Playing With Ideas

Synopsis

Australian women playwrights from the suffragettes to the sixties

Until now, the extraordinary contribution of Australian women to the development of early feminist theatre has never been fully recognised.

In Playing with Ideas Susan Pfisterer and Carolyn Pickett reveal a dynamic female tradition of Australian women's playwriting from the suffrage era to the 1960s.

Through its distinctive analysis of the range of strongly-held views of Australian women dramatists, the book offers a fresh insight into both Australian cultural history and international feminist theatre history.

It uncovers a wealth of plays motivated by social and political issues affecting women, plays which through their subversion of professional, political and personal hegemonies highlight women's struggles to become modern world citizens.