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2015-06-29 The New Woman and Comedy: Form and Function on the Modern British Stage

Flynn, Rebecca

Flynn, R. (2015). The New Woman and Comedy: Form and Function on the Modern British Stage (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28257 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/2326 master thesis

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The New Woman and Comedy: Form and Function on the Modern British Stage

by

Rebecca Flynn

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN DRAMA

CALGARY, ALBERTA

JUNE, 2015

© Rebecca Flynn 2015

Abstract

This thesis focuses on female comic characters in modern drama as they relate to the emergence of first-wave feminism in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Britain. More specifically, it examines the position of the figure of the new woman within the conventions of traditional comedy. Analyzing specific character traits and elements of dramatic composition that allow this figure to exist within the comic form, I consider how select playwrights deploy comedy in order to shape the reception of the new woman. Using three case studies that include parodies of Henrik Ibsen’s plays, suffrage comedy, and the work of George Bernard Shaw, I explore how comedy was used in different contexts to both empower and diminish the complexity of the new woman. I conclude that the comic new woman was defined by her reassessment and re-inscription on the modern stage as well as the social, political, and cultural change she facilitated.

ii Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor Penny Farfan for all her help and support over the past two years. Without her constant guidance and encouragement, this thesis would not have been possible.

I would also like to thank the University Research Grants Committee for awarding me a

Thesis/Dissertation Grant, funding that allowed me to conduct essential research in London,

England this year. Without the collection of these key archival documents, my thesis would have been incomplete. I would also like to extend my thanks to the Faculty of Graduate Studies, the

Graduate Students’ Association, the Centre for Research in the Fine Arts, and the University of

Calgary’s Drama Division for their consistent funding and support of my research.

Furthermore, I would like to thank my fellow graduate students Jackie Faulkner, Anton

DeGroot, Tim Sutherland, and Fasyali Fadzly for their moral support and friendship.

Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family in Ontario for always supporting me and for incurring many long-distance phone charges.

iii

For my mother and grandmother

iv Table of Contents

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….….…...ii

Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………..……………..…....iii

Dedication……………………………………………………………….…………………...….iv

Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………..v

Introduction…...………………………………………………………………….…..………….1

Chapter One: The Quintessence of Antsey-ism: Ibsen’s New Woman and Parody.………..8

Rosmersholm……………………………………………………………….……………11

Nora; or the Bird Cage…………………………………...……………………………..16

Hedda Gabler.…………………………………………………………………………...20

Pill-Doctor Herdal………………………………………………………………...…….24

Chapter Two: Votes Over Kisses: Suffrage Comedy in Britain………………….…………29

Preferring Votes to Kisses: Pro-Suffrage Comedy…………………………………...…38

“I really do think the Antis are our best friends”: Anti-Suffrage Comedy….….…….…60

Chapter Three: Getting Married: Shaw and Comedy………..…………….……………….75

Candida………………………………………………………………….………………77

Getting Married………………………………………………………………………….81

Misalliance………………………………………………………………….………...... 86

Conclusion…………………………...….…..……….…………….…………………………....94

Bibliography……………………………………………..……………………….….………….97

v

Introduction

This thesis focuses on female comic characters in modern drama as they relate to the emergence of first-wave feminism in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Britain. More specifically, it examines the position of the figure of the new woman within the conventions of traditional comic form, which, as Susan Carlson notes, simultaneously “liberates and limits women” (1). By identifying and analyzing specific character traits and elements of dramatic composition that allow this figure to exist within the constraints of comic form, I consider how select playwrights deployed comedy in order to shape the reception of the new woman and the social and political oppression she strove to overcome. Furthermore, I examine how specific adaptations of conventional comic form, and the female character within it, redefined both the new woman and the genre itself.

Broadly speaking, modern drama sought to challenge pre-existing social norms and theatrical traditions. Modern plays often incorporated conventions of realism, a theatrical movement that attempted to more accurately represent “reality” on stage. Depicting ordinary characters in ordinary settings, realist playwrights began to stage people in their natural environments, focussing primarily on issues of class, morality, gender, and sexuality. Another notable trait associated with the onset of modern drama was a concentration on character psychologies. In his preface to Miss Julie, August Strindberg described the modern character, and his or her psyche, as “torn and divided,” a mixture of the “old and the new” (2). Moreover, while modern playwrights like Henrik Ibsen predated Sigmund Freud, Ibsen’s texts anticipated the psychoanalyst’s idea that humans are implanted with repressed desires that drive them subconsciously (Finney, Women in Modern Drama 39). The idea of internalized oppression, both

1 created and fostered by the modern character’s environment, is best synthesized by Raymond

Williams who stated: “Ibsen had to make rooms on the stage in order to show [characters] trapped in them” (1172). Finally, and most relevantly, modern plays often focused on the physical and mental entrapment of female characters by oppressive social conventions. Tackling issues such as political inequality and sexual double standards, modern playwrights attempted to understand and challenge women’s social and psychological positions.

One particular subset of women in modern drama is the “new woman,” a striking character who rejected conventional womanhood and embodied the growing need for social reform. The new woman emerged in tragedies and dramas of the late nineteenth century, representing a shift where female characters “changed from being primarily an element in the plot, to being primarily an element in the thought of the play” (Watson 3). Tracing the origin of this modern female character, Max Beerbohm remarked that the new woman sprang “full-armed from the brain of Ibsen” (qtd. in Ardis 30). In his essay the “The Womanly Woman,” from The

Quintessence of Ibsenism, George Bernard Shaw describes this new woman as an empowered and disillusioned female character who rejects “womanliness, her [duties] to her husband, children, society, the law, and to everyone but herself" (43). Addressing social issues that frequently oppressed women, Ibsen’s heroines challenged expectation through their tireless pursuit of equality on the stage. Although he repeatedly refused the title of “feminist,” Ibsen’s new women characters are undoubtedly one of his greatest contributions to modern drama.

Among Ibsen’s most notable new woman characters is Nora Helmer, the protagonist of A

Doll’s House. Disillusioned, Nora rejects her role as the “ideal” wife and mother, abandoning her family by play’s end. In Women, the Family, and Freedom: The Debate in Documents, 1880–

1950, Susan G. Bell and Karen M. Offen state that “when Ibsen’s Nora first slammed the door on

2 domesticity in 1880, the specter of women’s individualism as the arch-enemy of marriage and of the patriarchal concept of womanhood announced itself as a major theme in the debate on women” (17). Nora’s seemingly abrupt departure generated mixed reactions from early audiences and critics alike. Ibsen’s bold and unprecedented representation of the new woman— and the key issues she represented—carried over into feminist politics of the period, prompting many women to reconsider the social conventions that dictated their lives.

My thesis on the new woman and comedy builds on and contributes to key research in the field of feminist-modernist theatre studies. Gail Finney’s book Women in Modern Drama:

Freud, Feminism, and European Theater at the Turn of the Century (1991) examines the representation of female characters within modern drama with a focus on male playwrights. Julie

Holledge’s Innocent Flowers: Women in the Edwardian Theater (1981) and Sheila Stowell’s A

Stage of their Own: Feminist Playwrights of the Suffrage Era (1992) examine the new woman figure in social dramas arising from the suffrage movement in Britain. Susan Carlson’s Women and Comedy: Rewriting the British Theatrical Tradition (1991) analyzes female characters in comic drama ranging from Shakespeare to contemporary women playwrights. Her focus on the modern period is limited to Shaw and his “desire to transform women both in comedy and society” (93). Barbara Bellow Watson’s essay “The New Woman and the New Comedy” also focusses exclusively on Shaw, arguing that his comedy has a “revolutionary and feminist structure” (5). While these important foundational texts address different aspects of women and their relationship to modern drama, they do not focus specifically on the comic new woman and her representation by a range of modern playwrights.

My thesis adds to this existing research using a broad cross-section of comic texts that centre on the new woman character. By consulting multiple playwrights that focus on different

3 types of comic modern drama, I examine several different takes on the new woman, acknowledging her complexity and versatility within the period and within the genre.

Furthermore, this research focuses on the representation the new woman from both feminist and anti-feminist perspectives. The texts chosen represent different views on this female character including parodies that satirize Ibsen, politically progressive feminist comedies, comedies that propagate anti-feminist values, and comedies that redefine the woman’s role within marriage— both as an institution and as an element in conventional comic structure. The focus on various playwrights from different social and political backgrounds facilitates a larger debate regarding the new woman and comedy. While not exhaustive, this range of texts illuminates the scope of this character’s influence in Britain and the dramatic works she inspired.

Methodologically, my thesis combines contextual research on first-wave feminism, close readings of key comic plays, archival research on the original production and reception of these plays, and an analysis of traditional comic form, detailing how modern comedy could promote both feminist and anti-feminist messages on the British stage. Using three case studies including chapters on parodies of Ibsen, pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage comedy, and George Bernard

Shaw’s comic representation of marriage and courtship, I analyze the complex and shifting relationship between the new woman and comic theatre. Furthermore, I explore the ways in which a diverse group of playwrights altered and manipulated comic form—based on context and function—within the fight both for and against the first-wave feminist movement. Analyzing the ways in which modern playwrights used comedy as social and political tactic, I examine how these plays both engaged with and responded to the movement toward large-scale gender reform.

The first chapter, “The Quintessence of Antsey-ism: Ibsen’s New Woman and Parody,” explores four comic parodies by Thomas Antsey Guthrie. The plays examined include parodies

4 of Rosmersholm, A Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, and The Master Builder. Using Ibsen’s original texts to ground the analysis, I ask what happens to the new woman character when she is subjected to comic parodic treatment. Although the parodies do not directly focus on the alteration of these key female characters, Antsey’s parodic critique of Ibsenian dramaturgical mechanics, conventions, and tropes indirectly impacted their representation, transforming them from tragic heroines to comic figures and raising further questions about the relationship between gender and comedy. In each parody, the psychological complexity of the new woman character is compromised through Antsey’s alteration of one or more of her key purposes within

Ibsen’s text. The reassessment and reinterpretation of these key Norwegian texts can be viewed as a mode of transition between Ibsen and those impacted by him, providing a cultural medium between the notably serious Scandinavian playwright and British audiences.

The second chapter, “Votes over Kisses: Suffrage Comedy in Britain,” explores the relationship between comedy and politically motivated theatre. Focussing on comedies written both for and against the suffrage movement, it examines how comic form was specifically altered for different propagandist purposes. Centering first on the pro-suffrage comedies How the

Vote Was Won (1909) by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John, Lady Geraldine’s Speech

(1909) by Beatrice Harraden, and A Chat with Mrs. Chicky (1913) by Evelyn Glover, I examine how women playwrights of the suffrage era adapted traditional comic form through the insertion of a clear feminist message aimed at obtaining voting rights for women in Britain. Each play centres on a female pro-suffrage character, includes the conversion of at least one anti-suffrage character, and ends with a comic resolution that demonstrates the promise of political change.

Female suffrage playwrights altered Northrop Frye’s claim that “the comic dramatist as a rule writes for the younger men in his audience” by adapting conventional comic plots driven by the

5 marriage of young lovers (142). Suffrage comedy provided theatre that was both about women and for women, allowing these plays to serve as effective political tools and pieces of highly entertaining feminist theatre. This chapter also considers three striking examples of anti-suffrage comedy—anti-feminist, male-authored pieces that countered the politically progressive arguments brought forth by pro-suffrage playwrights. These anti-suffrage plays, The

Suffragette’s Redemption by Inglis Allen, Her Vote by H. V. Esmond, and Votes for Children by

Ernest Hutchinson, allow further assessment of the complex relationship between the new woman and the comic genre. Comparing these anti-suffrage texts to pro-suffrage comedies of the period, this chapter examines how comedy is used to either celebrate or dismiss this topical heroine, and the effect each dramaturgical strategy had on both the impact of her character, and the theatrical and historical moment she had come to define. All six plays illuminate issues of gender inequality and set the stage—literally and symbolically—for the eventual victory of the women’s suffrage campaign in England.

My final chapter, “Getting Married: Shaw and Comedy,” examines how George Bernard

Shaw’s unique brand of comedy both celebrated and redefined the new woman’s role as a wife.

Using three of Shaw’s comedies, I analyze how the playwright works within a Fabian model to transform the institution of marriage from within. As he resituates the role of women within his play structure, Shaw simultaneously reformats the role of marriages and wedding ceremonies within each play. In Shaw’s reinterpretation of traditional comic form, marriage—or the promise of marriage—is removed from its position as a celebratory conclusion, and is resituated as the main focus of each play. Reformatting traditional comic form in a way that moves marriage out of its conventional position as a celebratory ending, and positioning it as each play’s main subject, Shaw’s plays Candida, Getting Married, and Misalliance provided audiences with

6 strong, autonomous female characters that challenged the demands placed on the modern wife.

Overall, this analysis brings forth the idea that Shaw’s unique reevaluation of marriage was aimed at achieving equality between the genders.

The new woman’s impact and legacy as a key figure of the time period is indicative not only of theatrical evolution, but of social and political evolution. Susan Carlson notes that “in changing the treatment of women, placing [them] at the centre of his dramatic structure, Shaw dramatically changed the structure of comedy itself” (2). My thesis both endorses and expands upon this claim, analyzing the complex and diverse relationship that exists between gender and genre. By including works by both male and female playwrights, as well as works by pro- feminist and anti-feminist advocates, this research attempts to better understand how comedy and the new woman came to both complement and depend on one another. Examining the new woman through her relationship to the comic genre is crucial to understanding her character because both variables have histories that are strongly rooted in convention. Both conventional womanhood and conventional comic form have a tendency to rely heavily on male dominance, female subservience, and the celebration of marriage as a victory. Exploring the ways in which modern playwrights altered theatrical convention results in a better understanding of how women began to depart from tradition theatrically, socially, and politically. By selecting modern playwrights who adapted conventional comic form and focussed on this new woman character, my thesis revisits and reassesses an important figure in theatre history that is often viewed through the lens of serious drama. This research offers new perspectives on the new woman, tracking her impact within modern drama and, more importantly, within society.

7 Chapter One

The Quintessence of Antsey-ism: Ibsen Parody in Britain

The new woman emerged in tragedies and dramas of the late nineteenth century and soon gained momentum as a prominent and highly contested figure on the modern British stage. It would be impossible to gauge the scope and impact of this female character’s evolution without acknowledging the work of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, who is credited by Gail Finney as having virtually invented the emancipated woman in the last act of A Doll’s House when Nora

Helmer chooses to abandon her husband and children in pursuit of her own self-education

(“Ibsen and Feminism” 93). In 1891, George Bernard Shaw, who championed Ibsen, wrote a landmark essay titled The Quintessence of Ibsenism. In this extended analysis of Ibsen’s work and its reception in Britain, Shaw credited the playwright with single-handedly defining the new woman, describing her as “an empowered and disillusioned female” who, as noted earlier, rejected “womanliness, her [duties] to her husband, children, society, the law, and to everyone but herself" (43).

This chapter focuses on the relationship between Ibsen’s new woman and parody, and— more specifically—what happens to this female character when she is removed from the confines of Ibsen’s social problem plays and modern tragedies, and subjected to comic parodic treatment.

Ibsen’s representation of the new woman as an inherently serious, dramatic character at the centre of his realist social problem plays drew parodists and satirists to his controversial work. In

Britain, the most clever and popular of these parodies were those of British journalist and novelist Thomas Antsey Guthrie. His comic renditions of some of Ibsen’s best-known plays were initially published under the pseudonym F. Antsey as a series in Punch—a British weekly

8 magazine of humour and satire. The plays parodied within the series included Rosmersholm, A

Doll’s House, Hedda Gabler, and The Wild Duck, appearing over a span of ten weeks in 1891

(Gailani 1).

Born in London in 1856, Guthrie had initially planned on becoming a lawyer. Instead, he pursued a career as a journalist and novelist and began to publish stories in the late 1870s.

Although he would never go on to practice law, his former career path offers insight into the satirist’s tendency to identify weakness or folly in the arguments of his subjects. While Guthrie alternated between both serious and comic writings, he experienced the majority of his literary success as a humorist. His early “hit” was a comic novel titled Vice Versa (1882), a work that earned him an invitation to become a regular contributor to Punch magazine. Punch would become the central medium for Guthrie’s work, publishing all of his writings—including his parodies of Ibsen—under the pseudonym F. Antsey. Punch was founded by Henry Mayhew and

Ebenezer Landells in 1841. Landells insisted that Punch be less bitter than other British humour magazines and of a higher literary standard. With this in mind, the publication provided “witty social commentary and lovingly crafted illustrations with a particularly English type of humour”

(“‘A Loud, Mocking Clamour’” 1). During the early years of Punch, the magazine defined itself as “radical,” reflecting the general feelings of unrest that swept throughout Europe. However, as the century progressed, the publication became milder and less inclined to “attack the

Establishment or support the underdog,” sentiments which paralleled and complemented the rising of the English middle-class (Spielmann 2). After suffering a brief period of financial struggle and a general lack of commercial success in the 1860s, Punch eventually became a

British staple. Profiting greatly from the Industrial Revolution’s consumer boom in print culture,

9 the magazine became one of the “most enjoyed” and “most talked about” in the nation, solidifying itself as a British institution (2).

Featured serially in the pages of Punch, it is likely that Antsey’s parodies of some of

Ibsen’s most controversial and topical female characters had a wide and diverse reach. These parodies were later published as a separate collection in 1893 under the title Mr. Punch’s Pocket

Ibsen: A Collection of Some of the Master’s Best Known Dramas. In this revised version, Antsey added a fifth piece that did not originally appear in Punch, a parody of Ibsen’s The Master

Builder called Pill-Doctor Herdal. The introduction to the independent collection describes the parodies as “condensed, revised and slightly rearranged” pieces “for the benefit of the earnest student” (2). Antsey’s take on Ibsen’s realist dramaturgical conventions ultimately impacted the representation of Ibsen’s women characters, transforming his female protagonists into comic heroines. By altering the structure of each play, Antsey, albeit indirectly, diminished the psychological complexity of each new woman character, eliminating her key role within Ibsen’s text.

In order to properly assess what happens to Ibsen’s new woman characters when they are subjected to Antsey’s parodic treatment, it is imperative to supplement a comparative reading of both authors’ works with a clear definition of parody itself. Regarding the basic function of the form, M. H. Abrams states that parody “imitates the serious materials and manner of a particular literary work, or the characteristic style of a particular author, or the stylistic and other features of a serious literary form, and applies them to a lowly or comically inappropriate subject” (18).

While definitions like Abrams’ help to identify parody as a literary form, they often tend to diminish the complexity of parody’s form and function. In an attempt to remedy this misrepresentation, Linda Hutcheon offers a revised definition of the form that supports an

10 informed understanding of the individual plays in Mr. Punch’s Pocket Ibsen. Hutcheon broadly defines all parody as “repetition with critical difference” (A Theory of Parody 20). Moreover, she states that “parody is doubly coded in political terms: it both legitimizes and subverts that which it parodies” (The Politics of Postmodernism 106). Clarifying and reaffirming the association of parody with socio-political impact, she adds that the form “inscribes as well as subverts” (106).

Therefore, it is necessary to view Antsey’s work as a re-presentation of Ibsen’s original work with notable elements of critical difference. Furthermore, by employing parody, Antsey subverts or challenges Ibsen’s ideas and conventions while simultaneously re-inscribing them for British audiences. Although Hutcheon’s definition of parody does not require all parodic mediums to partake in the comic, Antsey’s short plays are undoubtedly humourous. Evaluating how Ibsen’s revolutionary female characters were specifically affected by their re-situation within comedy, this chapter analyzes four1 of Antsey’s parodies that take a new woman figure as their central focus: Rosmersholm, Nora; or the Bird Cage, Hedda Gabler, and Pill-Doctor Herdal.

Rosmersholm

The first parody to appear in Antsey’s series is, like the original, titled Rosmersholm.

Ibsen’s version premiered in Britain in February of 1891, only a month before Antsey’s parody was published in Punch. The proximity between the theatrical production and the appearance of the parody in print offers insight into Ibsen’s impact on the British stage and the amount of critical attention his plays warranted. Like most of Ibsen’s work, the production generated mixed

1 While The Wild Duck parody offers a comic critique of Ibsen’s conventions, both the original text and the parody lack a strong new woman character. As the new woman and her relationship to comedy is the central focus of this thesis, the parody will be intentionally excluded. 11 reviews. Much of the criticism surrounding the British premiere concerned itself with “the nastiness of Rebecca’s love for Rosmer” and “the absurdity of the double suicide” (Franc 36).

Set at the estate of Rosmersholm, Ibsen’s original play opens a year after the suicide of

Rosmer’s wife Beata. The play focuses on the relationship between Rosmer and Rebecca West, a friend of the couple and a resident at Rosmersholm. Though it becomes clear that Rebecca and

Rosmer are in love, Rosmer spends the majority of the play insisting that their relationship is merely platonic. Rebecca admits to having contributed significantly to his wife’s death by driving her into a deep despair and even encouraging her to commit suicide. She confesses that, at first, her goal was to gain power over Rosmer, but that eventually she fell in love with him.

Unable to escape their guilt—and now incapable of trusting one another—Rebecca and Rosmer end the play tragically. Rosmer asks Rebecca to prove her devotion to him by committing suicide the same way his wife did. Ibsen’s play concludes with Rebecca and Rosmer’s decision to die together, both jumping into the mill-race where Beata died.

Antsey’s parody significantly condenses Ibsen’s plot, removing a great deal of the nuance and subtext that distinguishes the original. Maintaining but abbreviating Ibsen’s structure,

Antsey provides four short acts that comically undermine Ibsen’s controversial content and, as a result, the seriousness and complexity of his new woman figure, Rebecca. The Rosmersholm parody imitates the plot of the original work until the play’s conclusion, at which point Rosmer and Rebecca’s joint suicide is comically delayed by the appearance of a white horse. A recurring image in Ibsen’s version, the symbolic white horse of Rosmersholm is frequently “seen” by the characters after Beata’s suicide. The animal represents the unresolved past and the haunting of the characters by traditional ideologies about sex, gender, and morality. In Ibsen’s original conclusion, the horse “appears” before the pair’s death, symbolizing the couple’s inability to

12 overcome past indiscretions. Here, Antsey substitutes the subtle poetry of Ibsen’s white horse with the irony of physical comedy, transforming it from a metaphor into a physical barrier. In

Antsey’s most notable moment of critical difference, the horse becomes an actual obstruction and the couple resolves to resume their suicide attempt at a later time.

The parodist ridicules Ibsen’s version of Rosmersholm, and subsequently his new woman character, through the condensing of plot, the elimination of subtext, and the abandonment of the tragic ending. By abridging the plot and exposition, he mocks Ibsen’s tendency to write lengthy, realistic scripts. An unsigned notice in the Evening News and Post reviewing the original production of Rosmersholm in Britain stated:

If there is one thing in the world that Rosmersholm is not, it is a drama in four acts […]

There are not four acts, as we understand ‘acts’ in our Philistine British way, and there is

no drama at all to speak of, except for a couple of brief scenes near the finish of the

performance. We can see that Mr. Ibsen had a story to tell, which was not wanting in

dramatic interest, but that he did not choose to make a drama of it, preferring to place it

before the public in the form of ‘Personal Reminisces of Miss Rebecca West.’ (Egan 159)

Perhaps this type of criticism, arguing that the prolonged dialogue and slow pace of the piece came at the expense of the play’s dramatic quality, influenced Antsey’s specific alteration of

Ibsen’s work. This specific critic mocks Rebecca’s extensive exposition within the play, a common Ibsen technique that allowed audiences to understand a character’s past and interpret their present actions. Gay Gibson Cima affirms the playwright’s frequent use of this convention, stating that: “By opening his plays at the end rather than the beginning of a long, secret-ridden story-line, Ibsen require[d] actors to reveal facts about the past in the present” (21).

13 In her confession scene in Antsey’s Rosmersholm, Rebecca begins: “Rosmer, I want to tell you and Rector Kroll a little story. Let us sit down, dear, all three of us […] A long time ago, before the play began…” (9). Before she is able to expand, Rosmer and Kroll—in reference to both the original work and the critical backlash Ibsen’s long expository scenes often suffered— express their concern that her story will be a lengthy one. However, Rebecca comically answers:

“No—I will be short,” a declaration that is followed by a condensed retelling of her past indiscretions (Antsey 9). Rebecca’s abridged confession, full of comic self-awareness, serves two functions. Firstly, in order to facilitate the abbreviated storyline and trivialize the heavy content of Rebecca’s backstory, Antsey endows her story, as well as the entire comedy, with a great deal of self-referentiality, defined by Hutcheon as when an art form “reveals its awareness of the context-dependent nature of meaning” (A Theory of Parody 85). For example, the parody is full of pointed references to the “Ibsen-ness” or “Norwegian-ness” of the play and the characters within it. In one instance, Rebecca directly references Ibsen’s tendency to open his plays at “the end” instead of the beginning, saying: “In Ibsenite dramas, all the interesting things somehow do happen before the play begins” (Cima 21; Antsey 9). While the irony of Rebecca’s condensed exposition provides comic effect, her seemingly flippant approach to the play’s serious subject matter also reinforced early reviews of Ibsen’s original, which focussed on the nastiness and heartlessness of her character. By eliminating crucial exposition, Antsey removes insight into Rebecca’s psychology. As a result, his female protagonist loses the complex, “torn and divided” (Strindberg 2) reading she warrants in Ibsen’s original.

In the parody’s final moment of critical difference, Rebecca and Rosmer abort their suicide plans, eliminating the tragic poetic ending that signifies the pair’s eternal union in Ibsen’s version. In a way, the altered ending offers a sort of perverse resolution where the significance of

14 Beata’s death—and the couple’s guilt surrounding it—is completely undermined. Although

Rebecca announces that the couple will revisit their suicide plan at a later time, the play closes without any guarantee that they will follow through. The abrupt and ridiculous ending—thwarted by the sudden materialization of one of Ibsen’s most poetic symbols—is anti-climactic and lacks the catharsis that accompanies the duo's death in the original work. The revised ending removes

Rebecca’s internal struggle, and instead further enhances the “nastiness” of her love for Rosmer.

By removing her tragic dilemma, where Rebecca is torn between rebellion and convention, and by eliminating Ibsen’s crucial exposition, which helps one understand her character’s past and present, Antsey’s comedy paints Rebecca as the kind of two-dimensional monster that early

Ibsen critics misread her as.

While the parody does not intentionally set out to rewrite Ibsen’s new woman character—but is instead focussed on mocking Ibsen’s conventions—what is of interest in

Antsey’s Rosmersholm is the fact that the female protagonist remains physically present by the play’s conclusion. While Antsey intended to undermine the seriousness of Ibsen’s content, his altered comic ending indirectly allows the new woman character—and the greater social issues she represents—to “live on” both on and offstage. Since Rebecca survives Ibsen’s original attempt to discard her, the reader is unable to dismiss her as a victim of tragedy or a fallen woman,2 and is instead confronted with the new woman’s presence both within the play and within British society.

2 Nina Auerbach describes the Victorian myth of the fallen woman as follows: “A creature whose nature it is to fall […] and whose identity defines itself only in that fall,” adding that “Victorian conventions ordain that a woman's fall ends in death” (30). 15 Nora; or, the Bird Cage

The second parody in the series is Nora; or, the Bird Cage, Antsey’s parodic take on

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. The original play was written in 1879 and premiered in Denmark later that year. The first notable British production of the play, in its regular form, premiered in 1889 at the Novelty Theatre where Nora, played by Janet Achurch, made theatrical and social history.3

In her book Ibsen’s Women, Joan Templeton writes that as a result of the play, “Ibsen was accused not merely of advocating the destruction of the family, and with it, morality itself, but of godless androgyny” whereby “women, in refusing to be compliant, were refusing to be women”

(114). As the perceived “absurdity” of Nora’s transition from obedient housewife to emancipated woman was arguably the main source of contention within the play’s early reviews, it is unsurprising that Antsey’s parody functions as a critical response to this opinion.4 In particular, the play’s ending astounded British viewers, splitting audiences and critics alike. In reference to

Ibsen’s conclusion, writer and critic James Huneker noted: “That slammed door reverberated across the roof of the world,” referring to how vastly Nora impacted the discussion of women and social responsibility in Britain and the rest of the world (Huneker, qtd. in Cunningham and

3 The first British production of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House was a “very loose adaptation” called Breaking A Butterfly (1884). Translated by Henry Arthur Jones and Henry Herman, the piece significantly altered Ibsen’s original plot, including the conclusion, changes that resulted in a failed production. It was not until 1889 that “Janet Achurch’s and Charles Charrington’s production of A Doll’s House combined comparative commercial success with artistic integrity of translation and production” (Newey 38). 4 In a review of the 1889 production from The Daily Telegraph, Clement Scott famously wrote: “The baby wife, who has suddenly and miraculously developed into a thinking woman, leaves her home, breaks her marriage oath, refuses to forgive her husband, abandons her innocent children, and becomes absolutely inhuman, simply because she discovers her husband is an egotist and that she has been a petted little fool. […] How it could ever be possible for any woman with the maternal instinct fully developed to desert her children because her pride was wounded, are points that may be very clear to the Ibsenites, but they require a considerable amount of argument in order to convince the common-sense playgoer” (qtd. in Egan 102). 16 Reich 492). Although Ibsen explained in a carefully crafted speech5 that he never “consciously worked for the women’s rights movement,” stating that “it is desirable to solve the woman problem, along with all the others; but that has not been the whole purpose” (Ibsen, qtd. in

Templeton 110), his intentions do not necessarily correlate with the social and critical impact of his plays. Many early feminists were drawn to the canon of Ibsen and female characters like

Nora Helmer because they rejected prevailing social expectations of the time period.

Ibsen’s A Doll’s House follows Nora Helmer, a new woman character who experiences a major personal transformation over the course of the three-act play. Opening around Christmas time, Ibsen depicts Nora as the “ideal” wife of Torvald Helmer. During a private discussion with her friend, Kristine, Nora reveals that she illegally borrowed money so that she and Torvald could travel to Italy to improve her husband’s health. Nora adds that she lied to her husband about this state of affairs and has been attempting to pay off the debt for years. Krogstad, a lower-level employee at Torvald’s bank, soon arrives, complicating matters. Krogstad informs

Nora that Torvald intends to fire him. Using his knowledge of Nora’s illegal loan as leverage, he blackmails her into changing her husband’s mind. She agrees to try, but to no avail. After being fired, Krogstad tells Nora that he has written a letter detailing her crime and has left it in her husband’s mailbox. In the final moments of the play, Nora and Torvald return home from a costume party and Torvald discovers the letter. He tells Nora that she is an immoral individual and an unfit mother and declares that their marriage will be, from that point on, merely for appearances. However, after discovering that the incriminating bond has been returned, Torvald realizes that he is no longer in Krogstad’s power and decides to forgive his wife. To Torvald’s

5 Ibsen gave this speech in 1898 at his seventieth birthday banquet, held by the Norwegian Women’s Rights League (Templeton 110). 17 disbelief, Nora explains to her husband that she is leaving him so that she can find out who she is and what she wants to do with her life. The play ends with Nora’s departure where she slams the door behind her, leaving the audience to wonder whether she will ever return.

Nora; or the Bird-Cage is an abridged version of Ibsen’s play with a critically different conclusion. As in his parody of Rosmersholm, Antsey offers an escape from realism with a condensed plot and self-referential dialogue. What is unique about this particular parody is that these terms of self-reference acknowledge both Ibsen’s and Antsey’s conventions. In addition to several instances where Nora refers to herself as an “Ibsen character,” the character of Krogstad is said to be a writer for a Scandinavian chapter of Antsey’s own publication: “But [Krogstad] writes in scurrilous papers—he is on the staff of the Norwegian Punch. If you dismiss him, he may write nasty things about you” (17). While referencing the plot of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, or what Hutcheon calls the “backgrounded text,” Antsey also references his own “foregrounded text” (A Theory of Parody 51), satirizing both styles and mediums.

As in his Rosmersholm parody, Antsey’s altered conclusion is of particular interest in

Nora; or, The Bird Cage. Immediately after Nora announces her departure, both literally and figuratively slamming the door on her former life, she returns. But before she leaves, the following dialogue takes place:

NORA: My eyes are opened, and I see my position with the eyes of Ibsen. I must go away

at once, and begin to educate myself.

HELMER: May I ask how you are going to set about it?

NORA: Certainly. I shall begin—yes, I shall begin with a course of the Norwegian

theatres. If that doesn't take the frivolity out of me, I don't really know what will! (Antsey

23)

18 After lamenting for a moment, Torvald notices that his wife has returned:

HELMER: What? Back already! Then you are educated?

NORA: No, Torvald, not yet. Only, you see, I found I had only threepence-halfpenny in

my purse, and the Norwegian theatres are all closed at this hour—and so I thought I

wouldn't leave the cage till to-morrow—after breakfast. (24)

Like Antsey’s Rosmersholm, the parody concludes with the female protagonist’s resolve to revisit her plans at a later time.

Nora’s abrupt and comic un-emancipation—prompted by her inability to attend an Ibsen play that would have educated her about new womanhood—wholly undermines the seriousness of her departure. With the aborted ending, Antsey mocks her seemingly drastic character shift, robbing her of the bold feminist significance she carries in Ibsen’s version. As a result, the humourist transforms the text from a serious social drama into a sort of makeshift romantic comedy. Her hasty return trivializes her determination to break away from the social conventions that once held her hostage. Within a matter of seconds she reverts back to the position she was in at the beginning of the play—eating macaroons with her condescending husband. Departing from the stark realism of Ibsen’s conclusion, Antsey’s revised ending more accurately reflects traditional comedy’s tendency to provide the romantic union (or in this case, reunion) of a man and a woman (Frye 141). The “re-marriage” of Nora and Torvald provides a major shift in theatrical genre, one that substitutes a comic resolution in place of Nora’s transformation and emancipation.

As in his Rosmersholm parody, Antsey ignores Ibsen’s tendency to focus on subtext and character psychology and instead inserts a logistical barrier between Nora and her impending freedom. Suggesting that the only way Nora can achieve a proper self-education is through a

19 theatre-going experience with a new woman character like Ibsen’s original Nora, Antsey simultaneously mocks Ibsenites while acknowledging the Norwegian’s widespread influence on the British stage and in British society. However, what is of greater significance in Antsey’s parody is how easily a seemingly minor roadblock dismantles Nora’s quest for personal liberation. The parodist provides audiences with a sardonic answer to the lingering question at the end of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House—whether Nora will ever return. In Nora; or the Bird Cage, the female protagonist’s “serious” decision to abandon her former life is transformed into a joke, emphasizing Nora’s lack of integrity in decision-making. Here, Antsey also seems to be playing with a sort of circular logic, suggesting that in order for his Nora to become a new woman character, she must first see Ibsen’s A Doll’s House to learn how. Antsey’s pointed reference to the Norwegian theatres is another way that the humourist undermines Ibsen’s original while also asserting its impact. The ease with which Nora abandons her own values suggests an anti- feminist reading of the parody, echoing early dramatic criticism that declared Nora’s transition from passive housewife to new woman was wholly unrealistic. Antsey suggests that when faced with any minor form of adversity, Nora, the supposed “new woman” character, would quickly return to her former life.

Hedda Gabler

The third parody in Antsey’s series is Hedda Gabler. The Ibsen original, translated by

Edmund Gosse, was published in 1890 and performed in Britain in 1891 with Elizabeth Robins in the leading role. Robins’ production was both controversial and highly successful—the longest run to that date of any Ibsen play in London (Gates 611). Joanne Gates emphasizes its social and cultural impact, stating that because the “production converted new and important

20 enthusiasts to the Ibsen movement, the Robins Hedda Gabler may be credited with changing the course of English drama” (612). While the production was responsible for recruiting of many new Ibsenites, it also outraged several critics. Many of these critics attacked Ibsen’s “unrealistic” portrayal of Hedda, accusing the Norwegian playwright of “willful obscurity on the grounds that a Hedda Gabler could not exist” and had “no counterpart in the real world” (Templeton 204).

The play’s early commentators “refused Hedda the status of woman because they found her unwomanly,” referring to her as an “inhuman woman—a savage,” calling her “atrocious and intolerable” (205).

Ibsen’s original opens with the return of Hedda and her husband, aspiring academic

George Tesman, from their honeymoon. Hedda is not in love with George, but married him because she believes that her youth is over. The appearance of Tesman’s academic rival, Eilert

Lövborg, a recovering alcoholic who has just published a best-selling book, throws the couple’s lives into disarray. It becomes clear in Hedda’s private conversations with Lövborg that the two had a past relationship. Increasingly envious of the influence that Thea Elvsted, his lover, has over Lövborg, Hedda tries to come between the couple. Hedda convinces Eilert to accompany

Tesman and his associate Judge Brack to a party. In his next encounter with Hedda, Lövborg confesses that he has drunkenly misplaced his manuscript. Instead of informing him that her husband discovered it, Hedda encourages Lövborg to commit suicide, handing him a pistol. She then burns the manuscript and tells Tesman that she has destroyed the document in an attempt to secure their future. Hedda is shocked to learn from Judge Brack that Lövborg’s death, in a brothel, was ridiculous and vile instead of beautiful and free like she had imagined. Further problematizing Hedda’s situation, Judge Brack admits that he knows the origins of the pistol. He tells Hedda that if he reveals this information, a scandal will likely arise around her. Realizing

21 that this information places Brack in a position of power over her, Hedda goes into another room and commits suicide by shooting herself in the head. The play ends with Tesman, Brack, and

Mrs. Elvsted discovering her dead body.

Like the preceding parodies, Antsey’s Hedda Gabler repeats and comically condenses

Ibsen’s plot until the play’s conclusion where the General’s pistol goes “wild," accidentally killing George, Thea, and Judge Brack. The accidental massacre renders Hedda’s own death unnecessary, prompting her to abandon her suicide plans (36). In her final line, Hedda says: “I've been trying in there to shoot myself beautifully—but with General Gabler's pistol—[She lifts the table-cloth, then looks behind the stove and under the sofa.] What! The accounts of all those everlasting bores settled? Then my suicide becomes unnecessary. Yes, I feel the courage of life once more!” (36). Through the use of a comic gag whereby the General’s pistol unintentionally kills off all of Hedda’s “problems,” the female protagonist is indirectly transformed from a trapped woman into an emancipated woman.

More important than the parody’s shift in genre is its shift in theatrical style. While the comic conclusion subverts the original, the ridiculousness of the entire parody allows Hedda to appear as an empowered female character. Providing insight into Antsey’s dramaturgical choices, Carlson states that “when women gain power in comedy, the world is somehow extraordinary” (18). Existing outside of Ibsen’s realistic world, Hedda suddenly regains power over her situation, taking agency as an emancipated woman. This parody is different from the preceding two because Hedda’s abandonment of Ibsen’s conclusion actually liberates her. Unlike his approach to Rebecca and Nora, Antsey trivializes the seriousness of Hedda’s problems rather than her ability to achieve personal autonomy. While still thwarting an Ibsen conclusion, he

22 affords Hedda an entirely new situation and, unlike the aforementioned characters, freedom from the individuals and situations that bind her.

By eliminating crucial elements of subtext, which in Ibsen’s original imply that Hedda’s demons are internal ones, Antsey removes the inner conflict—between conservative and rebellious mind frames—that helped audiences understand her character. As a result, the parody reduces the scope of her problems to the presence of other individuals. Her representation within

Antsey’s work is complex and in some ways contradictory. In Ibsen’s version, Hedda’s greatest personal desire is for freedom, a desire that is only truly attained in her suicide at the play’s end.

Antsey’s text still “frees” her character, but in a different way. Antsey’s version completely ignores the mental entrapment she feels and instead surmises that her struggle can be resolved through the elimination of other characters. Furthermore, Hedda’s seemingly cold response to the sudden death of her peers paints her as a sort of “femme fatale” character,6 echoing early criticism that deemed her a heartless and unrealistic monster. By eliminating her husband, the blackmailing Judge, and Lövborg’s widowed lover, she escapes a life controlled by others and becomes emancipated. Although it requires the marginalization and trivialization of her inner struggle, Hedda’s life is spared in Antsey’s parody, suggesting that she is free to live by her own terms.

Ironically, Antsey’s ridicule of Ibsen’s commitment to psychological realism in Hedda

Gabler is exactly what saves this female character from her tragic fate. The question of whether the parody warrants a feminist or anti-feminist reading is complicated and for the most part

6 Elsie Adams describes the female temptress character in Western tradition as “the femme fatale” or “the castrating bitch”. She states that this figure is a “dangerous but attractive type,” who is often “manipulative, destructive, [and] sometimes deadly,” adding that the femme fatale is often “the cause of man’s fall from grace” (18). 23 inconclusive. The reduction of Hedda’s poetic and climactic suicide to a mere “gun gag” eliminates a great deal of the complexity and sophistication that makes the character such a fascinating case-study in Ibsen’s original. However, the idea that this female character does not have to die for her indiscretions—because the gun gag enables her to escape them—combats the idea that she is a trapped woman. Overall, it seems that Antsey’s parody raises as many questions about Hedda’s representation and significance as Ibsen’s original.

Pill-Doctor Herdal

The most interesting parody in the collection is Antsey’s concluding piece, Pill-Doctor

Herdal. The play is a satire of Ibsen’s The Master Builder, which was originally published in

1892 and first performed in London in 1893. As Antsey prefaces at the beginning of the series,

Pill-Doctor Herdal pays homage to the Norwegian playwright by attempting to write a new piece, albeit satirically, in the style of Ibsen himself:

The concluding piece, “Pill-Doctor Herdal,” is, as the observant reader will instantly

perceive, rather a reverent attempt to tread in the footprints of the Norwegian dramatist,

than a version of any actually existing masterpiece. The author is conscious that his

imitation is painfully lacking in the mysterious obscurity of the original, that the vein of

allegorical symbolism is thinner throughout than it should be, and that the characters are

not nearly so mad as persons invariably are in real life—but these are the faults inevitable

to a prentice hand, and he trusts that due allowances may be made for them by the critical.

(2)

Unlike the preceding parodies, Pill-Doctor Herdal is not a re-written version of The Master

Builder but is actually a sequel, taking place years after Ibsen’s conclusion.

24 Ibsen’s work focuses on Halvard Solness, the master builder of a small town in Norway.

Over the course of his career, Solness has earned the respect of his fellow citizens, becoming an architect of distinct local reputation. One day, Hilde Wangel, a twenty-four-year-old new woman character, visits Solness and his friend, Dr. Herdal. She informs Solness that they met in her hometown when she was fourteen years old, claiming that he made romantic advances toward her. Solness denies the accusation, but agrees to let Hilde stay at his home. The audience soon learns of Solness’ complicated relationship with his wife, Aline. The marriage between the couple is under a great deal of strain due to the fact that, years ago, they lost two children in a violent fire. Hilde spends more time with Solness and the two develop a bond with one another.

She also learns that Solness suffers from acrophobia, a crippling fear of heights. Regardless, she encourages him to climb the steeple at the public opening of his new building. Inspired by

Hilde’s encouragement, Solness climbs to the top of the steeple, loses his balance, and falls to his death in front of a crowd of horrified observers. The play concludes as Hilde comes forward with a joyful expression on her face and says: “My…my…master builder!” (355).

Antsey’s plot begins ten years after the death of Solness, with his widowed wife Aline now married to Dr. Herdal. The couple discusses the history of Hilde Wangel and her relationship to Aline’s late husband. The former Mrs. Solness expresses concern that she will return and that Herdal will suffer the same fate as Halvard. Herdal eases his wife’s mind by telling her that Hilde is likely contained in “some sanatorium” (48). Soon enough, however,

Hilde appears and informs Dr. Herdal that “she has come to make use” of him (49). Over the course of the second act, Hilde reveals that she has spent time with Kaia and Ragnar Brovik, secondary characters and love interests from Ibsen’s The Master Builder. She tells Herdal that she encouraged Ragnar, an architect, to build houses with steeples, sending him into bankruptcy

25 before fleeing. Hilde then goes on to reveal that she also spent time with George Tesman and his wife Thea, helping Tesman with his book. She adds that Thea became mad with jealousy, causing Tesman to shoot himself “un-beautifully” (51). Hilde then describes how she went to

Rosmersholm where she met Rector Kroll. While there, she persuaded him to ride on the white horse, but because he had never ridden one before, he fell off into the mill-race and drowned.

After recounting her travels, Hilde mentions that she has heard Dr. Herdal is afraid of swallowing his own pills, just as Solness was afraid to climb his own buildings. She persuades him to overcome his fears, telling him to make a beautiful powder of poisons and eat it. He finally consents but is saved by his new bookkeeper—who has replaced all of the poison jars with chalk. In the most interesting aspect of this parody, the bookkeeper is actually revealed to be Torvald Helmer. He then turns to Hilde, whom he addresses as Nora, and says: “Surely, Nora, your education is complete at last—you have gained the experience you needed?” Hilde/Nora then responds: “Yes, Torvald, you're right enough there. I have thought things out for myself, and have got clear about them. And I have quite made up my mind that Society and the Law are all wrong, and that I am right” (Antsey 59). Pill-Doctor Herdal concludes with Nora’s return to

Torvald and home.

Pill-Doctor Herdal reassesses not only Ibsen’s The Master Builder, but Ibsen’s Hedda

Gabler, Rosmersholm, and A Doll’s House as well. Hilde’s retelling of past events offers insight into Antsey’s representation of all of these new women characters. She speaks of encounters with Tesman and Thea, the former husband and friend of Hedda Gabler, as well Rector Kroll,

Beata’s brother from Rosmersholm. In both instances, the key female protagonists are notably absent. Although, in Ibsen’s versions, both Rebecca and Hedda commit suicide, their absence in this context is suggestive of a greater meaning—that Rebecca, Hedda, and Hilde are one. The

26 revelation that Antsey’s Hilde Wangel is actually Nora Helmer solidifies this theory—all of

Ibsen’s new women characters are interchangeable. Antsey’s “new woman” character is no specific, individual woman, but is rather a female type that can be recycled and reinserted into each individual play.

Nora’s second return to Helmer—in addition to her homecoming at the end of Nora; or,

The Bird Cage—where she claims to have “completed” her education implies that when sprung from her domestic situation, the “emancipated” woman will inevitably transform into a sort of femme fatale character, causing the demise of the men she encounters. This idea supports stereotypes that painted feminist figures as one-dimensional, “man-hating” individuals. Finally,

Nora’s final return to her family suggests a sort of “rehabilitation” for these aspiring new women characters. Each woman—housed within Nora—is resituated in her private, domestic sphere by the end of Antsey’s collection. In this final conclusion, the parodist mocks Ibsen’s idea of female liberation, suggesting that although these women achieve brief moments of autonomy, the experience is fleeting.

Although the new woman is subverted or challenged through comedy, Antsey’s collection paradoxically re-inscribes her, reinforcing her impact on the modern British stage.

Hutcheon writes that in most cases, modern parody functions not as a form of mockery but as a

“respectful homage” to the original text. She adds that the intent of the parodist is not to “copy, but to recontextualize, to synthesize, to rework conventions—and in a respectful manner” (A

Theory of Parody 33). While the pseudonym “F. Antsey” is often thought to be a play on the word “fantasy” (“‘A Loud, Mocking Clamour’” 1), the author’s alias can also be linked to the

British slang term “fancy”: “a desire or liking for” (“Fancy”). The obvious parallel is suggestive of Antsey’s admiration rather than distaste for Ibsen and his female heroines, a sentiment that is

27 expressed in his description of himself in Punch as a “harmless Ibsenite” (Franc 122). Antsey’s collection is a sort of ode to Ibsen’s influence in Britain, offering a medium that allowed Ibsen’s work to evolve both culturally and socially. This idea of parody as a means for social evolution and literary continuity is further reflected in Hutcheon’s statement that “perhaps parodists only hurry up what is a natural procedure, the changing of aesthetic forms through time” (A Theory of

Parody 35).

The re-visitation and reinterpretation of these key Norwegian texts can be viewed as a mode of transition between Ibsen and those impacted and influenced by him. In her article

“Pandemic and Performance: Ibsen and the Outbreak of Modernism,” Katherine E. Kelly states that Antsey’s parodies “domesticate[d] and familiarize[d] [Ibsen’s] Nordic exotica through the leveling tool of British humor” (28). Kelly’s argument resonates with this particular analysis of

Antsey’s parodies and the greater social function they served. The parodist’s purposeful application of comedy provided a cultural buffer between the serious Scandinavian playwright and British audiences, serving as a method of translation. Using parody as a vehicle for mass accessibility, Antsey attempted through humour to bridge the cultural and theatrical gaps that existed between the playwright’s place of origin and the pages of Punch, a British staple that

“came to be viewed as the official point of view of the English, at home and around the world”

(“‘A Loud, Mocking Clamour’” 1). Antsey’s immensely popular parodies contributed to the discussion and debate of Ibsen’s work even after it was staged, affording his plays and his new woman characters an afterlife and a renewed relevancy for British audiences.

28 Chapter Two

Votes Over Kisses: Suffrage Comedy in Britain

While Antsey altered Ibsen’s new woman characters by using parody as a means of comparison, other modern playwrights adopted new forms of comedy in order to enact political change. The representation of women by suffrage-era playwrights offers insight into the first- wave feminist movement and comic theatre in early-twentieth-century Britain. Women’s changing social roles surrounding the fin de siècle prompted the development of a new relationship between women and comedy. This liaison between gender and genre culminated in suffrage comedies, one-act sketches that showcased strong female characters in support of the campaign for women’s enfranchisement. These brief pieces of entertaining and politically grounded theatre reflected the idea that the purpose of comedy is—as Robert D. Hume paraphrases—to “instruct and please by ‘holding the glass’ to a society in need of satiric correction,” a fundamental theory of most comedy that dates back to the theatre of ancient

Greece (302). While it can be argued that suffrage comedies aligned with the basic purpose of traditional comedy, female playwrights of the suffrage-era made strategic alterations to conventional comic form, which—to quote Susan Carlson—“traditionally limits its women characters” (1). These dramaturgical adjustments helped convey a feminist message that empowered female characters and audiences alike. In suffrage comedy, the conventional comic resolution, which often focuses on the celebration of a male hero and the marriage of young lovers, is challenged by the inclusion of modern feminist characters. Suffrage comedy inserts the crusade of the female suffragist as focal point, positions her as the play’s protagonist, and rejects conventional comedy’s assertion that the female character merely “accompanies a male hero in

29 his triumph” and that “she is generally a stage prop” (Carlson 150). These revolutionary comic characters represent a shift where women transformed from an element in the plot of the play, to being an element in the thought of the play (Watson 3). This significant revision of form both paralleled and facilitated women’s gradual transition toward gender equality offstage in Britian.

Suffrage comedy’s heroine celebrates personal autonomy and financial stability, characteristics that are commonly associated with the new woman. Comedy’s conventional resolution is altered through the inclusion of female suffrage characters that reject marriage as the genre’s “goal and triumph” (Watson 4). As Northrop Frye has written, the standard comic plot from Greek New Comedy onward unfolds as follows: “a young man wants a young woman, that desire is resisted by some opposition, usually paternal, and […] near the end of the play some twist in the plot enables the hero to have his will” (141). Although overcoming paternal obstruction mirrors the central goals of the first-wave feminist movement—which focussed on challenging oppressive, patriarchal norms—the female protagonist actually replaces the male hero in suffrage comedy. As a result, the central romantic relationship that conventionally drives the comic narrative is eliminated. Finally, the new society that appears in a traditional comic resolution is—as Frye notes—“frequently signalized by some kind of party or festive ritual, which either appears at the end of the play or is assumed to take place immediately afterward”

(141). He notes that of these rituals, “weddings are the most common” (142). Suffrage comedy stands in direct opposition to traditional comedy’s assertion that marriage is a victory. Instead, the ritual that typically surrounds a wedding is adjusted to celebrate the attainment of—or movement towards—women’s enfranchisement. While suffrage comedy stands as a direct departure from the conventions of Greek New Comedy, it more closely resembles Greek Old

Comedy or Aristophanic comedy—as it is known primarily through the work of Aristophanes.

30 Old Comedy plays are characterized by the “satire of public persons and affairs” and often contain “outspoken political criticism” and commentary on “literary and philosophical topics”

(“Old Comedy” 1). Furthermore, Old Comedy often facilitates a debate between opposing principals, uses stock characters, employs farce, and often ends with a banquet or wedding.

Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian War signaled the end of Old Comedy because a sense of disillusionment with the heroes and gods—who played a prominent role in Old Comedy—had taken place in society (1). While playwrights of New Comedy maintained many of the dramatic conventions brought forth by their predecessors, the satirical element that is featured so strongly in the work of Aristophanes began to diminish over time and for the first time, love became a primary principle in the dramatic structure (1). Greek New Comedy influenced much of Western

European literature, primarily through the work of Plautus. This long-standing legacy also informs modern and contemporary comedy, allowing an assessment of how certain plays conform to or adapt New Comic sensibilities.

Carlson notes that “in comedy, the most complete rejection of tradition is a play that ends with its […] characters not getting married” (117). Although suffrage comedy rejects the idea that the union of lovers should be the play’s central focus, the idea that “comedy often dramatizes the ejection of barrenness […] and the reassertion of fertility” (Barnet, Berman, and

Burton 9) is reinterpreted rather than altogether eliminated. In her essay “The Comic Rhythm,”

Susanne Langer states that “the pure sense of life is the underlying feeling of comedy” (120), arguing that the genre exists as “a symbol of perpetual birth” and “eternal life” (124).

Regeneration and rebirth—concepts that represent the end goal of traditional comedy—are paralleled and re-contextualized through suffrage comedy. Escaping literal interpretations of comic resolution, suffrage-era playwrights replace sexual reproduction with social renewal and

31 evolution while still focussing on a “narrative drive toward [reproduction]” and “social continuity” (Farfan 680). The altered conclusion of suffrage comedy represents the inevitable movement of society toward one that includes equal political rights for men and women.

Centering first on the suffrage comedies How the Vote Was Won (1909) by Cicely

Hamilton and Christopher St. John, Lady Geraldine’s Speech (1909) by Beatrice Harraden, and

A Chat with Mrs. Chicky (1913) by Evelyn Glover, this chapter will first examine how women playwrights of the suffrage era adapted traditional comic form through the insertion of a clear feminist message aimed at obtaining voting rights for women in Britain. Each of the aforementioned plays centres on one or more female suffragists, includes the conversion of at least one anti-suffrage character, and ends with a comic resolution that demonstrates the promise of political change. Whereas Frye posits that the central conflict of traditional comedy is between father and son, and that “the comic dramatist as a rule writes for the younger men in his audience” (142), pro-suffrage comedy provided theatre that was both about women and for women, allowing these plays to serve as both effective political tools and pieces of highly entertaining feminist theatre. This chapter also considers three striking examples of anti-suffrage comedy—anti-feminist, male-authored pieces that counter the politically progressive arguments brought forth by pro-suffrage playwrights. These anti-suffrage plays, The Suffragette’s

Redemption by Inglis Allen, Her Vote by H. V. Esmond, and Votes for Children by Ernest

Hutchinson, further illuminate the complex relationship between the new woman and the comic genre. Comparing these anti-suffrage texts to key suffrage comedies of the period, the chapter examines how comedy is specifically applied to either celebrate or dismiss this topical female heroine, and the effect each dramaturgical strategy had on both the impact of her character and the theatrical and historical moment she would come to define.

32 In order to provide a proper context for suffrage comedy, it is necessary to examine the historical and political moment surrounding the suffrage movement itself, the theatrical context preceding and surrounding the birth of these one-act comedies, and the ways in which theatre history and political history overlapped and converged, providing these pieces of comic propaganda with both form and function. The women’s suffrage campaign in the United

Kingdom dates back to the mid-nineteenth century. The fight to obtain women’s voting rights became the central issue within the greater feminist movement of the period. Tired of gender inequality, pro-suffrage women across England saw obtaining the vote as a necessary goal in the fight for greater social change. In her introduction to Literature of the Women’s Suffrage

Campaign, Carolyn Nelson states: “While it might seem self-evident that women needed to be enfranchised as citizens, in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, many people believed that allowing women to vote in national elections represented a very fearful step into unknown territory” (xiii). One of the campaign’s main objectives was the abolition of separate- sphere mentalities, which promoted gender inequality on the basis of biological difference. Anti- suffragists believed that women had no place in the male-dominated public sphere, and that they should continue to occupy their domestic domain. The possible elimination of these oppressive belief systems instilled fear in anti-suffrage supporters, leading to the formation of counter- societies that combatted the campaign for women’s enfranchisement (xiii).

Dr. Richard Pankhurst drafted the first women’s suffrage bill in 1870. Between 1879 and

1914, twenty-eight more unsuccessful suffrage bills would be drafted (xi). These initial failures spurred a tireless political movement that united women of all ages and social classes. Women involved with the cause “used various devices to sway the minds of the public and of the politicians including street demonstrations, marches, rallies, and eventually violent actions” (xi).

33 In addition to physical action, much advocacy for the vote was accomplished through the writing of literature, newspapers, and drama. Although the women’s suffrage campaign took on various creative and political forms, the movement was mainly characterized by the formation of pro- suffrage societies and associations. In an attempt to combat issues surrounding the denial of women’s voting rights, garner support, and provide a sense of community for pro-suffrage women, suffrage societies began to appear throughout the United Kingdom. Of these suffrage societies, the two most important were the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) and the

National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS). The WSPU—formed in 1903 by

Emmeline Pankhurst—focussed on practicing direct action toward obtaining the vote. The campaigns associated with the militant suffragettes of the WSPU differed from organizations like the NUWSS, which took a constitutional approach to the campaign by organizing petitions and public meetings. The WSPU often took action through violent and disruptive demonstrations, which generated widespread attention for the cause. Pankhurst and her militants organized events that involved anything from window smashing and telephone-wire cutting, to the arson of public buildings (Mayhall 7). Subsequently, The NUWSS—founded in 1897 by Millicent Fawcett—

“brought together previously antagonistic groups, serving as an umbrella organization for the majority of regional women’s suffrage organizations” (24). Although these tactically diverse groups emerged, the common goal of obtaining voting rights united pro-suffrage women across the movement. This resonating feeling of community often resulted in the cross-pollination and absorption of different unions and societies. This theme of political amalgamation, aimed at achieving a similar goal, would soon extend itself into the realm of the theatre, sparking the emergence of suffrage drama.

34 Suffrage theatre epitomizes the fascinating synthesis of first-wave feminist politics and dramatic form. Suffrage plays were written during the height of the movement and were dramatic exemplifications of the very issues that societies like the WSPU and NUWSS fought tirelessly to overcome. Theatre artists and practitioners with pro-suffrage beliefs began to create, produce, and act in plays for various suffrage meetings and rallies, forming theatre societies and leagues that focussed on bringing pro-suffrage content to the stage. Of these leagues, the most influential proved to be the Actresses’ Franchise League (AFL), the Pioneer Players, and the

Women Writers Suffrage League (WWSL), which all worked in association with major suffrage societies like the WSPU and NUWSS. United for the cause, British actresses, playwrights, and producers joined forces with speakers and supporters of the larger political societies at local meetings and rallies. It was within the context of these large group settings that the majority of suffrage plays were performed. As a result, suffrage theatre tends to consist of short, one-act sketches with small casts and minimal set (Kelly, Modern Drama by Women 108). Different from attending a night of traditional theatre, the suffrage plays were elements in larger community events, creating a common experience that united all types of pro-suffrage women.

This use of drama—harnessed for political purposes—represents a unique moment in theatre history and fostered a remarkable sense of community within the first-wave feminist movement in Britain.

The Actresses’ Franchise League (AFL) was founded in 1908 in London with the aim of staging events, readings, lectures, and plays that supported the suffrage cause. Significant founding members of the league included Cicely Hamilton, Ellen Terry, Elizabeth Robins, Edith

Craig, and Sybil Thorndike. Due to its ardent supporters and its successful production of suffrage plays, the league would grow to have almost a thousand members—with groups in all major

35 cities throughout the United Kingdom—by the year 1914 (Paxton vii). As a result, the demand for suffrage theatre increased. The AFL set up a distinct play department run by actress Inez

Bensusan, who oversaw the writing, collection, and publication of plays throughout the movement (Holledge 62). The Pioneer Players was an organization founded in 1911 by Edy

Craig—the daughter of legendary Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry. Terry served as President with Craig as Managing Director. Craig stated that the goal of the group was to “produce plays dealing with all kinds of movements of interest at the moment,” including—but not limited to— plays addressing the suffrage question (Crawford 148). Unlike the AFL, whose sole purpose was to produce sketches for the rallies, the Pioneer Players covered a variety of materials and venues, often staging full-length plays with a focus on content unrelated to the suffrage movement (148).

That said, the organization’s brief participation in political rallies, as well as Terry’s affiliation with the AFL, grounded the organization firmly within the cause.

Another organization that facilitated the collaboration of theatre artists and pro-suffrage advocates was the Women Writers Suffrage League (WWSL), which was formed in 1908 by

Cicely Hamilton and Bessie Hatton. The WWSL stated that its objective was “to obtain the vote for women on the same terms as it is or may be granted to men. Its methods are those proper to writers—the use of the pen” (Robins 106). The WWSL worked closely with the AFL, often writing plays that were produced and performed by actresses in support of suffrage. The sketches, which were written by members of the WWSL and produced by the AFL, were

“unapologetic propaganda pieces, written with passion and inspired by frustration” (Paxton vii).

These plays were “written to be heard, to communicate an idea and to provoke thought and inspire action” (vii). They were performed either between or as a conclusion to an evening of

36 speeches, talks, and lectures in favour of suffrage. The pieces were typically well received by audiences, who were both entertained and informed by the bold feminist content (vii).

The pro-suffrage theatrical leagues formed strong links with both each other and the greater political unions that welcomed their contributions. This merging of theatre and politics undoubtedly strengthened the relationships between groups of suffragists, creating a sense of community that ultimately led to tangible political change. Suffrage plays produced by the leagues not only entertained audiences, but also effectively influenced the campaign happening off-stage. In her essay “Women’s Suffrage Drama,” Katherine Cockin states that the “major social changes ensued from the struggles represented by drama of the women’s suffrage movement should be a source of optimism for feminists today. Suffragists had good reason to believe that plays were effective in changing attitudes: a change in legislation was attributed to the production of one play” (128).7 This successful merging of theatre and politics played a substantial role in the campaign’s journey to victory. The attainment of women’s suffrage in

Britain happened in two stages—first in 1918 for women over thirty years of age who met minimum property regulations, and then again in 1928 to include all women over the age of twenty-one (Nelson xi).

While plays produced by the AFL, WWSL, and Pioneer Players were united in overarching political message, they differed greatly in in style, genre, and form. In her book A

Stage of their Own: Feminist Playwrights of the Suffrage Era, Sheila Stowell notes that suffrage plays fell into one of two main categories: “gritty social dramas designed to expose women’s victimization within a social hierarchy that habitually de-valued them” and “farces which

7 Cockin is referring to a suffrage drama by Margaret Wynne Nevinson called In the Workhouse (1911). 37 attempted to destroy through laughter the positions of suffrage opponents” (46). Stowell explains that the two genres shared the same function but took different approaches. Though both types of plays reaffirmed existing beliefs in women’s suffrage, the social dramas “agitate[d] for reform through critical portrayals of women’s current oppression” and the suffrage comedies

“explode[d] arguments of the opposition which insisted upon narrow and severely circumscribed definition of appropriate womanly conduct, offering in their place an expansive interpretation of the suitable female endeavor” (66). Though both forms exposed the plight of women in an oppressive society, suffrage comedy may have been the more effective political agent. In her book Innocent Flowers: Women in the Edwardian Theatre, Julie Holledge states: “Suffrage societies were quick to realize that the contradictions of the antis’ policy were ridiculed far more effectively by theatrical satire than tub-thumping oratory” (62). Given the political importance of these comedies, the ways in which suffrage playwrights deployed comic form in order to both support women’s suffrage and mock the anti-suffrage campaign merits closer consideration.

Preferring Votes to Kisses8: Pro-Suffrage Comedy

How the Vote Was Won, written by Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John, was one of the movement’s best-known suffrage comedies. The piece achieved a great deal of critical acclaim and was immensely popular among pro-suffrage audiences. The one-act farce was originally written as a short story before being adapted as a play by the WWSL in 1909 (Stowell

58). It premiered at London’s Royalty Theatre on April 13 of the same year and—due to the popularity of its first performance—was selected by Inez Bensusan for an extended run that

8 In an early review of H. V. Esmond’s controversial suffrage comedy Her Vote—which I discuss later in this chapter—a reviewer, who was offended by the anti-feminist content within the piece, claimed that the female protagonist seemed to prefer “kisses to votes” (Holledge 64). 38 included twelve more performances at suffrage meetings throughout the United Kingdom

(Holledge 67). How the Vote Was Won employs conventions of farce, reversing gender dynamics through the correction of anti-suffrage principles. In doing so, Hamilton and St. John adapted traditional comic form, staging a celebration of women’s enfranchisement instead of marriage.

How the Vote Was Won takes place in the home of adamant anti-suffragist Horace Cole.

The play opens on a discussion between Horace’s wife Ethel and her militant sister, Winifred. As they discuss the impending women’s general strike, Winifred warns Ethel about the imminent arrival of Horace’s female relatives. Stating that women across the country will soon be seeking immediate refuge and support from their closest male relative, Winifred states: “Every man, either in a public capacity or a private one, will find himself face to face with the appalling problem of maintaining millions of women in idleness” (8). To the couple’s disbelief, Winifred’s prediction comes to fruition. Moments after Winifred’s exit, the home is bombarded with

Horace’s female relatives, who have abandoned their various jobs to take up residence with the

Coles. Faced with the impossibility of supporting all five women that come parading into his household, Horace is given no other choice but to support the suffrage cause.

Stowell has described How the Vote Was Won as a “low mimetic version” of Cicely

Hamilton’s A Pageant of Great Women, another well-known suffrage piece of the period (59).

The pageant was produced by Edy Craig and performed for the first AFL matinee at the Scala

Theatre in November of 1909. While the pageant presents some tonal and stylistic differences from How the Vote Was Won, it mirrors the one-act comedy in political message and dramatic structure. Where the plays differ most profoundly is in the pageant’s heavy reliance on allegory as the character of “Woman” pleads her case before the character of “Justice”—two obvious personifications of larger social concepts. Over the course of the play, Woman takes part in a

39 large-scale debate with Justice on the topic of whether women should be granted voting rights.

Alongside each of Woman’s retorts to Prejudice’s arguments that women should be denied voting rights, a parade of various female historical figures enter the stage, demonstrating the necessity of women’s suffrage. Similar to Horace’s recanting of anti-suffrage ideologies at the end of How the Vote Was Won, the pageant ends with the effectual silencing of Prejudice. His silence represents the defeat of Prejudice—literally and allegorically—within the play’s debate on the “woman question”. Stowell states that suffrage pageants like Hamilton’s “drew upon a legendary and historical past to argue the movement’s inevitable triumph” (45).

Although A Pageant of Great Women and How the Vote Was Won differ tonally, the underlying spirit of both pieces—championing the inevitable movement of society toward one that celebrates gender equality—remains the same. Furthermore, the connection in authorship provides insight into Hamilton and St. John’s subtle manipulation of comic form to support a feminist message. In How the Vote Was Won, social renewal replaces the implicit sexual reproduction that conventionally accompanies the “marriage of young lovers” (Watson 4).

Furthermore, like A Pageant of Great Women, How the Vote Was Won concludes with the defeat of a male opponent to women’s suffrage. That being said, the plays differ significantly in their final treatment of this male character. In the pageant, Prejudice simply exits the stage, retaining his position as the play’s uncompromised villain. However, in How the Vote Was Won, Hamilton and St. John perform an intervention on the oppressive male character, converting Horace into a pro-suffrage advocate. This seemingly absurd metamorphosis falls in line with comedy’s tendency to conclude with the “unlikely conversions” of blocking characters (Frye 148).

Horace’s gender is a crucial element in Hamilton and St. John’s comedy because he represents paternalistic opposition, which typically obstructs the male hero. By inserting the group of pro-

40 suffrage women in place of the conventional comic hero, comedy’s paternal force becomes reinterpreted as the oppressive, patriarchal limitations placed upon all women in Britain. As a result, Horace’s conversion can be interpreted as both comic resolution and political victory.

The play’s overall structure relies heavily on the entrances of Horace’s relatives and their choice to gather in his household. The successive gathering of pro-suffrage female characters, who unite to force Horace into political conversion, is central to understanding Hamilton and St.

John’s specific adaptation of comic form. This “rhythmically structured unity,” which Susanne

Langer identifies as both a crucial structural element and an underlying feeling that all comedy possesses, demonstrates the playwrights’ strategic use of farcical repetition (124). Furthermore, the procession of women illustrates the vast political potential that pro-suffrage alliances offered.

These repetitive rhythms facilitate the congregation of the various pro-suffrage women who drive both the spirit of the play and the plot itself. Furthermore, the idea of unity—defined within the piece as the collaboration of like-minded women toward the common goal of political conversion—serves a dual function within the play. Firstly, this diverse group of women emphasizes the political importance of a “strength in numbers” mentality both on and offstage.

Secondly, the visual grouping of these pro-suffrage characters, who greatly outnumber Horace, provides a great deal of physical comedy. This additive succession of women falls in line with

Frye’s idea that “the tendency of comedy is to include as many people as possible in its final society” (143). The play provides a series of rapid-fire entrances—and no exits—as the women pile onto the stage, invading Horace’s home. Frye states that “laughter is partly a reflex, and like other reflexes it can be conditioned by a simple repeated pattern” (146). The audience’s early recognition of this established pattern—paired with the sheer volume of characters on stage by the play’s end—provided audiences with a revolutionary feminist farce that staged the possibility

41 and inevitability of social change. By the play’s conclusion, the shift from the old restrictive society—enforced by Horace—into a new and hopeful society—invoked by the pro-suffrage women—is plainly seen. The most important aspect of this new society is that all the characters on stage, including Horace, are a part of it. It is through this shared sense of unity that Hamilton and St. John stage the movement toward gender equality, as this newly-converted male is welcomed to join the ranks of women in support of the cause.

Crucial to the idea of unity in How the Vote Was Won is a focus on the women as a group with a shared mentality rather than as individual, fully developed characters. In his essay “Farce as Method,” Robert Stephenson states that “farce requires short subjects” and a “need for brevity” (323). Due to the play’s short length, unambiguous political message, and desire to involve as many characters in its conclusion as possible, Hamilton and St. John rapidly introduce their female characters without much attention to detail. The script provides brief introductions with minimal character development apart from the women’s socio-economic status, occupation, and physical appearance—surface qualities that provide contrast and diversity within the piece.

The absence of detailed characterization takes focus away from each independent female and instead highlights the importance of the women as a collective. Through their repeated entrances,

Hamilton and St. John strategically employ “staccato successions” and “arithmetical crescendos”—farcical tendencies that drive the narrative forward, and provide the play with humour (323). The play follows a calculated formula where each female character provides an explanation of her presence, ranging from the oppression of creative and artistic freedom to the social expectations surrounding women and marriage. The expressions of such sentiments are repeatedly followed by Horace’s attempts, and subsequent failures, to justify his support of the anti-suffrage campaign. The female stock characters become generalized representations of

42 different social classes, age brackets, and personalities found in Edwardian society, identifying the numerous and varying reasons for women’s suffrage.

The female family members that enter the Cole residence include Agatha, an uneducated thirty-five-year-old “weary” and “dowdily dressed” woman (13); Molly, a twenty-year-old

“good looking” girl who is the author of (what Horace considers) a “scandalous book” (15);

Madame Christine, the forty-year-old “tasteful” and “elegant” divorcee (19); Maudie Sparks, the young and “aggressively cheerful” actress (23); and the dog-wielding and “homely” Aunt Lizzie, the eldest female relative (25). Hamilton and St. John’s colourful cross-section of Edwardian female demographics provided audiences with entertaining comic portraits, affording each viewer the chance to identify with one or more of these female characters. In How the Vote Was

Won, the political message is conveyed through the combined effort of all these different female characters, a strategy that supports the underlying spirit of comedy as “an art form that arises naturally wherever people are gathered to celebrate life” (Langer 124). The celebration that occurs at the end of How the Vote Was Won is one that celebrates life—as traditional comic form dictates—but not in the literal sense as identified by theorists like Langer and Frye. Instead, the women end the play in celebration of the promise of social renewal, a sentiment that is exemplified in Horace’s newfound support of women’s suffrage. Horace’s transformation represents a major shift in political viewpoints of the era, suggesting the rebirth of women’s social roles in Britain.

Frye states: “Humor is intimately connected with the theme of the absurd or irrational law that the action of comedy moves toward breaking” (147). Through Horace’s comic conversion, the women of the play overcome the seemingly absurd law that prevents them from exercising voting rights. The pro-suffrage audiences drawn to productions of How the Vote Was Won

43 played an important role in identifying the absurdity and irrationality of anti-suffrage mentalities.

Furthermore, the ability to identify gender inequality as irrational, and women’s enfranchisement as rational, also determined whether a spectator would find the play humourous. Frye states that

“the normal response of the audience to a happy ending is ‘this should be’” (145). This reliance on pro-suffrage spectatorship reaffirms the importance of social perspective and political affiliations when it comes to the reception and impact of suffrage comedy. In other words, in order to appreciate and identify the comic content in How the Vote Was Won, audiences had to hold the belief that discrimination against women was wrong, and that the movement toward gender equality was right. This crucial understanding of reception provides insight into the play’s positive critical reception at suffrage rallies around the United Kingdom. Speaking to the entertainment value of the piece, a reviewer of the 1909 premiere stated that “the audiences were delighted,” further praising the playwrights by saying that the piece—in the “finest spirit of farce—reflects the highest credit on the authors” (Rev. of How the Vote Was Won, The Times).

Another reviewer acknowledged the clarity of the play’s political message by stating that the piece “certainly seems likely to have the effect intended” on audiences (Rev. of How the Vote

Was Won, The Era).

By the conclusion, Horace undergoes what Stephenson would call a “brisk reversal,” changing his formerly anti-suffrage beliefs into pro-suffrage sentiments out of personal necessity. This bold and sudden abandonment of his steadfast political oppositions highlights the sheer hypocrisy of his former beliefs and—in true farcical fashion—adds to the play’s humour.

Frye states that within traditional comic resolution, “the blocking characters are [most] often reconciled or converted” (143). Horace’s conversion is plainly seen in his final monologue where he explains that he will immediately support the suffrage cause. Before leaving the house decked

44 in suffrage ribbons, he declares: “You may depend on me—all of you—to see justice done. […]

Votes for women!” (28). This comic resolution is inherently funny because of the somewhat remarkable rehabilitation of Horace, and—more importantly—because his transformation ultimately wins the affections of both the characters and the audience. What proves to be most comical about Horace is that he is forgiven and welcomed by the women, prompting an exaggerated and humourous “My hero!” from his wife—the only “womanly woman” character within the piece (28). His likeability corresponds with Frye’s observation that at the end of a comedy “whatever emerges is supposed to be there for good: if the curmudgeon becomes loveable, we understand that he will not immediately relapse again into his ritual habit” (148).

Characters and audiences are able to accept Horace’s conversion because they believe that the change will be permanent and lasting. His pro-suffrage assimilation provides comic resolution, which exists in order to “reassure us about life and its continuation” (Lehmann 164). Though

Lehmann refers to the continuation of life through comic resolution as a literal one that typically accompanies marriage, How the Vote Was Won inserts social renewal in the place of the

“prosperous mating” and “implied procreation” (165) on which traditional comedy relies.

Although struggling lovers and the promise of marriage are absent in How the Vote Was

Won, the concept of love—as the force that underlies traditional comic form—remains present in its own way. Along with replacing the marriage of lovers with the political victory of the women’s suffrage campaign, traditional definitions of love are also redefined. Lehmann argues that the underlying force in Aristophanic comedy is always the “freedom of man to be” (167).

This concept of freedom—aimed at achieving one’s full potential—is what drives the pro- suffrage female characters in Hamilton and St. John’s play. The struggle for freedom that typically represents the right of lovers to love one another freely refocuses itself through the lens

45 of the woman’s fight to express herself freely and—in this case—politically. Lehmann adds that the underlying feeling of love in comedy “is not the love of lovers, but love of humanity’s best and most various possibilities” (167). How the Vote Was Won stages society’s movement toward obtaining these possibilities and—by convincing Horace of the error of his ways—performs a gender-role reversal that serves as both a bold political statement and a source of humour.

How the Vote Was Won performs an upheaval of the status quo that empowers its female characters. In her book Women and Comedy, Susan Carlson states: “Women in power, or a group of women in power are funny because they are so out of the ordinary” (17). The vast gender imbalance in How the Vote Was Won is the result of farcical convention, but also demonstrates what happens when a group of females are in possession of power. Through the gathering of these women, Hamilton and St. John stage a version of the very political meetings and rallies where the piece was performed. The sense of community, passion, and empowerment that characterized these suffrage meetings is embedded in Hamilton and St. John’s politically charged comedy, which relied as much on the unity of its female characters as it did on the unity of its female audiences.

While How the Vote Was Won is widely considered to be the best-known suffrage comedy, many suffrage playwrights were highly influenced by the work, and as a result, wrote plays that entered into conversation with the piece. Playwrights such as Evelyn Glover, who had a long and successful career as a writer, also experimented with the suffrage comedy genre. The most popular of her suffrage pieces was a comedy titled A Chat with Mrs. Chicky. While this one-act carries the same spirit as How the Vote Was Won, it offers its own unique stylistic and dramaturgical elements. What Glover’s A Chat with Mrs. Chicky adds to Hamilton and St. John’s own brand of feminist comedy is a distinct focus on the suffrage question in relation to socio-

46 economic class. While How the Vote Was Won presents women with varying economic backgrounds, Glover brings the issue of class to the forefront, making it the central focus of her one-act play. Although both plays focus on the importance of obtaining women’s voting rights, the women in Hamilton and St. John’s piece work toward overcoming male oppression, while

Mrs. Chicky works toward overcoming issues of social oppression that defied issues of gender altogether. The insertion of a witty, working-class woman in place of the conventional comic hero grounded Glover’s play in immediate social relevancy, and—in addition to promoting women’s enfranchisement as a step toward social continuity—opened up a discussion about the economic diversity of women affected by the suffrage cause.

Where A Chat with Mrs. Chicky differs most profoundly from How the Vote Was Won is in Glover’s use of the duologue format and her exclusion of male characters altogether. Mrs.

Chicky appears as the lone suffrage supporter with no male character, like Horace, to provide opposition. Instead, opposition to the movement comes from a female anti-suffragist, a device

Glover uses to implicate both genders in the campaign against women’s enfranchisement.

Glover’s elimination of a male catalyst demonstrates the fact that issues and misconceptions surrounding social class were just as prominent as the need for gender reform. Through the celebration—rather than dismissal or economic redemption—of a lower-class woman, and the absence of a male blocking character, A Chat with Mrs. Chicky adjusts comic form in a way that promotes female independence and dismisses the misconception that the suffrage cause was solely a middle-class issue. Glover’s unique alterations to conventional comic form in A Chat with Mrs. Chicky provided the working-class woman with a forum to voice her opinion, instilling the play with a strong feminist message that reached a broader audience.

47 Glover’s comedy centres on Mrs. Chicky, a working-class charwoman, and Mrs.

Holbrook, an adamant anti-suffragist. What drives the plot, and contributes to its fundamental humour, is the fact that Mrs. Chicky—unbeknownst to Mrs. Holbrook until the final moment of the play—is an active and informed pro-suffragist. The revelation provides the comic resolution and causes an abrupt power reversal between the two women, identifying Mrs. Chicky as the play’s comic heroine. The play follows a conversation between the two women who are united by gender but differ greatly in social class and demeanor. Mrs. Holbrook enters her brother’s home, which doubles as Mrs. Chicky’s place of employment, and—under the misguided assumption that Mrs. Chicky is uneducated on the topic of suffrage—engages in a condescending series of lectures on why women should be prevented from obtaining the vote. Although it gradually becomes clear to the audience that Mrs. Chicky has pro-suffrage allegiances, the ignorant Mrs. Holbrook remains blinded by her preconceptions about the charwoman’s social standing until Mrs. Chicky’s political affiliations are finally revealed. Although Mrs. Holbrook is shocked by the revelation, pro-suffrage audiences who recognized the movement toward a society that included women’s enfranchisement as one that was—to borrow Frye’s phrase—the

“proper and desirable state” (142) undoubtedly found humour in her defeat and—alongside Mrs.

Chicky—took part in Glover’s reformatted comic conclusion that celebrated feminist values in place of a wedding.

Glover’s portrait of—as Sheila Stowell puts it—“a working class woman who is not a victim” (61) made the text significantly more relatable to female working-class audiences.

Glover’s depiction of Mrs. Chicky directly addressed the prejudices that surrounded socio- economic status and women’s enfranchisement. The widespread misconception that the suffrage cause only affected middle-class women originated in the years prior to the first series of

48 suffrage reforms in 1892, when the vote was reserved exclusively for upper-class males. Based on the historical relationship between economic status and voting rights, original female campaigners felt that the first steps toward obtaining women’s suffrage should begin with the attempt to achieve voting rights for upper and middle-class female demographics. Although the movement was later expanded to include women of all social classes, stereotypes that linked monetary wealth with enfranchisement inundated the campaign, perpetuating the assumption that lower-class women had no involvement or stake in the cause whatsoever. Glover’s play directly satirizes this social issue and—as Stowell notes—her “stage business goes a long way to making her point […] While a seated Mrs. Holbrook articulates (in a nice reversal of arguments) the elitist position of anti-suffragists, Mrs. Chicky (a widow who works to support her family) chars”

(61). The visual disparity between the two women gives the issue of economic status a physical presence within the play, instructing pro-suffrage audiences that, in order for women to achieve equality with men, they must first achieve equality with one another. Christine Woodsworth provides some insight into Glover’s choice, stating that “working-class characters were often pivotal in the promotion of pro-suffrage sentiment on the stage” because they silenced the perceptions that the suffrage question was merely a middle-class concern (35). Woodsworth adds that “working-class women had perhaps the most to gain from the vote and as a result, their dramatic depictions were infused with a greater sense of urgency, ultimately leading to a privileged structural role within the plays” (35). Through Glover’s distinct focus on Mrs.

Chicky’s occupation, lower-class dialect, and the constant—yet misinformed—condescension from Mrs. Holbrook, her character became more accessible to an economically diverse audience.

This specific homage to the working-class woman provided audiences with a sense of unity as in

How the Vote Was Won. United for the cause, spectators could interpret the play’s comic

49 resolution as the victory of a repressed female character over what Frye might have referred to as her “usurper” (141). This sentiment defied social categorization altogether and bonded all women of the era. That said, Glover’s focus on the working-class woman did not discount the struggles of the middle class, but rather included a group that was often overlooked or dismissed, adding them to the larger social equation surrounding the suffrage movement and the issues it strove to combat. The play successfully redefined the social continuity that traditionally surrounds comedy’s assertion of marriage and fertility by focussing instead on the idea of large- scale social evolution that warranted direct political action.

Furthermore, Glover uses hidden identity in A Chat with Mrs. Chicky to adapt the element of social class that conventionally accompanies what Frye refers to as a comic “plot twist” or “reveal” (141). Frye states that a conventional comic twist often involves the reveal of a seemingly lower-class female character as belonging to an upper-class family. Citing Roman comedy as an example, Frye states: “The heroine, who is usually a slave or courtesan, turns out to be the daughter of somebody respectable” (148). In Glover’s modification of this convention,

Mrs. Chicky remains a working-class character that defeats her upper-class counterpart through the sudden revelation of political consciousness rather than through a hidden association with wealth. The manipulation of this conventional element of comic structure provides a strong feminist message that replaces the exposure of a woman’s economic status with the revelation of her political fervor, instructing pro-suffrage audiences that an informed and independent woman is as valuable—if not more valuable—than a woman with monetary wealth. In her most literal interpretation, the character of Mrs. Holbrook represents the ignorance associated with the upper- class female population. However—on a more symbolic level—her character can also be interpreted to represent the paternal or, to quote Benjamin Lehmann, “restricting old-fashioned”

50 (167) forces, which conventionally oppose the comic hero in their journey toward resolution and the crystallization of a new society.

First performed in 1912, Glover’s comedy was an audience favourite among pro-suffrage populations; in fact, Holledge notes that “of the eighty performances organized by [Inez

Bensusan’s] play department between the summer of 1912 and 1914, a large proportion were of

A Chat with Mrs. Chicky, and in the annual report of the AFL for 1913-14 the play is mentioned as the most popular piece in the League’s repertoire” (88). The play’s popularity might be due in part to its small cast and limited staging requirements. However, its attempt to redefine the campaign for women’s enfranchisement can also account for the play’s success, as it demonstrated the significant social impact that empowering women through comedy allowed both on and offstage. Mrs. Chicky’s unique brand of comic heroism united pro-suffrage audiences through the suggestion that an individual—regardless of gender or socio-economic status—could overcome large-scale oppression of any kind. By eliminating male characters and a marital conclusion, and by staging a comedy that ends with the empowerment of a typically oppressed female demographic, Glover’s comedy—like How the Vote Was Won—embraces social renewal through the expanded awareness of the types of women affected by the suffrage question.

While Hamilton and St. John’s How the Vote Was Won and Glover’s A Chat with Mrs.

Chicky stage empowered female characters with a focus on unity and social class, Beatrice

Harraden’s Lady Geraldine’s Speech promotes a uniquely feminist message that focuses on women as individuals capable of personal growth and political development. With an emphasis on enlightenment rather than forceful conversion, the play promotes social renewal through the celebration of self-discovery and personal evolution. What Harraden’s play adds, in addition to

51 values staged in How the Vote Was Won and A Chat with Mrs. Chicky, is the idea that through proper education, a woman can come to support the suffrage movement on her own terms, without being forced into submission. This message is revealed not only through Lady

Geraldine’s psychological growth, but also through Harraden’s deconstruction of the notion that all female suffragists—and specifically militant members of the WSPU—were violent, unrelenting women who believed in the conversion of opponents at any cost. The play eliminates opposing male characters altogether, shifting its focus toward the self-conversion of a female anti-suffragist character. Like the two previous comedies, Glover replaces the conventional male hero with a female protagonist, allowing her journey—from political ignorance toward enlightenment—to shape the comic structure. Through the use of dramatic irony, disguise, and the alteration of the conventional comic plot twist, Lady Geraldine’s Speech simultaneously promotes female independence and satirizes anti-suffrage ideologies.

The play centres on Lady Geraldine, a member of the Anti-Suffrage Society, and her friend, Dr. Alice, a militant suffragette. The one-act takes place in Dr. Alice’s home where Lady

Geraldine has come to request assistance in writing an anti-suffrage speech for an upcoming rally. Following some initial confusion, Dr. Alice reluctantly obliges and—in Harraden’s intent to satirize the anti campaign—demonstrates an extensive knowledge of anti-suffrage ideologies.

Shortly after this interaction, a group of pro-suffrage women arrive for a suffrage meeting.

Among the parade of women are a painter, a literature professor, a pianist, and a typist who sells copies of the suffrage newspaper Votes for Women. Highly reminiscent of the cross-section of women that comprise the cast of How the Vote Was Won, each one of Dr. Alice’s friends enters and meditates on a different aspect of the suffrage campaign, clearly asserting the opinion that women can and should achieve equality through enfranchisement. Where How the Vote Was

52 Won and Lady Geraldine’s Speech differ profoundly is in the awareness afforded to each group of women and, therefore, the intention underlying their open endorsement of pro-suffrage beliefs. For example, in How the Vote Was Won, the group of pro-suffrage women shares the common goal of forcing an openly anti-suffrage male into political submission. However, in

Lady Geraldine’s Speech, the female suffragists assume that they are taking part in a casual dialogue among political allies. Overwhelmed by the newly absorbed information about women’s social and political roles in Britain—and afraid of exposing herself as a member of the

Anti-Suffrage Society—Lady Geraldine allows the women to assume that she is a pro-suffrage supporter and that she has come to attend the WSPU meeting alongside them.

Harraden employs dramatic irony throughout the play in order to illuminate the ignorance of anti-suffragists, grant audiences an objective view of Lady Geraldine’s enlightenment, and generate humour through disguise and satire. Although both Dr. Alice and the audience are aware of Lady Geraldine’s anti-suffrage affiliations, the other suffragists—who enter later in the play—have no idea. As a result, their arguments and pro-suffrage sentiments can be interpreted as genuine truths and affirmations rather than ulterior attempts at conversion and assimilation.

Although Lady Geraldine is converted by these pro-suffrage characters and the beliefs they hold, her transformation is ultimately a personal decision. The relationship between Lady Geraldine,

Dr. Alice, and the all-knowing audience is responsible for most of the comedy within Harraden’s play. The audience’s awareness of Lady Geraldine’s concealed political affiliations allows them to be in on the joke. Through the use of dramatic irony, Harraden also adjusts the plot twist commonly found in other suffrage comedies of the era. For instance, although the play’s ending structurally parallels the conclusion of A Chat with Mrs. Chicky—wherein it is revealed that one character’s political affiliation is not what the other character(s) had assumed it to be—

53 Harraden’s use of dramatic irony shifts the focus of the revelation away from Lady Geraldine and onto the recipients of this information. Although Harraden’s comedy reaches its climax when Lady Geraldine admits that she is actually an anti-suffragist, the audience’s awareness of this information displaces the element of shock and, instead, shifts focus toward the impending reactions from the militants. Therefore, the plot twist in Lady Geraldine’s Speech is not that

Lady Geraldine is an anti-suffragist, but rather that—unlike the baffled, furious, and disgusted

Mrs. Holbrook—the pro-suffragists react calmly to Lady Geraldine’s confession, even finding humour in it. One of the militants immediately responds by asking: “There’s nothing […] in our oath to prevent us from laughing a little is there?” (43). Another of the women jests that she has

“never seen a real anti-suffragist before,” further mocking Lady Geraldine by asking if she can capture this rare encounter by painting her portrait (43). The women of the WSPU appear completely unfazed and unthreatened by Lady Geraldine’s presence, even after her anti-suffrage identity is exposed.

Although these unexpected reactions provide humour, the play’s comic twist also addresses common misconceptions surrounding the nature of the WSPU, a group that included

Harraden herself as a devoted member. Similar to stereotypes surrounding class in A Chat with

Mrs. Chicky, Harraden’s play contested preconceived notions that members of the WSPU were characterized solely by their violent and disruptive actions. The friendly, jesting female characters that populate Lady Geraldine’s Speech offer a refreshing departure from the portraits of aggression predominantly associated with militant suffragists of the period (Mayhall 7).

Harraden’s conclusion emphasizes the idea that the women involved with the suffrage campaign were multi-faceted individuals who refused to conform to superficial assumptions constructed by an ignorant patriarchal society. By pairing the unexpected twist with the campaign for women’s

54 suffrage, Harraden created a comedy that entertained its audience—allowing them to be part of the joke while also providing a bold political statement that redefined the face of the suffrage movement.

Finally, it is Lady Geraldine’s choice to remain disguised as a pro-suffrage character— and Dr. Alice’s choice to refrain from revealing her—that facilitates Lady Geraldine’s self- transformative experience. Once the other women begin to arrive in Dr. Alice’s home, Lady

Geraldine moves through the play undetected. With her political identity concealed, she absorbs objective information that causes her to reconsider her anti-suffrage beliefs, prompting her eventual disillusionment. Since the pro-suffrage characters assume she is already a fellow suffragist, Lady Geraldine becomes an effectual fly on the wall, gaining insight into the suffrage campaign and, more specifically, into the relationship between pro and anti camps. In one of the play’s most fascinating and ironic moments, Baillie—the female professor—states: “I really do think the Antis are our best friends,” prompting a confused response from Lady Geraldine, who had assumed that the two sides were “formidable foes” (38). In an attempt to clarify Baillie’s statement, Silberthwaite—an eminent artist—discredits the speech-giving abilities of anti- suffragists, arguing that their shortcomings ultimately serve the pro-suffrage community. She states: “they can’t speak—they haven’t had the practice—they haven’t learned how to hold an audience” (38). In this brief dialogue, Harraden both highlights the irony of Lady Geraldine’s presence and brings forth her belief that although anti-suffragists were threatened by the suffrage campaign, suffragists did not reciprocate the feeling. Lady Geraldine—like conventional blocking characters Horace and Mrs. Holbrook—is plagued mainly by her own political ignorance or, to quote Frye, “lack of self-knowledge” (150). Without being forced into conversion by other characters, Lady Geraldine is so inspired by Dr. Alice and her friends that

55 she experiences her own enlightenment and initiates her own conversion. The play concludes with Lady Geraldine expressing interest in learning more about the suffrage movement. She asks to attend one of Baillie’s lectures and whether she may have a copy of Votes for Women before throwing her anti-suffrage speech into the fire and going home to think (45). After her exit, the remaining suffragettes joke about the inevitability of Lady Geraldine’s political conversion (46).

The ending follows Frye’s conventional understanding of comic resolution wherein he states that

“comedy usually moves toward a happy ending, and the normal response of the audience to a happy ending is ‘this should be,’ which sounds like a moral judgment. So it is, except that it is not moral in the restricted sense, but social” (145). Harraden’s play accomplishes exactly this.

Performed exclusively for members of the WSPU, it is likely that pro-suffrage audiences would have been in complete agreement with both Harraden’s portrayal of the militants and Lady

Geraldine’s inevitable conversion. Furthermore, the play’s ending—which avoids marriage and celebrates independence—involves a woman leaving the stage by herself to think. This focus on intellect and self-reflection—paired with the physical removal of Lady Geraldine from the house where she had arrived with her previous notions—is, in some ways, reminiscent of Nora’s disillusionment and exit at the end of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Both Nora and Lady Geraldine begin the respective plays as ignorant victims of the oppressive, patriarchal views that dictate male and female social roles. Although theatrical genre and the specific catalysts for each woman’s transformation differ in each play, both females are forced to strongly reconsider their old ways of thinking, ultimately choosing a new life based on personal independence. Both characters document a woman’s journey toward self-discovery, with Harraden focussing on the fight for women’s suffrage through use of comic convention.

56 Harraden’s subtle manipulation of traditional comic form effectively parodies the anti- suffrage campaign while reaffirming the goals associated with the pro-suffrage movement. Lady

Geraldine’s conversion from an anti-suffrage to a pro-suffrage character is all the more powerful because she does it voluntarily. What is also fascinating about Harraden’s play is her elimination of an overt blocking character altogether. The battle that traditionally takes place between the old-fashioned patriarch and his progressive son, or between a usurping law and a pair of hopeful lovers, is redefined as an internal battle with one’s self. The blocking forces that Lady Geraldine must overcome within the play are her own misconceptions and misunderstandings about the nature of the suffrage movement. Through the use of disguise and dramatic irony, Harraden stages a comedy that re-contextualizes the hero’s feat to overcome obstacles, transforming it into the internal battle of a female protagonist. In doing so, Lady Geraldine achieves personal success—rather than marital success—through self-education, enlightenment, and the adoption of feminist values. Harraden implies that a woman independently possesses the tools she needs to become her own hero. The play’s ending celebrates a liberated and self-governing woman who comes to understand the world without partnership with a man or the forceful conversion of others.

Lady Geraldine’s Speech was first published in 1909, premiering at the WSPU’s Prince’s

Skating Rink Exhibition in May of that year. However—unlike How the Vote Was Won and A

Chat with Mrs. Chicky—the piece did not have substantial run. Due to the controversial and ambiguously toned “suffrage” play Her Vote—written and staged by a male playwright named H.

V. Esmond the year prior—Inez Bensusan was forced into an intensified censorship role, effectively adopting the position of Lord Chamberlain for the AFL. The extreme reactions to the

Her Vote forced Bensusan into a stricter evaluation of the material being produced within the

57 AFL’s play department, discouraging the further production of any potentially offensive or ambiguous political pieces. Published only a year after Her Vote, Harraden’s play fell victim to this increased level of censorship, and although the play premiered for the WSPU, it was forbidden from being performed for the NUWSS, limiting the potential scope of the play’s audience (64). Though the text’s overall message is not vague or overtly controversial, Bensusan believed that the NUWSS members would object to Dr. Alice and her friends’ alliance with the militant WSPU, due to unresolved rivalries occurring at the time (64). Although it is impossible to determine whether or not the piece would have achieved the level of widespread popularity afforded to How the Vote Was Won and A Chat with Mrs. Chicky, Harraden’s active involvement in the women’s suffrage campaign resonates within the play’s thoughtful and unique adaptation of comic form. Harraden was heavily involved in several facets of the women’s suffrage campaign in Britain and was an active member of both the WWSL and the WSPU. Thus, it is important to consider the possibility that the play’s lack of critical recognition could largely be attributed to unfortunate circumstances surrounding its production. The lack of general acclaim surrounding Lady Geraldine’s Speech does not necessarily represent its dramaturgical merit or political relevancy. The piece provided new perspectives on the woman’s suffrage movement, emphasizing the power of women as individuals as well as the power of collective influence and reaffirming the idea that the cause included and affected all women in Britain.

How the Vote Was Won, A Chat with Mrs. Chicky, and Lady Geraldine’s Speech demonstrate that the empowerment of female characters—harnessed for a specific political cause—reformatted the way that women had traditionally been represented in comedy.

Furthermore, the plays showcased how the specific alteration of comic form to promote feminism could strengthen and intensify the delivery of political propaganda. In all three

58 comedies, the woman’s role is brought to the forefront of the dramatic action, challenging conventional comic form, which typically portrayed her as the love interest to a male hero. Each female protagonist ends the play both unmarried and empowered through the achievement of some form of political victory. In How the Vote Was Won, the female characters succeed in staging a political conversion of their anti-suffragist male opponent; in A Chat with Mrs. Chicky, the title character succeeds in defying preconceived notions about her social class; and in Lady

Geraldine’s Speech, the female protagonist experiences a self-victory through the embracement of pro-suffrage ideals. These varying political victories stand in place of the conventional celebration that usually crystallizes around the comic hero’s wedding. Crucial to the success achieved by these female characters is the movement from an old repressive society toward a happy ending that welcomes a new progressive society. In their own unique manner, each of these feminist comedies alters the conventional formation of a new society, replacing the promise of fertility with the promise of social renewal and evolution grounded in female empowerment and the fight for gender equality.

In the context of suffrage comedy, the comic new woman was a politically active female character who achieved independence through her relationship with the suffrage movement. She is defined by her union with other pro-suffrage women, her ability to satirize anti-suffrage arguments, her representation of the working-class population, and her ability to live an independent lifestyle without the assistance of a husband. By embracing these qualities, the comic new woman character became a powerful feminist figure within the scope of modern drama and an invaluable political tool in the fight for women’s enfranchisement. Susan Carlson states that feminist critics have “marked comedy as valuable territory for the empowering of women characters” (13). This relationship between feminism and comedy suggests that the two

59 are complimentary as well as reliant on one another. The critical success and popularity of suffrage comedies speaks volumes in regards to the successful relationship between the comic new woman and suffrage-era propaganda. While female suffrage playwrights used the comic form to create this revolutionary feminist character, comic form was also used as a political tool to “explode arguments of the opposition which insisted upon narrow and severely circumscribed definition of appropriate womanly conduct, offering in their place an expansive interpretation of the suitable female endeavor” (Holledge 66).

The effective and entertaining one-acts, which supported bold political content, demonstrate the potential social impact that empowering women through comedy allows. The unique application of the fight for enfranchisement, paired with female authorship and pro- suffrage audiences, represented a unique moment in both political and theatrical history that celebrates the movement of women from object to subject both on and offstage. The comic suffragette represents a single facet of this comic new woman who, placed at the forefront of a politically altered feminist comedy, showed pro-suffrage women of the era that political change, social evolution, and gender quality were necessary and tangible steps toward the future of

British society.

“I really do think the Antis are our best friends”: Anti-Suffrage Comedy

In response to pro-suffrage comedies—and the growing political consciousness they fostered—anti-suffrage comedies began to appear on the early-twentieth-century stage in Britain.

In contrast to pro-suffrage plays, these “anti” texts used comedy in a way that countered the promotion of women’s enfranchisement. The specific use of comedy in these anti-suffrage pieces provides further insight into the relationship between the comic genre and the new woman

60 figure. While most of these comedies were intended as anti-suffrage material, others, like Her

Vote by H. V. Esmond, were intended to be pro-suffrage but suffered unexpected backlash from the “pro” community. This section will examine Her Vote, a pro-suffrage text that unintentionally promoted anti-feminist ideologies, as well as The Suffragette’s Redemption by

Inglis Allen and Votes for Children by Ernest Hutchinson, two intended anti-suffrage plays.

These plays reveal how comedy was used, in male-authored works, to ridicule and dismiss the pro-suffrage tactics that were gaining momentum both on and offstage in early-twentieth-century

Britain.

Esmond’s Her Vote was written and performed in 1909. The first, and only, production of the piece was staged by the AFL and starred Esmond’s wife, Eva Moore. The one-act follows a

“fluffy” young girl who spends the entire play lecturing the other characters about the importance of attending a suffrage meeting before abandoning her own plans to attend the meeting herself. After professing her undying commitment to the cause, she rearranges her previous priorities to go dancing with her fiancé, a plot twist that, as noted earlier, generated an abundance of backlash from audiences and critics alike (Holledge 64). While the play was intended as a piece of pro-suffrage propaganda, audiences were confused by the play’s overall tone and, specifically, Esmond’s questionable representation of a female suffragist character.

Much of this critical backlash was aimed at Moore, as the actress was a member of the AFL and an adamant pro-suffrage supporter. When asked to recount her experience with the play’s controversial aftermath, Moore stated that “two days [after the performance], at a meeting of the

League, ‘someone’ got up and stated that they had seen [Her Vote], and that evidently, ‘Eva

Moore preferred kisses to votes’, and suggested that I should be told not to play the sketch again, or resign” (qtd. in Holledge 64). The severe reaction to Esmond’s “light” and “comic” play

61 prompted a serious reevaluation of material being produced for the campaign, a response that further illuminated the political importance of these plays and the idea that comedy could be also be used as a tool to oppose the suffrage campaign.

Her Vote takes place in the office of Elizabeth’s father, where she has come to use a phone to contact her fiancé, Reggie. Elizabeth interacts with the office’s male clerk and female

“drudge” (as she is called in the play) and spends the majority of the play making arguments in favour of women’s suffrage. In a way that resonates with themes found in pro-suffrage pieces like A Chat with Mrs. Chicky, Elizabeth informs the drudge that it is crucial for women of all classes to get involved with the campaign. However, skeptical of her commitment to the cause, the clerk spends the entire play probing Elizabeth, asking her to clarify what seem like empty and uninformed political sentiments. It becomes clear that the clerk sees Elizabeth’s activism as illusory, an opinion, which—based on Elizabeth’s statements and later actions—proves valid.

Her constant avoidance of his inquiries suggests that she does not fully comprehend the political beliefs she claims to uphold:

GIRL: (getting really quite disappointed in [DRUDGE]) I don’t think you quite realize

what the vote means to a woman.

CLERK: What does it mean, Miss Elizabeth?

GIRL: It means so much that I couldn't possibly explain it. (115)

As the only male character on stage, the clerk’s presence—and his constant interrogation of

Elizabeth—provides the play with an undertone of patriarchal dominance. The condescending tone he takes with the young girl suggests that he possesses more intelligence and awareness than her, and his stage directions go a long way to making this point. The clerk’s persistent sighs and headshakes demonstrate his general lack of faith in her character. It seems that the clerk,

62 who was originally played by Esmond, knows exactly how the play is going to end as soon as it begins. Without much effort, he illuminates gaping holes in Elizabeth’s statements, emphasizing how unqualified she is as an advocate for the suffrage movement. While the clerk’s interactions with Elizabeth subtly and gradually inform the audience that her commitment to the cause is fairly weak, she seals her own fate by abandoning the suffrage meeting and giving her ticket to the drudge. By the play’s conclusion, the idea that women are incapable of separating love and politics seems to resonate. While Elizabeth does touch on several important issues regarding the suffrage movement, her complete neglect of the ideologies she spent the entire play preaching made Esmond’s intentions confusing. It seems possible—and likely—that he wished to balance the portrayal of a strong political woman with a light comic ending, but in doing so, he completely contradicted what the play set out to do for the pro-suffrage movement.

Interestingly, Her Vote draws strong structural parallels to Inglis Allen’s The

Suffragette’s Redemption. Both plots are almost identical, and yet Esmond’s comedy was intended to support the pro-suffrage cause, while Allen’s play was actually intended as an anti- suffrage text. Published in 1909, The Suffragette’s Redemption is a one-act that follows a seemingly strong-willed woman as she is—with disturbing ease—transformed from a determined suffrage activist into a submissive housewife. The play opens as an infuriated suffragist, Effie, returns home from prison. She enters scolding her husband for paying the fine that has released her from incarceration. While her spouse maintains that he was simply performing his duty as a loyal husband, Effie insists that she wished to stay in prison as a form of protest and that, by releasing her from detainment, her husband has “disgraced,” “made a laughing stock” of, and

“degraded” her (6). Her fury only increases as her husband offhandedly mocks the seriousness of the suffrage cause. In one instance, he states: “Honestly, now, Effie, if only the prison authorities

63 shaved every suffragette’s head, how long do you think the movement would last?” (7). His condescending joke appears harmless at first, but mirrors the play’s overarching message, which is that even the most determined pro-suffrage woman will only remain steadfast in her political beliefs until some aspect of her conventional womanhood is in jeopardy.

Allen’s male character functions much like the clerk in Her Vote. While the husband acts as a comic foil to his wife—illuminating holes in Effie’s supposedly adamant beliefs—the playwright also presents audiences with two conflicting versions of Effie. Early in the play, he purposely exaggerates her “undying” commitment to the cause in an attempt to highlight how vastly she comes to contradict herself. His initial, almost over-the-top portrayal of Effie as an unwavering political leader makes her eventual withdrawal from the cause all the more ironic. At an early point in the play, Effie says, “To think that I am married, chained for life, to a conventional creature like this—I, with my ideals—my enthusiasm for the cause, my gift of speech” (7). However, shortly following this bold manifesto, it is suggested that Effie’s husband did not pay her fine and that it may have been her Uncle Henry. In this moment, there is a distinct shift in Effie’s supposedly strong political character:

You were going to let me stop in prison. I expect you were glad to have me out of the way.

Oh, I’ll never forgive you. (She throws herself on the sofa and turns her face from him)

[…] Don’t speak to me. No wonder you seemed so sorry to see me back. You don't love

me any more. I knew you’d changed. I've seen it coming for a long time. (10)

The suggestion that her husband would allow her to “stop in prison” transforms Effie from a woman of integrity into a tantrum-throwing hypocrite. In an attempt to assuage his wife’s fears,

Effie’s husband reassures her that it was in fact he who paid her fine. Even so, this brief moment of emotional unpredictability is enough to call into question Effie’s commitment to the cause.

64 Her irrational and incongruous wishes leave her husband feeling confused, likely evoking sympathy from anti-suffrage audiences. When he inquires as to what actions he should have taken in order to please her, Effie replies: “You ought to have been so absolutely miserable and heartbroken at my being in prison as to find it simply impossible to refrain from paying my fine, and you ought by the exercise of an enormous sacrifice to have refrained from paying it in spite of that” (11). Effie’s unreasonable and contradictory approach to the matter would have been funny for anti-suffrage audiences who already knew what both Effie’s husband and the clerk from Her Vote know—that women, even the seemingly “strongest” ones, are unable to separate emotion from politics.

As the play progresses, Effie informs her husband that she must attend a march at the

House of Commons that afternoon. Insisting that she stay home instead as her presence at the march will likely land her prison again, her husband begs: “Effie, to please me, don't join this business this afternoon” (12). Effie declares that he is being selfish for suggesting that she abandon her duties to remain at home with him, stating that her presence—both at the march and in jail—is “a sacrifice that must be made for the cause” (12). Furthermore, in a statement that perfectly embodies the play’s irony, Effie adds: “love and its attendant feelings must never be allowed to interfere with duty” (12). By the play’s conclusion, this seemingly infallible feminist statement changes—much like Effie herself—from a matter of principle into one of the play’s most laughable jokes. The playwright uses Effie to bring forth the play’s irony, allowing his audience—anti-suffrage supporters with a shared belief system—to be “in on the joke” with her husband.

A great deal of the play’s humour is found in Allen’s stage directions in the play’s final moments. As he watches his wife leave to attend the march, the stage directions read: “It is

65 essential that this sly smile of the HUSBAND’S should be well brought home to the audience. He should dart several glances at his wife, and repeat the smile after each” (12). These key directions demonstrate Effie’s husband’s power over her, suggesting that she is inferior to him.

His direct interaction with like-minded spectators invites them to join him in the discrediting of her character. This consistent acknowledgement of the audience suggests that the intended spectators for the piece would have been anti-suffrage supporters—perhaps men—who, like

Effie’s husband, felt that the suffrage movement was built on a thin and easily breakable foundation.

In the final moments of the play—directly following the aforementioned stage directions—Effie’s husband asks his wife for an extra key to give to a Lady Dillingham.

Suddenly fixated on her husband’s activity during her absence, Effie asks why Lady Dillingham has been in their home. Her husband informs her that Dillingham has “been managing the servants and the house generally while [Effie has] been in prison,” adding that he would have been lost “without her help” (13). Taken aback by this information, Effie suddenly revisits the topic of the jail fine, asking why he waited two entire days to collect her. Effie’s husband answers: “I wanted to go and get you out of prison immediately, but Lady Dillingham wouldn't hear of it. She said I had no right to interfere with your principles and that she quite sympathized with you in your noble resolution not to have your fine paid” (14). His confession concludes with his statement: “to tell the truth, I didn’t go…I supplied the money—but it was Dillingham himself who went to Holloway and paid the fine” (14). While Effie reels from the implication that she is in the process of being replaced, her husband shifts focus. Adding a level of urgency to the matter at hand, he inquires about the time of the political procession as he has promised to escort Lady Dillingham to it. The play ends with her husband’s suggestion that she avoid the

66 march altogether and attend a matinee with him instead. Effie ultimately obliges as the two embrace and the curtain falls.

Both the “humour” and the anti-feminist propaganda within the play reside in the husband’s purposeful manipulation of his seemingly clueless wife. One gathers from his consistent, smug glances to the audience that he knows exactly how to exploit his wife’s emotions in a way that best serves him. Effie’s husband convinces her that if she continues on in her political ventures, it will come at the expense of their marriage. He knows that threatening this key aspect of her identity will cause her to immediately abandon her political responsibilities and resume her role as his dutiful wife. Through Allen’s adherence to conventional comic form, the play attempts to mock the suffrage movement in its entirety. In a sort of reversal of pro- suffrage tactics used in Harraden’s Lady Geraldine’s Speech, the rejection of pro-suffrage ideologies comes not from external forces, but from internal ones. That is, Effie’s husband does not outwardly condemn the suffrage movement or force his wife into submission. Instead, it is ultimately Effie’s inability to separate the personal from the political that reduces her—and the cause she represents—to a joke. Effie’s statements that duty and emotion must exist in separate realms, and that one must never sacrifice political ambitions for love, comically unravel at the mere suggestion that another woman is replacing her.

Based on the political affiliations of spectators, the ending of The Suffragette’s

Redemption could be interpreted as either comic or tragic. For anti-suffrage supporters, the ending—wherein Effie completely forfeits all her former political beliefs for a lunch date— restores the anti-suffragist’s perspective on the correct order of society or, to quote Frye, what

“should be” (145). The affirmation of such belief systems is even present in the play’s title The

Suffragette’s Redemption, as Effie’s “redemption” only takes place through the recanting of her

67 political beliefs and the return to (what her husband considers to be) her rightful domain.

However, for pro-suffrage supporters, the ending was a great insult to the cause.

Both Her Vote and The Suffragette’s Redemption adopt a conventional comic structure.

Within each play, the two lovers overcome an obstacle—in this case, a woman’s commitment to the suffrage movement—and are reunited by the play’s conclusion. In both pieces, the division of the sexes is made abundantly clear. Each author seems to make a return to classic comic form wherein a male character overcomes obstacles in order to be reunited with his love. In both plays, a male character manipulates a female suffragist by exploiting their romantic relationship.

Although Reggie never appears on stage, Elizabeth’s side of their phone conversation makes it clear that he does not support—or simply does not care about—her involvement with the cause.

Elizabeth’s and Effie’s male partners suggest some light entertainment in place of an important political demonstration and are, in both instances, obliged. The emotional malleability and unpredictability of the two female characters become indicative of the entire suffrage movement in general, as they are the only representatives of the cause to appear onstage. Both plays depend on the conventional patriarchal thinking that femininity and womanhood are directly linked to emotional unpredictability and unreliability. Each woman enters the play equipped with bold and unrelenting statements regarding the importance of the cause and their commitment to it, yet as soon as their roles as wife or potential wife is jeopardized, the women completely abandon their former principles. The comedies also play heavily on oppressive period stereotypes that designated women as intellectually inferior to men. Speaking to the representation of these female protagonists in anti-suffrage comedies, Carlson states, “Typically the suffragist characters themselves were devoid of social skills and their politics inept,” adding that they “become comic targets when they give up their politics for love” or when they are shown to be “underhanded” or

68 “illogical” (442). Women’s limited social roles often designated them as the “angel in the house,”9 affirming the anti-suffrage beliefs that a woman’s responsibilities in the private sphere would always prevent her participation in large-scale political change.

While uncanny similarities can be found between Allen’s The Suffragette’s Redemption and Esmond’s Her Vote, Ernest Hutchinson’s Votes for Children illustrates a slightly different approach to the anti-suffrage comedy. The play, which is subtitled A Comedy of the Future, was licensed by the Lord Chamberlain and first performed in November 1913 at The Little Theatre in

London. In his recommendation for licensing, Ernest A. Bendall summarized the play as follows:

This is a lively skit upon the agitation of female militants for votes. The members of the

Children’s Social and Political Union, having kidnapped the Home Secretary—who is the

husband of the Lady Prime Minister—and policeman, conduct their babyish outrages and

their official promise of the Government to reduce the franchise age to six in both sexes.

The burlesque is neatly worked out in its nursery and schoolroom detail, and is wholly

inoffensive, except perhaps to the WSPU. (1)

While the previous “anti” comedies deconstructed pro-suffrage values by ridiculing their female protagonists, Votes for Children employs a form that more closely resembles parody. The play’s setting in the “dim and distant future” performs a direct escape from realism, making the situations, which attempt to discredit the suffrage movement, all the more ridiculous. The one-act satirizes the Women’s Social and Political Union by replacing its adult female members with actual children. In the larger more symbolic sense, the play mockingly equates the seriousness of

9 Elaine Hartnell describes the Victorian “angel of the house” as a “domestic woman, who [had] no existence outside the context of her home and whose sole window on the world [was] her husband” (460). Following separate sphere ideology, husbands would venture out into the world to make money while their wives stayed at home and cared for the house and the children.

69 patriarchal oppression with the “oppression” of children by their parents. Within the play, the group of youths advocate for the right of children’s enfranchisement. They argue that if women have been given voting rights then children should be granted the same rights.

The president of the Children’s Social and Political Union is twelve-year-old Rosabel

Ransom, who has been released from jail under the supervision of her own personal officer, Mr.

Canning. The audience soon learns that Rosabel is the daughter of Violet Ransom, the female

Prime Minister of England. The entire play is set in the office of the CSPU, where the Prime

Minister’s husband—and Rosabel’s father—is being held captive until her mother agrees to grant children the vote. The seemingly absurd hostage situation represents the anti-suffragists’ belief in the childishness of militant tactics enacted by the WSPU, while making a playful reference to the family’s surname. Those in opposition to the suffrage campaign would have appreciated and found humour in Hutchinson’s comic link between child-like tantrums and the disruptive demonstrations organized by the WSPU offstage. Eventually, Rosabel agrees to release her father in exchange for her mother’s promise to lower the voting age—for both sexes—to six years. The play concludes with a celebration amongst the CSPU’s juvenile staff and the romantic reunion of Rosabel’s parents. However, the moment of excitement is fleeting, as the children seem fixated on a question that no one seems able to answer. After several confused exchanges,

Rosabel finally seeks the wisdom of the only adult character left onstage:

ROSABEL: Mr. Canning, I want to ask you something.

CANNING: Yes, miss?

ROSABEL: You've got a vote, haven’t you?

CANNING: Why, yes, miss.

ROSABEL: What is it exactly? (29)

70

This final exchange illuminates a larger underlying political message, suggesting that—like mere children—the women fighting for enfranchisement lacked a fundamental understanding of their cause. Votes for Children effectively parodies the WSPU, while also serving as a sort of cautionary tale that warns audiences about the consequences of supporting women’s enfranchisement. The play argues that gender equality in politics is an altogether absurd concept.

Furthermore, Hutchinson warns his audiences that if women actually succeeded in their political endeavors, it would send society into a state of complete and utter disarray. The CSPU offers what Linda Hutcheon refers to, in her definition of parody, as “repetition with critical difference”

(A Theory of Parody 20). The union simultaneously mimics and mocks the WSPU by replacing its strong and determined feminist leaders with inexperienced children. The parallel between women and children suggests that the concerns brought forth by the first-wave feminist movement were no different than the juvenile demands of a group of unreasonable, uninformed six-year olds.

Although these three anti-suffrage plays differ in their specific approach to the argument against women’s enfranchisement, they are united in that they employ comedy to do so. In each case, comic form is used to facilitate the reunion of separated lovers, and in each ending—unlike the pro-suffrage texts examined earlier—the reunion of a husband and wife is celebrated. In The

Suffragette’s Redemption, Effie chooses to remain with her husband for an afternoon of theatre; in Her Vote, Elizabeth leaves to meet Reggie who has been separated from his bride-to-be due to her insistence on attending a suffrage meeting; and in Votes for Children, Violet and George

Ransom are reunited after their daughter wins the battle—or bribe—for children’s voting rights.

In each text, this adherence to traditional comic form is employed in a way that discredits the

71 integrity of the women’s suffrage movement. Each female political leader chooses her marriage over her former commitment to politics, suggesting that—for women—marriage and political integrity are unable to coexist and that women should therefore not be granted a vote. Each comic heroine falls victim to her emotions—abandoning the principles she initially upholds— and is reduced to the exact stereotype that pro-suffrage groups strove to overturn.

The way comedy is used in these anti-suffrage texts is reflective of Freud’s theory of jokes. In his essay "Jokes and the Species of the Comic," he states:

The methods that serve to make people comic are: putting them in a comic situation,

mimicry, […] caricature, parody, travesty, and so on. It is obvious that these techniques

can be used to serve hostile and aggressive purposes. One can make a person comic in

order to make him become contemptible, to deprive him of his claim to dignity and

authority. (192)

Using Freud’s description of the comic as a way to approach these three anti-suffrage comedies, it becomes apparent that each male playwright employs one or more of these tactics in order to strip the women’s suffrage cause of its dignity, turning it into a joke. Although the designation of these pieces as comedy endows each play with a sort of lightness, aggressive hostility towards the suffrage cause permeates each text. While Freud addresses comic tactics, Molière offers insight into the purpose and function of comedy. In his preface to Tartuffe, he writes: “the mission of comedy is to correct men’s vices” (2). When applied to these anti-suffrage comedies, it appears that each male playwright is attempting to “correct” what they deem defiant and unnatural female views. Each play “corrects” these “vices” by emphasizing the impossibility or potential consequences of supporting this type of political advancement.

72 While pro-suffrage comedies adapted comic form in a way that reversed preconceived notions about women’s social roles in Britain, anti-suffrage comedies celebrated conventional comic form, using its traditional principles and structures to validate the protagonists’ own political beliefs and belittle their opponents. Of particular importance in the distinction between pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage comedy is the stark contrast between past and future. In form, content, and overall message, anti-suffrage comedy seems to celebrate the past while exposing its fear of the future. Within the anti-suffrage texts examined, traditional modes of comedy are employed to present the belief that society should remain in a state of political stasis, without social advancement or the reparation of problematic gender disparities. This point is illuminated clearly in Votes for Children, wherein Hutchinson warns audiences about what a politically progressive future—defined primarily by gender equality—would look like in Britain. In contrast, pro-suffrage comedy fundamentally endorses the future, and the social change that characterizes it, by revolutionizing and reinterpreting the history of comedy and the history of women.

Although the two uses of comedy offer opposing political messages, where they are undeniably similar is in their focus on the new woman character. Whether she is being dismissed or celebrated, the comic new woman is the key focus within each play, acknowledging her existence and relevance both on and offstage in Britain. If anything, it seems that the existence of anti-suffrage comedy paradoxically affirmed the new woman’s social power, proving that she posed a very real threat to old-fashioned belief systems. Anti-suffrage comedy thus solidifies the new woman as an important and powerful figure. Much like Antsey’s parodies of Ibsen’s work, this adamant attempt to combat her influence demonstrates that she was a worthy opponent, capable of the type of social and political change that would change British society forever. Anti-

73 suffrage comedies attempted to discredit the new woman figure, and in doing so, drew focus to her in a way that re-inscribed her importance for British audiences. Therefore, suffrage comedy—both for and against the movement—brought a sense of heightened awareness to the cause. All six plays discussed in this chapter illuminate issues of gender inequality and set the stage—literally and symbolically—for the eventual victory of the women’s suffrage campaign in

England. In this sense, both pro-suffrage and anti-suffrage comedies seemed to work, albeit unintentionally, in the case of the latter, toward the same goal: enfranchisement for women.

74 Chapter Three

Getting Married: Shaw and Comedy

An examination of the relationship between new women and modern comedy would be incomplete without consulting the canon of George Bernard Shaw. While Antsey’s parodies deployed comedy in a way that altered the representation of the new woman, and suffrage comedies used the new woman as a way to create politically motivated comedy, Shaw used both comedy and the new woman to redefine the institution of marriage. Known for his dissemination of prevailing issues of the time period, Shaw frequently explored women’s social roles within his plays. In his essay “Shaw and Revolution: The Politics of the Plays,” Martin Meisel states that

“Shaw’s politics—his Fabianism—had a strategy for achieving certain desirable social ends”

(106). Meisel defines Fabianism as:

Evolution as opposed to revolution; gradualism as opposed to catastrophism; the

achievement of socialism through constitutional and parliamentary means (initially

through the “permeation” of existing political parties and local government);

collaboration with all progressive and meliorist forces (or “practical socialism” as

opposed to purist ideological concern); and, of course, middle-class intellectualism as

opposed to Marxist proletarianism. (107)

There are undeniable parallels between Shaw’s political beliefs and his dramatic works. In fact,

Meisel argues that “Shaw’s playwriting was always relevant to his politics” (106).

While Shaw’s political views often dictated the content of his plays, they also had an impact on his dramatic style. Meisel states that “his plays, like all plays, [were] designed to engage and manage an audience by creating a flow of response. They [were], in other words,

75 strategies for achieving certain aesthetic ends” (106). Although he was heavily influenced by politics of the time period as well as Ibsen’s social dramas, Shaw was also widely known for his use of comedy. This chapter focuses on the playwright’s treatment of female characters in

Candida (1898), Getting Married (1908), and Misalliance (1909), where Shaw uses comedy to interrogate women’s role within modern marriage. Positioning marriage as each play’s primary subject, Shaw exposed and subsequently rejected the oppressive social expectations that surrounded conventional wifehood. His unique comic structure raised vital questions about the state of British marriage, sparked debate amongst his characters and audiences, and promoted the possibility of social evolution both on and offstage.

By removing his women from their conventional role as objects of the male protagonist’s desire and placing them at the centre of his dramatic structure, Shaw—to quote Barbara Bellow

Watson—“dramatically changed the structure of comedy itself” (2). As Shaw resituates the role of women within his play structure, he simultaneously reformats the role of marriages and wedding ceremonies in each comedy. In his readjustment of traditional comic form, marriage— or the promise of marriage—is removed from its position as a celebratory conclusion, and is resituated as the main focus or subject of debate within each play. In doing so, Shaw reformats both the comic convention of marriage and the woman’s role within it. Referencing the legacy created by fallen women in early melodrama, as well as the influence of Ibsen’s tragic heroines,

Shaw’s marriage-centered comedies seek to answer Watson’s question: “Can a woman find herself (herself—not somebody's wife) without incurring death or disfigurement in doing so?”

(6). Shaw’s inclusion of strong, autonomous female characters in Candida, Getting Married, and

Misalliance suggests that a woman is able to accomplish even more than what Watson’s inquiry

76 proposes. Each comedy suggests that a woman is able to achieve and maintain a sense of personal identity not only while remaining alive, but also while being married.

In his preface to Getting Married, Shaw repeatedly expresses his strong dissatisfaction with the current state of British marriage. However, in a section titled “Marriage Nevertheless

Inevitable,” the playwright resolves that “marriage is in effect compulsory upon all normal people; and until the law is altered there is nothing for us but to make the best of it as it stands”

(6). Shaw acknowledges the impracticality of young women dismissing marriage altogether, and concludes that: “Marriage remains practically inevitable; and the sooner we acknowledge this, the sooner we shall set to work to make it decent and reasonable” (6). Fuelled by this sentiment,

Shaw’s female characters in Candida, Getting Married, and Misalliance attempt to do exactly that. Although their reasons for questioning the institution vary based on context and personal desire, the playwright’s overall representation of women in these comedies promotes the movement toward gender equality in British marriage. Shaw develops a revolutionary comic structure that reimagines the institution of marriage through the staging of comic heroines who question, reject, and reinterpret social expectations surrounding love, courtship, and marital duty.

Candida

Written in 1894 and published in 1898, Candida was included in Shaw’s Plays Pleasant collection. The piece was written as Shaw’s response to Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, offering a revised conclusion where Candida reaffirms her role as wife and mother instead of abandoning her family. According to Watson, Shaw’s intention was to emphasize that the importance of

Nora’s leaving in A Doll’s House is “not the leaving itself, but the reasons for it,” adding that “in

Candida, strength and weakness, principles of honor, all the used furniture of ideas about

77 wifehood and motherhood and love have been superseded by Candida’s question: “Oh! I am to choose, am I? I suppose it is quite settled that I must belong to one or the other” and by

Marchbanks, who translates: “She means that she belongs to herself” (Watson 13; Shaw 156).

Throughout the play, Shaw explores female autonomy within the institution of marriage without forcing his heroine to leave her husband in search of it. Shaw’s comic reinterpretation of Ibsen’s drama demonstrates the possibility of a romantic relationship defined by gender equality, suggesting that a woman can exist as both a self-governing individual and a wife. Candida repeatedly exercises power over the men in her life, weighing her romantic options and finally choosing to remain married to her husband. What is of critical importance in the analysis of

Candida is—to echo Watson’s earlier sentiment—not the repercussions of her final choice, but the fact that Shaw presented a married female character that exercises choice at all.

The three-act comedy centres on the title character Candida, her husband James Morell, and a young poet named Eugene Marchbanks. The play questions the standards surrounding

Victorian love and marriage with a particular focus on what a woman truly desires from her husband rather than what a man requires from his wife. This bold shift in perspective, signaled by the play’s title, is demonstrative of Shaw’s reformatted comic structure that approaches the subject of marriage from a female vantage point. The main action in the play unfolds when

Candida makes a brief return home from London accompanied by Marchbanks. The poet declares that he is infatuated with Candida, and that he wishes to rescue her from what he regards as a dull family life full of obligations and household duties that are beneath her. Marchbanks is also disapproving of Morell, insisting that Candida deserves more than her role as the obedient and dutiful housewife to a complacent husband. Marchbanks offers Candida his eternal love, initiating a comic love triangle that structures the entire play. The triangle serves a dual purpose

78 within the text, fuelling the majority of the play’s humour and facilitating a social debate centering on Candida’s personal desires and marital obligations. Fully aware of Marchbanks’ feelings, Candida attempts to teach the young, idealistic poet about the nature of love. She allows

Marchbanks to believe that he has a legitimate chance at winning her affections before eventually choosing the “weaker of the two,” her husband, Morell (157).

The play utilizes conventions associated with traditional romantic comedy, but in a way that is uniquely related to Shaw’s views on marriage. Watson argues that “even where the classic conclusion of comedy in a wedding takes place, the Shavian vision differs radically from tradition. None of these weddings is a simple ritual solution expected in comedy. To each the

Shavian comedy of ideas imparts some meaning that gives comfort to the woman in rebellion against the marriage panacea” (6). In the case of Candida, the play’s rightful lovers, Candida and

Morell, begin and end the play married to one another. Different from traditional comedy— which follows a pair of unmarried lovers who overcome the obstacles that delay their wedding—

Shaw suggests that marriage is not as permanent and binding as it may seem. While Candida does not choose to leave her husband for Marchbanks, Shaw makes it clear that she has the option. Although Candida has no introduction, the preface to Getting Married includes a section called “Marriage as a Magic Spell,” in which Shaw insists that a wedding does not serve as an endpoint to the lovers’ obstacles, as traditional comic form suggests. Instead he posits that marriage is a work-in-progress, accompanied by its own set of obstacles. Shaw writes: “The truth which people seem to overlook in this matter is that the marriage ceremony is quite useless as a magic spell for changing in an instant the nature of the relations of two human beings to one another” (45). Although Candida and Morell have been married for some time, Candida’s position as a freethinking individual allows her to explore other options before resuming her

79 position as Morell’s wife. Marchbanks—the force that temporarily obstructs the couple’s relationship—serves a less conventional function in Candida than the paternal obstructions found in traditional comedy. Although he is disapproving of Morell, Marchbanks possesses no power or ability to prevent the couple’s reunion. Instead, his presence temporarily obstructs

Candida’s personal beliefs, causing her to reassess her role as a wife, mother, and individual.

Within Candida, Shaw gently toys with the possibilities of infidelity and divorce, suggesting that a woman may not be fully satisfied with her married life.

This revolutionary take on conventional romantic comedy reflects Shaw’s view that a true marriage should be a pairing of equal individuals, rather than a man’s possession of his wife. In

Shaw’s comic retelling of A Doll’s House, Candida is able to accomplish what Nora cannot: the

“miracle of miracles” (Ibsen 86), where a woman can be her own independent being and reunite with her husband in an equal partnership. Shaw allows his female protagonist to undergo the process of self-discovery that Nora leaves her family in search of. Unlike Ibsen’s heroine,

Candida is afforded the opportunity to “find herself” while keeping her marriage intact. Shaw argues that a woman can be both an independent individual and a wife; the two are not mutually exclusive. Offering insight into the balance in Candida and Morell’s marriage, Harold Pagliaro states that: “Candida’s strength is a direct function of her husband’s dependency” (111). In this way, the couple’s relationship is characterized by co-dependency, with one’s weaknesses mirrored by the other’s strengths. In Candida, Shaw provides audiences with an autonomous comic heroine who celebrates both feminist values and marriage simultaneously.

80 Getting Married

First performed in 1908, Getting Married serves as a large-scale debate in the form of a play. Like Candida, the comedy focuses primarily on the status of marriage and divorce through the reassessment of accepted social norms. The piece showcases Shaw’s strong dissatisfaction with the state of British marriage and offers more than a dozen different perspectives on the subject. In his lengthy preface to the play, Shaw firmly states his belief that the “marriage law is inhuman and unreasonable to the point of downright abomination” (1). Taking place on the wedding day of Edith and Cecil, the play stages various debates about the conditions and expectations of marriage, forming a series of obstacles that delay the ceremony. The discussion of these pressing social issues form the main action of the play as each argument is addressed before the nuptials can take place. Shaw’s most prominent reevaluations of marriage and wifehood come from three of the play’s notable female characters: the bride, Edith, the

“spinster,” Lesbia, and the prospective divorcee, Leo. Each of these female characters reconsiders and ultimately rejects the conventionality of British marriage for different reasons.

Both Edith and Lesbia refuse to accept marriage unless their own personal conditions are met. Edith demands economic independence from her potential husband, while Lesbia demands a nonsmoking partner who will leave her alone for two years while she raises a child. Eventually reaching a compromise with her prospective husband, Edith marries Cecil while Lesbia remains steadfastly single throughout the play. Focussing specifically on the limitations of British marriage laws, Lesbia insists: “I want children; and I want to devote myself entirely to my children, and not to their father. The law will not allow me to do that; so I have made up my mind to have neither husband nor children” (106). Lesbia spends the majority of the play avoiding Edith’s uncle, General Boxer Bridgenorth, and his repeated romantic advancements

81 toward her. Rejecting the General’s marriage proposal for the tenth and final time, Lesbia insists that the reason is not because of another man, but rather because she does not want a husband at all. In other words, Lesbia’s future does not include a husband in the General or a husband in general. In the section of the play’s preface entitled “The Old Maid’s Right to Motherhood,”

Shaw writes:

The right to bear a child, perhaps the most sacred of all women’s rights, is not one that

should have any conditions attached to it […] There are many women of admirable

character, strong, capable, independent, who dislike the domestic habits of men […] Why

should the taking of a husband be imposed on these women as the price of their right to

maternity? I am quite unable to answer that question. (39)

Perhaps it is Shaw’s inability to answer this question that leaves Lesbia the only unmarried woman both within the play, and within the chapter. Although she seems—out of all the female characters—to be the most solidified in her feminist beliefs, it also seems that Lesbia sacrifices more than any other female character examined. She ends the play unmarried and without the promise of children, pointing toward Shaw’s inability to reconcile his own thoughts on the subject.

Before introducing Edith and Cecil, Shaw presents his audience with Leo and Reginald, a couple in the process of divorce. Although not as extreme as Lesbia, Leo also expresses her thoughts about the limitations of conventional marriage. Raising the idea of taking multiple husbands, she inquires as to why she cannot marry both Reginald and Sinjon Hotchkiss: the man she intends to leave him for. Providing a rationale for her argument, Leo says: “Well, I love them both. I should like to marry a lot of men. I should like to have Rejjy for every day, and Sinjon for concerts and theatres and going out in the evenings, and some great austere saint for about once a

82 year at the end of the season, and some perfectly blithering idiot of a boy to be quite wicked with” (117). In the section of his preface titled “The Male Revolt Against Polygyny,” Shaw offers some insight into Leo’s interest in the subject:

Experience shews that women do not object to polygyny10 when it is customary: on the

contrary, they are its most ardent supporters. The reason is obvious. The question, as it

presents itself in practice to a woman, is whether it is better to have, say, a whole share in a

tenth-rate man or a tenth share in a first-rate man. […] She would take a thousandth share,

if necessary, in a husband who was a man in a thousand, rather than have some

comparatively weedy weakling all to herself. (36)

Shaw approaches the female interest in polyandry11 from a perspective of practicality. He argues that—theoretically—a woman can maximize her time and needs with several different men rather than through the exclusive devotion to a single partner.

Over the course of the play, the male characters are regularly taken aback by the views expressed by these outspoken and unconventional female characters. For example, the General seems flabbergasted by Lesbia’s declaration that she is uninterested in the prospect of a husband.

Furthermore, the male characters are shocked by Leo’s suggestion that she might require more than one man to fulfill her. In some ways, Leo’s contemplation resembles Candida’s choice between Marchbanks and Morell as Shaw depicts a woman who can exercise choice even though she is already married. Although Leo ultimately chooses to abandon her divorce plans and

10 The state or practice of having more than one wife or female mate at a time (“Polygyny” 1). 11 The state or practice of having more than one husband or male mate at one time (“Polyandry” 1).

83 remain married to her husband, her suggestion that she might enjoy a polyandrous relationship was undeniably radical for the time period.

About half way through the play, Shaw finally introduces the relationship between the couple to be married: Edith and Cecil. Cecil has locked himself in a room and refuses to proceed with the wedding until he has finished a book on the subject of marriage and British law.

Previously unaware of the legal consequences that will inevitably accompany his marriage to

Edith—should he go through with it—Cecil soon emerges and begins to express doubts about the wedding. Involving all characters on stage, the rest of the play unfolds as a political and philosophical discussion about the rules of marriage and the role of women within it.

Throughout the dialogue, all the characters debate the previously unexamined terms of Edith and

Cecil’s marriage. Chief among these pressing issues is Edith’s financial position within her marriage:

CECIL: But surely you don't imagine that I’m going to let Edith work when we’re married.

I’m not a rich man; but I’ve enough to spare her that; and when my mother dies—

EDITH: What nonsense! Of course I shall work when I am married. I shall keep your

house. (159)

Following Cecil’s insistence that housekeeping would be an expected part of her wifely duties,

Edith suggests an amendment to the contract that will allow her to be paid for her housework.

Arguing that if the couple did not marry, Cecil would need to pay a housekeeper to perform the exact same job, Edith demands that her husband provide her with the same treatment and rate.

Placing importance on her role as an individual inside her marriage, Edith argues that receiving this salary will ensure she does not “go begging to him every time [she] want[s] a new dress or a cab fare” (159). Edith’s desire for financial independence, paired with the unconventional idea

84 that a wife’s maintenance of her home is not merely her duty, but should be regarded as a form of employment, is a bold departure from the socially accepted codes of marital decorum both within the time period and today. Cecil eventually agrees to the amendment, solidifying Edith’s sense of self within her marriage, allowing the pair to be united on equal terms.

Through the perspective of these three progressive female characters, Shaw exposes the many limitations of British marriage law and the oppressive view of women’s role within it.

Shaw chooses to stage this debate through comedy, transforming the matrimonial ending—which accompanies conventional romantic comedies—from a concluding ceremony into a subject for discussion, one that structures the entire play. Getting Married can be interpreted as having a revolutionary and feminist structure that reexamines the woman’s role within the institution of marriage. Finally, by moving the marriage of Edith and Cecil from its expected position at the play’s conclusion to a position earlier in the play, Shaw suggests that a wedding does not—as traditional comic form suggests—signal the overcoming of all obstacles, but rather that marriage itself presents obstacles that must be addressed and overcome. In Getting Married, the focus shifts from the importance of getting married to the implications of being married. While Shaw reiterates the supposed “inevitability” of marriage for women who wish to have children, experience love or own property, he also uses comedy to identify significant room for change within the institution, presenting marriage as an evolving social project rather than an obsolete tradition.

85 Misalliance

Shaw’s Misalliance was written in 1909 and published in 1910. The play, appropriately subtitled “A Debate in One Sitting,” discusses a wide range of social and political issues including, but not limited to, courtship and the movement toward gender equality. Using two distinct female characters, Shaw reimagines conventional approaches to both love and marriage.

By exposing the play’s initial “misalliances,” Shaw reevaluates oppressive ideologies about gender and relationships, ending his comedy with the pairing of two new, equal couples. This notable shift from misalliance to “re-alliance” reflects Shaw’s belief in social evolution—the movement toward gender reform in both private and public spheres. Within the comedy, the playwright offers two bold examples of new womanhood. Both of these female characters reject aspects of tradition that limit their personal autonomy, allowing them to find a male partner of their choice. These revised unions resonate with Shaw’s views on the topics of modern gender, love, and marriage. As in Candida and Getting Married, Misalliance demonstrates that a woman can retain—or even find—independence within the institution of marriage, as long as it is an equal partnership.

The play’s new woman characters are Hypatia Tarleton, the fiancée of Bentley

Summerhays, and Lina Szczepanowska, the Polish acrobat whose unexpected arrival captivates the Tarleton household. The entire play takes place on a single Sunday afternoon in the conservatory of a large country house in Surrey. The first act showcases Hypatia’s dissatisfaction with her current engagement to Bentley and her desire for “adventures to drop out of the sky”

(157), a wish that foreshadows the arrival of Lina and Hypatia’s rightful partner, Joey Percival.

The ensuing comedy, which satirizes courting and mating norms, sees a total of eight marriage proposals. As in Getting Married, the concept of marriage becomes a source of debate that fuels

86 the play’s comedy and drives the plot. While Candida and Getting Married have a strong focus on the expectations associated with married life, Misalliance emphasizes the importance of a woman’s choice prior to marriage. Shaw suggests that a woman should be free to choose a suitable romantic partner, one who will allow her to maintain a sense of autonomy within the relationship. Furthermore, Shaw’s comedy dismisses the conventional male pursuit of a passive female subject. Presenting audiences with “men effeminate” and “women unsexed” (Shaw 190), he argues that what men truly desire from both love and marriage is an equal partnership with a woman. Shaw’s focus on two strong female characters fuels this reevaluation of modern love, demonstrating what a marriage of equals should look like. On the topic of equality, both the men and women in Misalliance possess a combination of conventionally “feminine” and “masculine” qualities. The frequent coexistence of these supposedly conflicting traits provides humour while also dissolving traditional gender associations.

Hypatia is foremost a character of transformation. Over the course of the play, she undergoes a gradual process of disillusionment, which allows her to escape her misalliance with

Bentley, discover a sense of personal autonomy, and end the play with an equal romantic partner.

While traditional comic heroines are defined primarily by passivity, sexual objectification, and their relationship to their male counterpart (Carlson 11), Hypatia comes to reject these oppressive, archetypal qualities. Lina’s transfixing presence serves as a model of new womanhood for Hypatia, while Joey allows her to see romantic possibility outside of her current relationship. Thus, the Polish visitor and her guest become the comic obstruction to Hypatia and

Bentley’s impending marriage, setting in motion a course of events that ends in the re-alliance of complementary couples. In the same way that Candida considers a life with Marchbanks and Leo

87 meditates on the benefits of polyandry, Hypatia comes to recognize the importance and possibilities of female choice.

Furthermore, Shaw uses Hypatia to illuminate existing social flaws, namely “middle- class life, marriage, respectability, and women’s role in general” (Crane, “Shaw’s ‘Misalliance’”

489). Hypatia is extremely resentful of her role as a “correct and self-possessed” (Shaw 152) lady of the aristocracy who—to quote Lina’s final monologue—is “kept idle and dressed up for no other purpose than to be made love to” (214). She is often described as “restless” and

“unsatisfied” (157), embodying the modern woman’s struggle—torn and divided between social obligation and personal happiness. Moreover, Shaw makes it clear that her engagement to

Bentley is a product of parental and social expectation and not her own choice. Hypatia’s situation reflects patriarchal attitudes and social pressures of the time period; her parents claim that she “ought to have been married long ago” (217).

Joey serves as a major turning point for Hypatia, transforming her from a character of passivity into one of activity. Hypatia takes part in a “hunt-like” pursuit of Joey, rejecting conventional female behavioural codes and taking control of her own courtship. She urges Joey to “play” with her and “chase [her] through the bracken,” requests that paint her as the pursuer and highlight her newly awakened sexuality. The neglect of her fiancé and her somewhat aggressive quest for Joey serves as “the ultimate expression of her desire for real life instead of the stuffy inertia imposed on her by her smug middle-class parents” (Crane, “Shaw’s

‘Misalliance’” 480). Hypatia’s journey reflects some of the ideas expressed in Shaw’s Candida, but with a reverse outcome. The most important aspect of Hypatia’s new relationship with Joey is not the promise of marriage itself, but the fact that she is afforded the freedom to reject

Bentley and choose Joey. The play suggests that social reform does not require a flat-out

88 rejection of marriage. Instead, Shaw argues that women can find both independence and satisfaction within marriage by choosing an equal partner.

Described as “one of the most electric female characters in the Shavian gallery”

(Collins 28), Lina “break[s] the mold of the ideal lady” and embodies Shaw’s fully realized new woman (Crane, “Shaw and Women's Lib.” 180). Particularly through her independence and athleticism, Lina rejects “feminine” dress and behavioural codes, adopting an overtly androgynous identity that makes her “not only […] a role model for Hypatia Tarleton […] but for the men in the house, for the audience and for all of England” (Collins 32). Her unconventional conduct provides a direct and purposeful dismissal of female social decorum, suggesting that women should reject restrictive clothing and embrace bodily freedom. Upon being offered a gown for dinner, Lina responds: “I’m quite comfortable as I am. I am not accustomed to gowns; they hamper me and make me feel ridiculous” (230).

Furthermore, Lina’s athleticism offers “issues of difference and similarity [that] are dramatized around the theme of androgyny and sexual attraction” (Gainor 131). Although she is described as “a liberated woman who is by nature physically fit and athletic” (Collins 32), she also “retains the essence of the feminine in being irresistible to the opposite sex” (Crane, “Shaw and Women’s Lib.” 182). Lina’s erotic appeal is, for the most part, a result of her career as an acrobat. In Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance, Peta Tait discusses the reception of female aerialists around the early twentieth century, who—like acrobats—embodied this conflict between associations with “masculine” sport and “feminine” grace (28). Lina’s acrobatic skills display “remarkable physical strength—a quality that establishes her as more

“masculine” than some of the male characters in the play (Gainor 134), while at the same time

Tait’s arguments suggest that the men of the play would have conflated the “dangers of [her]

89 physical risk-taking with those of a seductive sexual identity” (Tait 21). The “double nature” that exists within the historical reception of female aerialists and acrobats suggests that “a major part of the female appeal was the arousal of fantasies of sex change in the male spectator” through the illusion of “the ambivalent sex” (36). The relationship between Lina’s acrobatic profession and androgyny is made evident upon her arrival when Tarleton says: “I must apologize, madam, for having offered you the civilities appropriate to the opposite sex. And yet, why opposite? We are all human: males and females of the same species. When the dress is the same the distinction vanishes” (164). Shaw uses Lina’s androgynous appearance to bring forth his views on gender equality in romantic relationships and in general. This particular passage also strongly “echoes

Shaw’s designation of woman as a man in petticoats” 12 (Gainor 132). Shaw uses his characterization of Lina to demonstrate society’s flawed construction of traditional gender roles and, in doing so, brings forth the idea that androgyny is “the key to new humanity” (Watson 16).

It is in the spirit of embracing this androgyny that Lina is eventually paired with Bentley, her equal partner. Bentley’s conventionally “feminine” qualities come to complement Lina’s

“masculine” qualities creating a partnership of two equal counterparts, one that holds the promise of marriage.

Throughout the play, Hypatia and Lina remain “consistently at odds with society’s mores,” either “overtly in the roles they choose,” in the case of Lina, or through their portrayal as

“outwardly obedient, but inwardly rebellious,” in the case of Hypatia (Crane, “Shaw and

12 In “Shaw’s Life: A Feminist in Spite of Himself,” Sally Peters writes that “Shaw’s feminist comment that ‘a woman is really only a man in petticoats’ has often been noted” (Shaw qtd. in Peters 19). She adds that “the ignored second half of this aphorism is just as striking. Writing that ‘a man is a woman without petticoats,’ (Shaw, qtd. in Peters 20) he makes the petticoats the essential mark of gender. That is, he confers on woman the signifying power of gender, thereby reversing the way gender was determined in his phallocratic society” (20). 90 Women’s Lib.” 175). By including these representations of women in Misalliance, Shaw challenges two traditional aspects of comedy: the male comic hero who structures the plot (Frye

162), and his subsequent marriage to the “comic muse” (Carlson 12). These departures take place as a result of Shaw’s blurring of gender roles, ones that traditional comedy relies on. That is not to say the pattern of comedy does not occur, but rather that Shaw adjusts it in a way that promotes gender equality instead of male-dominated sociocultural systems. In Women and

Comedy, Carlson states: “instead of conflict between […] the lover and the laws and mores of marriage, Shaw’s [comedy] deals preeminently with the conflict between the individual woman’s humanity and the rigidity of the sex role assigned to her” (115). Attempting to overcome these oppressive social constructions, Shaw replaces traditional gender roles with androgyny, leaving no traditional “male” character present to assume the role of the comic hero and no traditional

“female” character present to marry him. In his staging of these new women characters, Shaw disrupts traditional comic form that relies on an active male figure, and inserts his own views on gender equality in its place. Shaw allows his revolutionary views on gender equality to shape his characters, drive the plot, and eventually provide the play’s resolution.

Shaw’s use of comic form to re-evaluate marriage in Candida, Getting Married, and

Misalliance is a result of the oppressive social expectations that affected women in early- twentieth-century Britain. While women faced an array of social and political barriers, chief among these pressures was the expectation that a woman get married and that, once married, she fulfill her duties as a respectable wife and mother. Reformatting traditional comic form in way that moved marriage out of its position as a celebratory ending and positioned it as each play’s main subject, Shaw provided his audiences with several bold female characters who challenged the demands placed on the modern wife. While his comic heroines questioned the laws and

91 duties surrounding marriage in different ways, the idea that women could exercise choice or free will—both in choosing their partner, and in choosing how to approach married life—is a common theme. Whether a female character reassesses her current marriage or engagement, considers divorce or polyandry, or even chooses to remain married, Shaw’s female characters offer radical amendments to social norms of the time period.

While these women boldly reject convention, each play—true to comic form— concludes with one or more successful marriages, raising the question of why Shaw chose to celebrate marriage in his plays that criticize marriage as an institution. While Shaw certainly calls conventional views of marriage into question, he does not perform an outright dismissal of the union itself. Serving both as an advocate for his female characters, and for marriage itself,

Shaw offers unconventional approaches to romantic partnerships and married lifestyles that promote a movement toward large-scale gender equality. Through the readjustment of British laws and ideologies, Shaw specifically focuses on what women desire from marriage, rather than examining what type of woman makes an “ideal” wife. This shift in perspective transforms conventional relationships and marriages in Candida, Getting Married, and Misalliance, showcasing progressive examples of the possibilities that are presented when men and women unite on equal terms.

While Shaw’s comedies offer somewhat radical amendments to the state of British marriage, each conclusion stresses the fact that marriage—as a social institution—still requires a substantial amount of improvement. Challenges to marital convention in Shaw’s plays seem to pave the way for the more progressive comic relationships showcased in later modern drama.

The equal partnerships presented at the end of Shaw’s romantic comedies seem to anticipate

92 Terry Castle’s description of Noël Coward’s “binary portraits,” 13 which she defines as “a type of fashionable formal portrait […] with two sitters posing as mirror opposites or as a pair of overlapping, almost identical, profiles” (qtd. in Farfan 682). Although the portrait is discussed in relation to Coward, Castle states that within it, “sexual differences, including power differences, seem to be blurred or undone; masculinity and femininity lose their emotional outlines. Men and women meet on the same plane, as affectionate comrades or androgynous reflections”

(27). Shaw’s reevaluation of marriage in Candida, Getting Married, and Misalliance seems aimed at accomplishing this sense of equality between the genders. While Shaw’s comedies are prominently aimed at approaching heterosexual marriages from a renewed perspective, Lesbia remains a striking outlier. The name, paired with Shaw’s decision to leave her unmarried by the play’s end, is by no means a definitive link to queer modernism but certainly points toward the playwright’s progressiveness. Regardless of Lesbia’s sexuality, her inability to have children remains an unsolved problem in Shaw’s play and exists as a small source of tragedy within his comedy. Overall, Shaw’s approach to marriage in these comedies challenges crucial aspects of

British marriage and conventional romantic comedy, identifying critical social problems that needed to be faced both on and offstage.

13 Castle explains, using a photograph of Noël Coward as Elyot and Gertrude Lawrence as Amanda sitting across a table as “loosely mirrored opposites” (Farfan 682), that this type of portrait was “a manifestation of '20s and '30s sexual style, which so often turned upon an implicitly "homosexual" confounding of traditional sex roles. Unlike more conventional double portraiture, such as the standard heterosexual marriage portrait in which the husband stands behind his seated or otherwise visually subordinated spouse, the binary portrait emphasizes the sameness and equality of the two individuals portrayed” (qtd. in Farfan 682). Farfan adds that “Coward's interest in androgyny in Private Lives is evident not only in his sense of Amanda and Elyot as equivalents, but in his representation of them as individual male and female characters who are nonetheless ambiguously gendered” (683).

93 Conclusion

The analysis of the new woman and her relationship to modern comedy in the late- nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries leads to the conclusion that she was a complex and multi-faceted character that cannot be simply defined. Within the Ibsen parodies, suffrage comedies, and Shaw comedies examined, the depiction of the new woman varies drastically.

Although these works appear within the same theatrical-historical moment, different playwrights from different backgrounds provide varying perspectives on this female heroine, bringing forth a debate about her representation, impact, and legacy.

In some ways, comedy was used to celebrate and empower her while, in other instances, comedy was used to diminish her complexity or discredit her entirely. While these representational discrepancies complicate her definition, the fact that this character was constantly re-visited, re-visioned,14 and revised throughout the period emphasizes her cultural, social, and political significance. As a result, I conclude that the new woman character was not defined by any particular, uniform trait, but that she can be understood by the conversation and response she provoked. Antsey’s Ibsen parodies functioned as a response to Ibsen’s original new woman characters, pro and anti-suffrage comedies used the new woman character to debate with one another on the topic of women’s enfranchisement, and Shaw used his comedies to debate women’s role in marriage. Thus, the comic new woman is defined by re-visitation, reassessment, and re-inscription both on the modern stage and within society.

14 Adrienne Rich states that "re-vision is the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction." She adds that re-vision is "more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival" (35).

94 While the new woman disappeared from theatrical focus after the first-wave feminist movement, this figure has been revisited in recent years by contemporary feminist playwrights.

In her article “Making the Bones Sing: The Feminist History Play, 1975-2010,” Katherine E.

Kelly notes this frequent return to the late-nineteenth-to-early-twentieth century. Citing plays such as Age of Arousal (2007) by Linda Griffiths and Her Naked Skin (2008) by Rebecca

Lenkiewicz, which focus on new women characters at the time of the suffrage movement, and In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play (2009) by Sarah Ruhl, a comedy about female sexuality and hysteria in the 1880s, Kelly argues that these female playwrights revisit history in order to

“reform the pasts assigned to women” (645). While she does not explicitly state the playwrights’ reasons for reexamining the new woman figure, it seems that contemporary artists and audiences have something to gain from this “selective retrieval of past events” (652).

The return to this time period suggests that the new woman can assist audiences in understanding and analyzing both the past and the present. What can be further gleaned from these snapshots of contemporary feminist theatre is that the relationship between this important political figure and theatrical genre is one that continues to evolve. As these texts revisit the past, they bring the present along with them. Each female playwright examines issues surrounding the first-wave feminist movement but within the context of contemporary feminism. By doing so, the new woman is released from her position as a historical figure and repositioned, among other issues such as race, class, and sexuality, as a relevant topic. This present-day engagement with the new woman’s history and legacy highlights the ongoing need for gender equality, pointing toward the future. These playwrights do not suggest that no progress has been made—second and third waves of feminism have taken place since the early-twentieth century. They instead

95 remind us that in order to understand women’s current social and political position, and to work toward changing it, we must recognize, comprehend, and evaluate the past.

In reference to Ruhl’s use of comedy in In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play, Kelly notes, “feminism of necessity has always had a sense of humor” (659). Kelly’s point seems to resonate with the conclusions drawn from all three chapters in this thesis, as each individual play uses comedy as a tactic. Comedy provides entertainment and instruction, informing audiences about their society and promising progress. What is unique about using comedy—as opposed to tragedy or drama—to explore the relationship between the new woman and society lies in comedy’s most basic functions and goals. In her book Comic Persuasion: Moral Structure in

British Comedy from Shakespeare to Stoppard, Alice Rayner argues that, in its various forms,

“comedy consistently proclaims its usefulness” and “has the capacity to offer hope as well as correction” (1). Thus, while identifying key social problems, these specific alterations of comedy promote the possibility and inevitability of change. As a result, the relationship between the new woman and comedy creates a lasting and evolving legacy that brings further understanding to theatre history and provides insight into this important figure, and the change she facilitated, socially, politically, and culturally.

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