The Cambridge Companion to the Actress

by Edited by Maggie B. Gale , John Stokes

• ISBN13: 9780521608541
• ISBN10: 0521608546
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-02-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This Companion brings together sixteen new essays which examine, from various perspectives, the social and cultural role of the actress throughout history and across continents. Each essay focuses on a particular stage in her development, for example professionalism in the seventeenth century; the emergence of the actress/critic during the Romantic period and, later on, of the actress as best selling autobiographer; the coming of the drama schools which led to today's emphasis on the actress as a highly-trained working woman. Chapters consider the image of the actress as a courtesan, as a 'muse', as a representative of the 'ordinary' housewife, and as a political activist. The collection also contains essays on forms, genres and traditions - on cross dressing, solo performance, racial constraints, and recent Shakespeare - as well as on the actress in early photography and on film. Its unique range will fascinate, surprise and instruct theatre-goers and students alike.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. vii
Notes on contributors	p. ix
Acknowledgements	p. xii
Introduction	p. 1
Turning points
Revolution, legislation and autonomy	p. 15
Spectacle, intellect and authority: the actress in the eighteenth century	p. 33
Cultural formations: the nineteenth-century touring actress and her international audiences	p. 52
The actress as photographic icon: from early photography to early film	p. 74
The actress and the profession: training in England in the twentieth century	p. 95
Out of the ordinary: exercising restraint in the post-war years	p. 116
Icons and labourers: some political actresses	p. 134
Professional opportunities
The actress as manager	p. 157
By herself: the actress and autobiography, 1755-1939	p. 173
The screen actress from silence to sound	p. 193
Side doors and service elevators: racial constraints for actresses of colour	p. 215
Genre, form and tradition
Mirroring men: the actress in drag	p. 235
'Studies in hysteria': actress and courtesan, Sarah Bernhardt and Mrs Patrick Campbell	p. 253
Beyond the muse: the Spanish actress as collaborator	p. 272
Going solo: an historical perspective on the actress and the monologue	p. 291
Changing Shakespeare: new possibilities for the modern actress	p. 314
General reading	p. 327
Index	p. 330
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