Breaking the Bounds: British Feminist Dramatists Writing in the Mainstream Since C. 1980 (American University Studies Series Xxvi Theatre Arts)

'performance Theory'--what Is It? -- The 'performativity Of The Dramatic Text' -- The Thesis -- Western Patriarchy And The Feminist Epistemic Transgression -- Patriarchy And The (western) Patriarchal Impulse -- Shifts And Transformations -- Top Girls As A Document Of A Foucauldian Episteme (c. Ninth-century C.e. To 1980) Characterized By The Patriarchal Impulse -- Off The Mainstream Stages: The Formation Of Black Lesbian Subjectivity In 1980s British Dramatic Discourse. Chiaroscuro (1986) -- The Feminist Epistemic Transgression (transformation In Discourse) -- Fragmenting The Western Male-gendered Theatrical Grand Recit: Blue Heart--heart's Desire And Blue Kettle -- Breaking The Bounds Of The British Main/male Stream: Five Contemporary Dramatists And Their Transgressive Re-formations In The Predominantly Male Territory Of British Mainstream Drama -- Effecting A Rupture With Male Dramatic Discourse: Caryl Churchill -- Feminism And 'the System': The Early Reaction--owners -- Domestic Colonialism: Empire, Patriarchy, Family; Race, Gender, Sexuality--cloud Nine -- A Collective Enterprise: Feminism In Theatre As A Consciously Counter-normative Practice--monstrous Regiment And Vinegar Tom -- Vinegar Tom's Women Are The Contemporary Women Of Fen -- Politics And War: Light Shining In Buckinghamshire And Mad Forest -- The Surveillance Machine: Softcops And Icecream -- The Capitalist Machine: Serious Money -- Capitalism And Schizophrenia: The Skriker As Oedipus And Anti-oedipus -- White Women's Mythologies: Pam Gems -- Queen Christina: Identity Politics. Dimple Godiwala. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [211]-218) And Index. "Breaking the Bounds focuses on second-wave feminism as a rupture in an unbroken episteme of Western patriarchy analyzed with regard to British dramatic discourse. The theoretical framework is a genealogy of patriarchy deploying and developing Foucault's ideas on discourse to apply to a deconstruction of Western patriarchy. An analysis of feminist drama texts is used to support the argument that Western patriarchy consists of one unbroken episteme as the patriarchal impulse substrates the epistemological breaks indicated by foucault. The theoretical text speaks of the twentieth-century feminist rupture from patriarchy, analyzing in detail the texts of five mainstream feminist dramatists who have successfully effected an intervention in the British grand recit of undeniably male dramatic discourse."--BOOK JACKET