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A Stage of Their Own: Feminist Playwrights

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A Stage of Their Own: Feminist Playwrights A STAGE OF THEIR OWN: FEMINIST PLAYWRIGHTS OF THE SUFFRAGE ERA by SHEILA STOWELL The University of Toronto (Drama Centre), 1977 B., The University of British Columbia, 1981 THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Department of English) We accept this thesis as conforming to the required standard THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA October 1989 ©Sheila Stowell, 1989 In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of British Columbia, I agree that the Library shall make it freely available for reference and study. I further agree that permission for extensive copying of this thesis for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this thesis for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. Department of English The University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada Date 10 October 1989 DE-6 (2/88) ii ABSTRACT During the years 1906 to 1914, as a flagging woman's movement was revitalized by the controversial Women's Social and Political Union, women of all classes, talents and occupations were galvanized into action. Among them were a number of playwrights who used the overtly 'public' forum of drama to argue feminist views. It is their work, in its social, political and aesthetic context that forms the subject of my study. I take as my starting point Elizabeth Robins' dramatic 'tract' Votes for Women, produced as part of the Barker-Vedrenne Court season of 1907. Introducing both feminist and specifically suffrage topics to the world of Edwardian society drama, Robins showed her sister playwrights how existing theatrical models might be manipulated to their advantage. Her success helped spawn a series of so-called "suffrage" plays produced under the direct auspices of the Actresses' Franchise League and the Women Writers' Suffrage League. Intended as agitprop drama for the converted,this sub-genre, which is looked at in my second chapter, took advantage of the techniques of contemporary realism, farce, and civic pageantry for immediate and narrowly political goals. In so doing, however, it provided valuable experience for a number of women dramatists who chose as well to write for the larger iii and more broadly based audiences of London's West End. My final chapters focus upon selected works by professional playwrights Cicely Hamilton (Diana of Dobson's 1908), Elizabeth Baker (Chains 1909) and Githa Sowerby (Rutherford and Son 1912). I am particularly concerned with the manner in which each reworked the theatrical conventions of the late Victorians according to avowedly feminist lights. The success of their work as well as the ways in which it may be shown to differ from both the mainstream drama of Pinero and Jones and the progressive "new" theatre of Shaw, Galsworthy and Granville Barker, suggests that in this group of writers the English speaking world enjoyed its first cohesive and substantial women's theatre. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface 1 Chapter I: Elizabeth Robins' Votes for Women 9 Chapter II: Suffrage Drama 60 Chapter III: Cicely Hamilton's Diana of Dobson's ... 114 Chapter IV: Elizabeth Baker's Chains 164 Chapter V: Githa Sowerby's Rutherford and Son 206 Works Cited 248 Appendix 258 V ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the following institutions for their assistance in the completion of this study. For significant financial support, The Society for Theatre Research (U.K.), The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the H.R. Macmillan Foundation (Canada). For extending to me the courtesy of their research facilities, The British Library, The British Newspaper Library (Colindale), The Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection, The Fawcett Library, The Garrick Club and The Theatre Museum (U.K.); The Billy Rose Theatre Collection (New York Public Library at Lincoln Centre) and the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre (University of Texas at Austin) (U.S.A.). For allowing me to reproduce unpublished letters of Bernard Shaw and Harley Granville Barker, The Society of Authors, on behalf of the estates of Bernard Shaw and Harley Granville Barker. I would also like to extend thanks to the following individuals, Air Marshal Sir Leslie Bower R.A.F. (Retd.), executor of the estate of Cicely Hamilton, Mabel Smith, executor of the estate of Elizabeth Robins, David Mayer and Viv Gardner of the University of Manchester, Chris Dymkowski of Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, Errol Durbach and Andrew Parkin of the University of British Columbia, David Lemon and Stephen Matsuba. Particular debts of gratitude are owed to Jon Wisenthal and Joel Kaplan. 1 PREFACE "How do they know what is womanly? It's for women to decide that." So speaks Ernestine Blunt in Elizabeth Robins' Votes for Women, her challenge to men and women heralding a battle that was to be waged over many fronts in the early years of the twentieth century, as feminists of that period struggled for the right to define themselves. During the years 1906 to 1914, as a flagging woman's movement was revitalized by the controversial Women's Social and Political Union, women of all classes, talents and occupations were galvanized into action. Among them were a certain number of playwrights who turned to the overtly 'public' forum of drama (at a time when women were conventionally relegated to what was labelled the 'private' sphere) to argue their feminist views. It is their work that forms the subject of this study. Recognizing that it was a period that witnessed a veritable explosion in the number of women dramatists - Julie Holledge estimates that there were over four hundred writing at the time (3) - my study is selective rather than exhaustive, focussing upon a group of 2 plays that attempted to bring feminist views of women and a feminist vision of drama to the stages of London's more innovative and experimental repertory theatres. With the exception of Githa Sowerby, about whom virtually no documentary evidence exists, the dramatists looked at were all actively involved in the suffrage movement and in addition to their full-length work for the avant-garde commercial theatre, contributed to the overtly propagandist drama of the cause itself. Elizabeth Robins was the first of this group to take her chances as a professional playwright. Her Votes for Women (1907) is a self-consciously politicized "tract" which introduces specifically suffrage as well as more far-ranging feminist issues to the world of society drama popularized in the 1890s by such playwrights as Arthur Wing Pinero and Oscar Wilde. Her full-length experiment in form and content spawned a series of so-called "suffrage plays," a species of agitprop drama composed through the years 1908 to 1914. Recognizing the propaganda possibilities of the theatre, suffrage supporters of the theatrical profession formed in 1908 the Women Writers' Suffrage League (WWSL) and the Actresses' Franchise League (AFL), organizations which successfully enlisted dramatic art in the fight for women's rights. The drama composed and performed by the WWSL and the AFL manipulates existing genres and styles, sometimes into obvious arguments for female enfranchisement but also into 3 more generalized portrayals of women's experience. These include both representations of woman's continuing victimization within the existing social and political system and celebratory renderings of current and potential accomplishments. Among the former are the grimly realistic dramas of Inez Bensusan (The Apple) and Gertrude Vaughan (Woman with a Pack) in which hardship, harassment, and economic betrayal are shown to be woman's common lot, and suffrage comedies such as Cicely Hamilton's How the Vote Was Won which openly ridicule the position of anti-suffragists. Hamilton's Pageant of Great Women is the best known of the celebratory pieces, drawing upon England's rich tradition of street theatre and civic pageantry to argue the ability of women in times past and present. All formed part of the propaganda machine of the cause, being conceived, written, and performed for immediate and specific political ends. At the same time that they were writing propagandist drama intended for performance before suffrage sympathizers and workers, Cicely Hamilton and Elizabeth Baker were also engaged in the composition of commercial drama destined for the repertory seasons that introduced Shaw, Granville Barker, Galsworthy and company to London playgoers. Along with Githa Sowerby they reworked dramatic conventions (those of romantic comedy in Hamilton's case, and of naturalism in that of Baker and Sowerby) from a distinctly female perspective that can be distinguished from such mainstream writers of the late Victorian and Edwardian stage as Pinero . and Henry Arthur Jones as well as from such progressive, 'feminist' dramatists as Shaw, Granville Barker, Galsworthy and Houghton. And although such plays as Diana of Dobson's (1908), Chains (1909) and Rutherford and Son (1912), are quite obviously rooted in the social conditions of their time, they can also be distinguished from Robins' Votes for Women in their movement away from that play's overt politicizing. In fact, Hamilton and Baker's work seems to divide into specifically propagandist plays for the suffrage cause and more complex, far-ranging feminist drama for the professional stage. Which is not of course to deny the political power of commercial theatre - as the critical reaction to Rutherford and Son demonstrates, a play can become most political when least overtly so. For despite the greater or lesser weight placed upon female enfranchisement in these plays (and it is worth reiterating here that a number of the propagandist plays did not confine themselves merely to lobbying for votes for women) they must all be read as women's challenges to dominant dramatic and social conventions, which are themselves so intertwined as to make it difficult to distinguish the two.
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