Performing Gender in Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London

Jowitt, Claire ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5232-7003 (2015) Performing Gender in Robert Wilson’s The Three Ladies of London. In: Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies:. UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

The ethical dilemma that the play attempts to resolve is the competition between the female characters (Lucre, Conscience, and Love) for mastery over the behaviour and morals of Englishmen, and by so doing it initiates a battle of the sexes. But the terms of the debate make it clear that there can only be one eventual winner: the men. The text evaluates women morally by their sexual continence, but simultaneously it demonstrates that women can achieve power only through promiscuity. The inevitable result is that the women cannot win the battle of the sexes set up as the play's central psycho-sexual dilemma. The play lays a trap: Conscience and Love participate in a competition where success on one level means certain failure on another. Performance options (how these roles are gendered) will inevitably shape the ways an audience experiences the ethical dilemma, and interprets its gender politics.

Item Type: Book Section
Additional Information: Performance as Research in Early English Theatre Studies: The Three Ladies of London in Context, http://threeladiesoflondon.mcmaster.ca/contexts/ClaireJowitt.htm
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Medieval History
Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Medieval and Early Modern Research Group
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Depositing User: Pure Connector
Date Deposited: 25 Jan 2016 10:00
Last Modified: 02 Nov 2022 10:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/56760
DOI:

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