Staging women in prisons: Clean Break Theatre Company’s dramaturgy of the cage
Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: The article explores the limitations of the dramaturgies of the cell through a close reading of several key play texts commissioned by the UK’s leading arts in criminal justice organisation working with women, Clean Break. The apparently humanist positioning of women in prison as just like everyone else erases the specificity of women’s backstories. Conversely, by adhering to the constructions of female prisoners as holding binary positions of either ‘monsters’ or ‘victims’ of the system, plays can re-inscribe morally unitary approaches to women’s deviance and resistance. Many plays about women in prison hold a claim for resisting stereotypes and are in opposition to the injustice of criminal justice processes, and yet, in the realist mode, the monster/ victim position seems to be an inescapable binary.
Author: Aylwyn Mae Walsh
Institution: University of Lincoln
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1785532636