TY - JOUR

T1 - Geographies of oppression : the cross-border politics of (m)othering: 'The break of day' and 'A yearning'.

AU - Aston, Elaine

N1 - http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=TRI The final, definitive version of this article has been published in the Journal, Theatre Research International, 24 (3), pp 247-253 1999, © 1999 Cambridge University Press.

PY - 1999/9

Y1 - 1999/9

N2 - In the autumn of 1995 the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester, UK, staged two plays which offer a dramatic treatment of the politics of motherhood: Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Break of Day (Haymarket Mainhouse, first performance 26 October 1995) and Ruth Carter's A Yearning (Haymarket Studio, 31 October to 4 November 1995). Neither play had significant box-office success, and The Break of Day received poor and hostile reviews from (male) critics, many of whom, like Paul Taylor for The Independent, commented on the play as a dramatization of ‘how the maternal drive can cause women to betray orthodox feminism’. My counter argument is that by addressing infertility as a feminist issue for the 1990s, both plays index the need to re-conceive a politics of motherhood in an international arena, highlighting the ways in which the biological contours of women's lives are globally mapped with the specificities of social, material and cultural geographies.

AB - In the autumn of 1995 the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester, UK, staged two plays which offer a dramatic treatment of the politics of motherhood: Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Break of Day (Haymarket Mainhouse, first performance 26 October 1995) and Ruth Carter's A Yearning (Haymarket Studio, 31 October to 4 November 1995). Neither play had significant box-office success, and The Break of Day received poor and hostile reviews from (male) critics, many of whom, like Paul Taylor for The Independent, commented on the play as a dramatization of ‘how the maternal drive can cause women to betray orthodox feminism’. My counter argument is that by addressing infertility as a feminist issue for the 1990s, both plays index the need to re-conceive a politics of motherhood in an international arena, highlighting the ways in which the biological contours of women's lives are globally mapped with the specificities of social, material and cultural geographies.

U2 - 10.1017/S030788330001909X

DO - 10.1017/S030788330001909X

M3 - Journal article

VL - 24

SP - 247

EP - 253

JO - Theatre Research International

JF - Theatre Research International

SN - 1474-0672

IS - 3

ER -