucially the book seeks to reassess the traditional association between actress and'prostitute', and the moral ambiguity of women playing male roles. Portraiture became an important vehicle for the expression of concerns about female sexuality, social status, decorum, gender and celebrity. The authors also chart the commercialisation of the spectacle of the actress, as well as the connections between the eighteenth-century 'star system' and modern celebrity culture. Organised thematically, sections include: 'Painting Acresses' Lives', 'Nell Gwyn and Covent Garden Goddesses', 'Divas, Dancing and the Rage for Music: Painting Women in Musical Performance', 'Beauty, Ageing and the Body Politic of the Eighteenth-Century Actress' and 'Star Systems'. Illustrated with remarkable paintings by major artists of the period, a fascinating and lucid text reveals the many ways in which women performers enabled artistic innovation and creativity, provoked intellectual debate and contributed to the popularity and visibility of the theatre. Accompanies an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, 20 October 2011 - 8 January 2012

This volume of twelve original essays is the first comprehensive study of feminist issues in Restoration drama. The late seventeenth century marks a pivotal era in the history of feminism, when Renaissance assumptions about gender and patriarchy were being directly challenged. For the first time, women appeared onstage as actresses, made their presence felt as spectators and patrons, and wrote a number of the plays produced in theaters. In an unusually direct and probing way, drama of the Restoration period raised radical questions about the place of women in the family and in society, and about the essential nature of men and women. The essays examine feminist issues from a variety of historical and theoretical approaches across a spectrum of plays—comedies, tragedies, tragicomedies, and heroic drama. By addressing the acute questions of gender raised in the drama, Broken Boundaries presents a vivid portrait of the uncertainties and changing perceptions in all areas of intellectual, political, and social life during the last decades of the seventeenth century.

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