Hi all
I left a post a few months ago about the all-female Doll's House I'm directing, we start rehearsing tomorrow and I'm drawing up a reading list. Would be great to get each actress to read one feminist theory book which may be relevant to our production but a) not having read many myself and b) wanting to not have read what they'll be readin to make sure each is creating their own interpretation, I'd be so grateful for some suggestions/recommendations
I think I'm going ask them for "Who Stole Feminism" and "The Female Eunuch", I need 6 books in total though.
At the moment we're exploring I suppose post-feminist ideas ie we have almost all the tangible equalities sorted (right to vote, can do everything a man can o without needing legal permission from our husbands, we can divorce and hold almost any job a man can) but because we live in a patriarchal society which it takes a lot more to change because it is so embedded in everyone's psyche, women have to contort themselves into male roles or men's perceptions of female sterotypes, it is not an equal socity until a woman stockbroker doesn't need to go to lapdancing clubs with clients and we get a female prime minister who does not have the smallest number of women in her cabinet since the war. Also interested in the pressures women put themselves under in order to be the best at everything, after feminism has fought for our rights to work, stay at home with our children, be married or not...our right to choice meaning we try to choose everything, and therefore the characters we create for ourselves to seperate out these roles.
We're at the start of rehearsals so I think have a lot of thinking and working out to do to understand exactly what we're trying to say with this production, but the actresses will still be playing men in order to see the characters through female eyes, not turning the male characters into women.
Any ideas??? Thanks!