This anthology is a challenging collection of essays written by well-known feminist scholars who build on history, stage practice and theory to address a wide range of topics that cover theatre spectatorship, performance and pedagogy from a feminist perspective. Written for readers with little knowledge of the subject, the collection provides not only a history of feminist drama but also a comprehensive introduction to the modes of critical practices based on feminist thinking. Using French feminist theories, postmodern, post-colonial perspectives and psychoanalytic approaches, these essays explore the relationships between female subjectivity, class and sexuality in the theatrical field.

Feminist re-readings of male canonical playwright such as Beckett, Brecht, Eliot, Ibsen, Miller, O’Neill and Shaw are provided along with a section on women playwrights. Of special interest in the book is its sustained interrogation of theatrical representational systems which oppress and marginalize women. Taking into account the strategies used by women dramatists to claim a space for women on stage the anthology further discusses the politics of theatrical reception and production keeping especially the gender issue in mind.