Feminist Rehearsals

Gender at the Theatre in Early Twentieth-Century Argentina and Mexico

May Summer Farnsworth

• Publisher: University Of Iowa Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781609388805
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Artes escénicas

As feminism gained prominence in twentieth-century popular culture, dramatic conventions progressed accordingly, offering larger and more diverse roles for women characters. Feminist Rehearsals documents the early stages of feminist theatre in Argentina and Mexico, revealing how various aspects of performance culture—spectator formation, playwriting, professional acting and directing, and dramatic techniques—paralleled political activism and championed the goals of the women's rights movement. Through performance and protest, feminists enacted new identities and pushed for myriad social and legislative reforms during a time when women were denied suffrage and full citizenship status. Together, feminist theatre and demonstrations politicized women spectators' collective presence and promoted women's rights in the public sphere.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. “Truer Portraits”: Feminist Spectators in Turn-of-the-Century Latin America
• Chapter 1. “Dear Girls, Shout Along with Me”: Schools, Suffrage, and Political Agency
• Chapter 2. “Sweeping Away Injustice”: Redefining Women’s Honor in the Context of Social Revolution, 1912–1919
• Chapter 3. “She Made All the Women Cry”: Camila Quiroga and Women Playgoers in Argentina, 1915–1918
• Chapter 4. “Picture Yourself Married, Unhappily Married”: Melodrama and Social Change in Argentina, 1919–1927
• Chapter 5. “The Ideal Mexican Mother”: Supermadres and Women’s Citizenship in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1923–1950
• Chapter 6. “Daddy, I’m Getting a Divorce”: Gender, Comedy, and Liberated Women in Argentina, 1938 and 1945
• Chapter 7. “We Must Invent Ourselves”: Transformative Mythmakers and the Lasting Legacy of Early Twentieth-Century Women Playwrights
• Appendix A. Excerpt from Almafuerte by Salvadora Medina Onrubia (1914)
• Appendix B. Excerpt from Cosas de la vida: Comedia en tres actos (The facts of life: Comedy in three acts) by María Luisa Ocampo (1923)
• Appendix C. Yo me divorcio, Papá: Pieza en un acto (Daddy, I’m getting a divorce: A one-act play) by Malena Sándor (1937)
• Appendix D. El mundo perdido (The lost world) by Magdalena Mondragón (1952)
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Series List