American Theatre

Routledge's collection "Modern and Contemporary Dramatists", whose general editors are Maggie B. Gale and Mary Luckhurst, intends to provide readers with quality introductions both to well-known and not-so-well-known playwrights. As the outstanding publishing house declares, "[e]ach volume provides detailed cultural, historical and political material, examines selected plays in production, and theorises the playwright's artistic agenda and working methods, as well as their contribution to the development of playwriting and theatre" (). After Federico García Lorca and J. B. Priestley, the third release of the series delves into less scoured territory with Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) and Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970). 1 As befits Routledge's quality standards, the volume is complete with useful chronologies of both playwrights, a bibliography, and an index for quick reference. Endnotes are well chosen, useful, and, on top of that, in a reasonable amount (I personally prefer footnotes, though). But, precisely on account of the innovative theatrical focus of the whole series, it is impossible not to regard as a serious flaw the scarce number of (black-and-white!) plates (10 altogether) and their limited quality. Arguably, with more and better photographs the price would have soared, but I see no other way if the focus is really to be what plays look like on a stage.

Routledge's collection "Modern and Contemporary Dramatists", whose general editors are Maggie B. Gale and Mary Luckhurst, intends to provide readers with quality introductions both to well-known and not-so-well-known playwrights. As the outstanding publishing house declares, "[e]ach volume provides detailed cultural, historical and political material, examines selected plays in production, and theorises the playwright's artistic agenda and working methods, as well as their contribution to the development of playwriting and theatre" (). After Federico García Lorca and J. B. Priestley, the third release of the series delves into less scoured territory with Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) and Sophie Treadwell (1885-1970). 1 As befits Routledge's quality standards, the volume is complete with useful chronologies of both playwrights, a bibliography, and an index for quick reference. Endnotes are well chosen, useful, and, on top of that, in a reasonable amount (I personally prefer footnotes, though). But, precisely on account of the innovative theatrical focus of the whole series, it is impossible not to regard as a serious flaw the scarce number of (black-and-white!) plates (10 altogether) and their limited quality. Arguably, with more and better photographs the price would have soared, but I see no other way if the focus is really to be what plays look like on a stage.

This paper corrects three widely held misunderstandings about Maxent when used in common sense reasoning: That it is language dependent; That it produces objective facts; That it subsumes, and so is at least as untenable as, the paradox-ridden Principle of Insufficient Reason.

Starting from the material aspects of the journey of Irish Immigrants towards the United States, this paper offers an analysis of the way Irish immigrants are confronted with a definition of their Irish / American identity in the plays of Eugene O'Neill. Defining one's new identity without losing oneself is a challenge which Irish characters have to meet in order to belong in the New World. In this respect, this spiritual journey and the way it is presented in the plays, echoes O'Neill's permanent questioning about people belonging to the world. Consequently, Irish immigration and the integration of the Irish in the New World could prove to be a key element in the understanding of O'Neill's works.

Xavier Gallais dans Splendid's : détail. Captation d'écran, crédits : J. Mézergues. Juliette Mezergues : Bonjour Xavier, merci beaucoup d'avoir accepté cet entretien. Tu travailles depuis plusieurs années avec le metteur en scène Arthur Nauzyciel, qui lui-même, a initié un compagnonnage de longue date avec des acteurs américains. Nous allons parler de Splendid's de Jean Genet, qu'il a mis en scène et que tu viens de jouer en direct les 17, 18 et 19 novembre 2020, dans une version digitale via la plateforme Zoom dans le cadre du Festival TNB 1. Il s'agit de la recréation d'un spectacle, où tu es le seul acteur français parmi une distribution américaine, que vous avez tourné pendant trois ou quatre ans et que vous aviez déjà présenté sur scène en 2018 lors de ce même festival. Aviez-vous une reprise prévue ? Comment avez-vous pris la décision d'adapter le spectacle pour ce type de média ? Xavier Gallais : On avait créé le spectacle en 2015. Puis, on l'a tourné. Pendant le premier confinement, un des acteurs américains a demandé si on voulait se retrouver tous ensemble, ne serait-ce que pour parler, évoquer des projets, faire des lectures… Contrer la solitude et l'incertitude. Pour eux, les conditions sont encore pires que pour nous. Cet acteur n'en pouvait plus et a proposé de se faire un « coucou » en visio. C'était ça au départ. J.M. : Quand aviez-vous joué pour la dernière fois ? Xavier Gallais : Ça remonte au moins à deux ans. Mais deux de ces acteurs travaillent avec Arthur Nauzyciel depuis presque vingt ans. Ils étaient quasiment sur son premier spectacle, un Koltès il me semble, et d'autres ont travaillé sur Julius Caesar 2 de William Shakespeare qu'il a créé il y a une dizaine d'années. Certains de Splendid's ont remplacé, il y a environ un an, des acteurs pour la reprise de Julius Caesar au TNB. Ils se sont revus relativement récemment. Ce sont des gens qui collaborent Splendid's : métaphore de notre enfermement et objet de survie. Entretien ave...

This article examines the theatrical representation of race and its political implications in Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon (2014), a modern reworking of Dion Boucicault's play The Octoroon (1859). It offers a critical analysis of An Octoroon that compels readers to recognize that race, although a product of historical construction, holds significant realworld implications. The discussion of the play begins with its prologue, the importance of which has not been addressed sufficiently by critics. After delving into Jacobs-Jenkins' diagnosis of colorblind American society through his alter-ego character, BJJ, the essay examines how Boucicault's original play presents an ambiguous gaze that creates a masking practice often overlapping with colorblind subjects who refuse to address the existing racial inequality and prejudice that Jacobs-Jenkins critiques. Despite The Octoroon's sympathetic treatment of the mixed-race heroine's suffering body, Boucicault's stage version gradually endorses a white hegemony that defines race as an invisible essence while separating the white audience from the racialized spectacle. The final section revisits An Octoroon and argues that the adaptation's use of the oppositional gaze and the materiality of a photograph as a reflective visual medium challenges the easy separation between the spectacle of race and the perspectives of white viewers.

ASSESSING the body of Maxwell Anderson's works is no easy task. For at times the texts he wrote were paradoxical, brilliant now and then, pompous and superficial on occasion. Contradictory, too, were some of the things he went on record as having said. It is therefore difficult to come to solid conclusions about the man and his works. For often when one establishes a premise, the opposite assertion seems to apply no less well. In his youth Anderson read the English classics with a passion. At the University of North Dakota, he was influenced by his association with F. H. Koch, who is said to have made his students 'glow with his own abundant love for Shakespeare and the other masters of thespian magic'. 1 The 'glow' would shine through Anderson's playwriting career. Anderson was familiar with nineteenthcentury American theatre, and appears to have had no qualms about borrowing from it. His Night over Taos has echoes of David Belasco's The Rose of the Rancho, about the American conquest of Spanish-held lands; and Cavalier King, which was never produced, is not unlike Charles II, by H. Payne and Washington Irving. Interestingly enough, Washington Irving appears as the narrator in Anderson's Knickerbocker Holiday. Moreover, Both Your Houses, which satirized the United States Congress, is not unlike Androboras, a farce that ridiculed the New York Senate, and which may have been written by the Governor of the Province, Robert Hunter, in 1719. In Valley Forge Anderson pays homage to the British players who, during the American War of Independence, continued to stage plays in theatres in Philadelphia and New York. Finally, in a way that seems to have been inspired by G. H. Boker, whose verse drama Francesca da Rimini was first produced in 1855, Anderson strove to restore verse to the American stage. The American theatre during Anderson's formative years was more geared to entertainment than artistic expression. Vaudeville artists attracted large audiences, as did spectacular revues like the Ziegfeld Follies and musical comedies like George M. Cohan's Johnny Jones. With this in mind, Anderson tried to incorporate the musical and slapstick elements into plays like Knickerbocker Holiday, High Tor, and Lost in the Stars. But unlike many of the earlier American playwrights, Anderson sought to make his texts serious as well as entertaining: Knickerbocker

La morte di Apolline Maretzek, mancata domenica sera 17 gennaio del 1909, all'età di novant'anni, nella sua casa di Huguenot, Staten Island, fu segnalata dai giornali americani in alcuni trafiletti che ne ricordavano essenzialmente la carriera di cantante d'opera e il matrimonio con l'impresario Max Maretzek. 1 Apolline nacque in Francia e studiò l'arpa con Théodore Labarre, che la considerava una sua allieva prodigiosa, tanto da portarla con lui a suonare in svariate occasioni: era "una ragazzina paurosa il cui maestro, tutto glorioso in lei, tuttavia, vedeva crescere con geloso terrore". 2 La Revue de Paris ci informa che nell'ottobre del 1836 il posto di docente di arpa al Conservatorio di Parigi era ancora vacante, dopo la morte di François-Joseph Naderman, e tutti gli occhi erano puntati su Labarre, come suo successore naturale; egli tuttavia non ottenne l'incarico e decise quindi di aprire una sua scuola di arpa: Martedì scorso siamo stati al Gymnase Musical per giudicare i risultati dei suoi insegnamenti. Agli allievi del giovane professore sono stati tributati i più vivi applausi. Abbiamo particolarmente notato le esecuzioni di M. Félix Godefroy, Mlle Jourdan e Mlle Bertucat. Si consoli il signor Labarre di non essere annoverato tra i professori del Conservatorio; deve conoscere il rango che occupa nella stima del pubblico, ed è in questa opinione che troverà la ricompensa per i suoi nobili sforzi. 3

The purpose of this paper is to show that the reception of contemporary American biographical drama "Sunrise at Campobello" by Dore Schary produces cathartic (bibliotheraupetic) effects on contemporary recipients. Bibliotherapy is renowned as the sociological method of "curing through reading" and our research shows that some basic elements of "Sunrise at Campobello", such as universal themes, situations and characters correspond with key bibliotheraupetic goals: identification, projection, catharsis and insight. The research was conducted through the surveying of 30 participants, divided into two groups: readers and viewers of screen adaptation of the aforementioned drama. Apart from describing the key theoretical concepts of bibliotherapy and catharsis, this paper provides a descriptions of the methodology and results of the research.

Kraj 20. i početak 21. stoljeća zabilježio je pojavu novih trendova na scenama vodećih europskih kazališta koja su se, pod krinkom minimalizma i umjetničke sofisticiranosti, postupno „riješila“ svih dramskih elemenata koji su povezivali kazalište s publikom. Sve je počelo s epskim kazalištem koje je osudilo emocionalnu identifikaciju publike s likovima iz drama, a slijedilo je kazalište apsurda koje je predstavilo potpuno nerealan svijet i likove nalik karikaturama, s kojim se publika nije mogla identificirati. Posljednje je stiglo in-yer-face kazalište, popularizirajući negativne emocije i likove, pod izgovorom da prikazuje težak i besmislen svakodnevni ljudski život koji treba kritizirati. S druge strane, američko kazalište glavne struje nastavilo je funkcionirati slijedeći osnovne postavke realizma i u 21. stoljeću, promovirajući pozitivne emocije, pozitivne likove i katarzu. Usporedba europskog s američkim suvremenim kazalištem rezultirala je hipotezom prema kojoj suvremene auto...

If in many ways its aims are comparable to those of novelistic realism (a focus on ordinary characters and contemporary social issues), melodrama exhibits a form of realism all its own. This essay focuses on several elements of that form, especially on the workings of the tableau. At the moment of tableau, acting bodies suddenly freeze to make a silent and still stage picture whose significance can be interpreted. Though the critical history of the tableau is tightly related to genre painting, its formal operations within melodrama are more complex than the aim to offer verisimilitude in the depiction of ordinary life. Tableaux establish the melodramatic narrative form characterised by intermittent pictorialization. They interrupt the dramatic action, summing up the plot so far and adumbrating action to come; they form ‘points’ on which the suspense of dramatic unfolding might hang; and these sudden moments of silence and stasis carry affective and intellectual points as well. Using...

The subject matter of mental illness has fascinated artists and writers for centuries. Filmmakers have responded in diverse and innovative ways to the artistic challenge of portraying mental illness. In this thesis, I focus on the representations of mental illness in six recent films from

The nineteenth-century marked the achievement of the highest expressive potential of the coreutic performing experience. From the 1840s onwards, a new route was mapped out, resulting in a substantial migration of European dancers to the shores of the United States. The attraction at the origin of this migration is the romantic ballerina. Some of these extraordinarily adaptable dancers would integrate perfectly; others would become fleeting ambassadors of European culture in the New World, leaving an indelible mark and bringing back an experience that would certainly enrich their reinterpretation of the ballet tradition.

The nineteenth-century marked the achievement of the highest expressive potential of the coreutic performing experience. From the 1840s onwards, a new route was mapped out, resulting in a substantial migration of European dancers to the shores of the United States. The attraction at the origin of this migration is the romantic ballerina. Some of these extraordinarily adaptable dancers would integrate perfectly; others would become fleeting ambassadors of European culture in the New World, leaving an indelible mark and bringing back an experience that would certainly en-rich their reinterpretation of the ballet tradition.

This article offers a comparative reading of two transCanadian short stories: Nalo Hopkinson's "A Habit of Waste" (2001) and Shauna Singh Baldwin's "We are not in Pakistan" (2007). Both stories focus on young women who are descendants of migrant parents in North America-Cynthia from the Caribbean in the first, and Kathleen from Pakistan in the second-and aspire to fit into dominant models of postfeminist femininity. Both narratives trace the protagonists' similar change of attitude, from their utter rejection of their gendered racialized bodies, to them finally embracing their cultural hybridity. This process is triggered by the affective relationship-which equally changes from disgust to respect-that each girl develops with an elderly figure that, to them, clearly embodies the minority culture they have repudiated. My analysis foregrounds the shared intersectional politics of these two works with regard to race, gender and class, and their common critique of mainstream postfeminism and hegemonic neoliberalism.

Considerable attention has been paid across international contexts to structural factors affecting the sustainability of the early childhood workforce. While attention to these elements is vital, it can nevertheless overshadow less tangible elements that may contribute to, or assist in addressing, problems of workforce sustainability. In particular, an existing body of literature suggests that discourses and subjectivities play an important role in informing early childhood practice. In this article we report on an interpretative meta-analysis of 38 empirical studies from 9 countries, which are concerned with ways early childhood educators negotiate discourses and subjectivities informing early childhood practice. We found that early childhood educators participating in these empirical studies used a highly complex set of strategies to negotiate the relations of power that operate within and between discourses and subjectivities informing early childhood practice. We conclude that u...

This article analyzes some of the multiple dimensions of hybridity in Getting Home Alive (1986) by Puerto Ricans Aurora Levins Morales and Rosario Morales. This revolutionary autobiography is experimental in both form and content, containing poems, stories, journals, reportage and so forth. It is not clearly categorized in terms of genre, it does not defy any one culture or language and it presents a sense of place rooted in multiple places. The voices of mother and daughter fuse into one, together with the voices of all their ancestors. The multiple sensitivities of both women, products of multidirectional migrations, ethnicities, cultures, languages and classes are symbolized in their grounding of themselves at a crossroads which embraces a relational collective identity, wholeness and choice, while rejecting fragmentation or alienation.

Boucicault's Octoroon was famously 'adapted' by the author in response to British audience's discomfort with Zoe's death in 1861. As it turns out, however, a play very similar to Boucicault's appeared in England nearly a year before its British debut. The Quadroon; or, the Sun Picture (1860) is not simply an act of plagiarism, or even simply an adaptation of Boucicault's play. Instead, it is a pastiche of the sources Boucicault drew on for his play, along with unmistakable elements of Boucicault's-a kind of metaadaptation. I focus on how The Quadroon incorporates The Octoroon's use of photography and his sources for the idea of a camera capturing a murderer in the act. What emerges is a play that offers a different representation of the figure of the photographer, the dynamics of racial justice, and the dynamics of racial visuality. By focusing on the use of photography in The Octoroon, The Quadroon, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins's An Octoroon (2014), I explore more broadly how the spectacle of photographic technology on stage itself offers a self-reflexive commentary on melodramatic form and structure. Melodramas that stage photography both highlight the strange temporality of the tableau and ask us to think of photography as both a frozen image (a product) and kinetic act (a process and performance).

This article offers a comparative reading of two transCanadian short stories: Nalo Hopkinson's "A Habit of Waste" (2001) and Shauna Singh Baldwin's "We are not in Pakistan" (2007). Both stories focus on young women who are descendants of migrant parents in North America-Cynthia from the Caribbean in the first, and Kathleen from Pakistan in the second-and aspire to fit into dominant models of postfeminist femininity. Both narratives trace the protagonists' similar change of attitude, from their utter rejection of their gendered racialized bodies, to them finally embracing their cultural hybridity. This process is triggered by the affective relationship-which equally changes from disgust to respect-that each girl develops with an elderly figure that, to them, clearly embodies the minority culture they have repudiated. My analysis foregrounds the shared intersectional politics of these two works with regard to race, gender and class, and their common critique of mainstream postfeminism and hegemonic neoliberalism.

This article offers a comparative reading of two transCanadian short stories: Nalo Hopkinson's " A Habit of Waste " (2001) and Shauna Singh Baldwin's " We are not in Pakistan " (2007). Both stories focus on young women who are descendants of migrant parents in North America—Cynthia from the Caribbean in the first, and Kathleen from Pakistan in the second—and aspire to fit into dominant models of postfeminist femininity. Both narratives trace the protagonists' similar change of attitude, from their utter rejection of their gendered racialized bodies, to them finally embracing their cultural hybridity. This process is triggered by the affective relationship—which equally changes from disgust to respect—that each girl develops with an elderly figure that, to them, clearly embodies the minority culture they have repudiated. My analysis foregrounds the shared intersectional politics of these two works with regard to race, gender and class, and their common...

; estética brechtiana; teoría del cuerpo; Suzan-Lori Parks; Eve Ensler; Lynn Nottage. ABS TRACT In this article we intend to analyze theatre as a privileged (yet problematic) site to denounce how women's bodies have been traditionally dissected and objectified under patriarchal scrutiny. To achieve this purpose we explore the controversial staging of the feminine body within feminist practice and concentrate on a study of three plays by contemporary American female playwrights so as to determine the performative aesthetics allowing for the dismantling of such traditional essentialist gaze. Our analysis of Suzan Lori-Parks's Venus (1996), Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues (1996), and Lynn Nottage's Ruined (2007) demonstrates how the feminist discourse aiming to destabilize normative notions of femininity may result in a misleading representation of female corporealities that, paradoxically enough, might accentuate those hegemonic notions that were originally intended to be dismantled. We support our study with the analysis of the strategies these authors resort to in their endeavor to revise traditional meanings associated to women's anatomies and to defy dominant constructions of femininity. On that account, we identify the risks and difficulties that the (mis)representation of women's embodied experiences from a feminist perspective may bring about. RES UMEN En este artículo se trata de analizar el teatro como lugar privilegiado, aunque también problemático, desde el que denunciar el modo en que los cuerpos

Melodrama is a mixed or transmedial artform that, having migrated from stage to film, television and digital screens, typically combines plastic arts (tableau, mise en scéne, filmic close-up, sculptural poses) with performative arts (stage and screen acting, declamation, singing, orchestral or other music). It emerged first in the eighteenth century when Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote and composed his "scene lyrique" Pygmalion, a formally innovative and experimental adaptation of the story from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

To cite and quote from thi essay please go to the published version, which is published in Oxford Research Encyclopedia. https://oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-1075

https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1075

This paper aims at studying the melodramatic mode presented in Yusuf Kurçenli's film, Gönderilmemiş Mektuplar (Unsent Letters), and reading it as the reprisal of Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım (The Red Scarf). Starting from the fact that melodrama is not a mere collection of codes set in such themes as love, coincidence, the hindrance of heterosexual unification, missed chances and musical representation of thoughts and emotions, but it is a modality that attaches itself to any narrative and reshapes itself according to the structure it is attached, this study supports the idea that the Gönderilmemiş Mektuplar recalls its generic (= of its genre) past, that it mediatises the Yesilcam melodramas as a modality and expands their borders as a genre. Gönderilmemiş Mektuplar defines itself clearly as a melodrama in an era when genres are not pure anymore. This film that once again brings together two of Yesilcam's unforgettable stars Türkân Şoray and Kadir Inanir in a 'love story', addresses its audience using the codes of Yesilcam. This study, therefore, first of all clarifies the language of melodrama, and then it studies how the film (Gönderilmemiş Mektuplar) circulates the modality of melodrama, keeping Yesilcam films in mind. The common codes between Gönderilmemiş Mektuplar and Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım are also examined in terms of intertextuality to shed light on how Gönderilmemiş Mektuplar mediatises the preceding Yesilcam melodramas. Thus, it has been clarified that the film, Gönderilmemiş Mektuplar, has thematic references to Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım, that it has transformed it in terms of narrative and value, and that it employs intertextuality, which is defined as a cliché, because it circulates the narrative and visual conventions of Yesilcam melodramas. As conclusion, it has been observed that melodrama is a genre that is passionately attached to its past, and the film places its narrative into a political context while it recalls its past, and thus it tries to remind us of the political, as well as its generic and individual past.

Adding annotation and markup to linguistic corpora has become a standard practice in corpus building over the past few decades as a way to facilitate data extraction and at the same time guarantee that new corpora are compatible with existing and future tools. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we provide an overview of the main forms of annotation and markup available to the research community and how they have been applied to the Corpus of Historical English Law Reports 1535-1999 (CHELAR), a specialized corpus consisting of law reports or records of judicial decisions. Second, we give an account of preliminary research based on the annotated versions of CHELAR, which so far has been primarily aimed at identifying the distinctive linguistic characteristics of law reports, as well as at investigating how the language of law reports has evolved over a time span of almost five centuries. Our article illustrates the multiple advantages of applying a simple annotation schema to a corpus and how this can enhance the potential of a corpus for historical genre analysis. Etiquetado y anotación lingüística en el Corpus of Historical English Law Reports (CHELAR): potencial para el análisis textual desde la perspectiva histórica El etiquetado y anotación lingüística de un corpus se ha convertido en una práctica generalizada en las últimas décadas, con el objetivo de facilitar la extracción de datos del ATLANTIS

What is really particular about the American theater in the 20th century? In fact, it is only in this century that the American theater knew a brilliant and a new start; it ceased to be a show – only a spectacle – and became an art. To deal with the American theater is to talk about periods, schools, groups, figures, doings and undoings. Though it is not possible to talk about the whole American theater, even within the confines of the 20th century, in a paper like the present one, I consider it possible to render a short synopsis of its general trends and prominent figures, each pretending to be new, but each drawing to a close after a certain period of existence, and paving the stage for something new.

The economic Depression had a considerable effect on the American stage inasmuch as it gave birth to a multitude of theatrical groups, both professional and amateurish. Theater as a whole was responding to the difficult economic and social situation by tackling social problems and trying to give the American society remedies of hope and pride. This was no ‘time for comedy’, nor for mere artistic experiment with symbolism or expressionism, as it had been the case during the Twenties. The Thirties were rather a time of social protest, and for the young playwrights they were a time of commitment. Some of them imported not only social and revolutionary ideas from Russia, but even forms of theater (such as the Stanislavski System.) Along this line of the ‘Depression Theater’ worked groups such as the Theater Union, the Federal Theater Project, the Labor Stage, the Theater of Action, and the Group Theater. Most of these groups laid great stress on theatricality, and more particularly on the ‘ensemble system’ and the techniques of acting and performance. The ideal group was the one that managed to elaborate a 'method,' to constitute a repertory and to look for a new public. But it was the Group Theater (1931-1941) which best incarnated this ideal. It is also unquestionably the best representative of the theater of this period.

As theorists from different fields have proved, the hegemonic discourse has excluded women from the grammar of friendship, pitching them as rivals as a requisite for the survival of patriarchy. However, real life and cultural products provide evidence that women are capable of friendship, even in isolating contexts like life-threatening disease. With an interdisciplinary approach that bridges female illness and feminist friendship via drama, this paper analyzes three plays in which bonding in the context of breast cancer is placed center stage. Friendship is presented as a form of agency that allows for the construction of a network within which the cancer patient finds tools to resist the androcentric medical discourse and to recover her capacity to decide and act. This process echoes the philosophy of the Women's Health and Breast Cancer movements in a productive feedback loop between social movements and their related cultural repertoires. Alianzas inesperadas: amistad y agencia en el teatro estadounidense sobre el cáncer de mama Como teóricos/as de diferentes campos han demostrado, el discurso hegemónico ha excluido a las mujeres de la gramática de la amistad, colocándolas como rivales como prerrequisito para la supervivencia del patriarcado. Sin embargo, la vida real y los productos culturales dan prueba de que las mujeres sí están capacitadas para la amistad, incluso en contextos que tienden a aislar, como es el de enfermedades potencialmente letales. Con un enfoque interdisciplinar que enlaza la enfermedad femenina y la amistad feminista a través del teatro, este artículo analiza tres obras en las que los lazos en el contexto del cáncer de mama se sitúan en primer plano. La amistad se presenta como una forma de agencia que permite la

Children as young as one month to 5 years are at risk of the negative consequences of being in early childhood education (ECE), a nationwide survey of more than 600 teachers reveals. 

Teachers are under pressure to provide safe quality care and education but can lack support.

The survey found that a quarter of teachers held reservations about the quality of their centre such that they would not choose to enrol their own child at it or any other centre comparable to the one they worked at.

About one-fifth of teachers reported not having time to develop relationships with children due to insufficient management support of caregiving practices and low teacher to child ratios. In the absence of positive conditions teachers sometimes chose to take work home and arrive before they were scheduled to start work or stay longer after work hours, putting themselves at risk of emotional and physical burnout.

A small but alarming proportion of teachers (12%) reported consistent under-staffing - their centre was operating in breach of the minimum teacher-child ratio regulations.  When minimum staffing ratios are not maintained added stress is placed on teachers trying to provide quality particularly when dealing with many young children with different needs at one time.  There was also concern that while a facility may on paper meet or exceed regulation standards on ratios, adequate staffing for child supervision was not always possible when adults counted as teachers within the ratio were doing other things. The rules for who counts as a ‘teacher’ in various situations do not appear to be always well understood, suggesting a possibility of not enough education on this and a lack of enforcement and regular spot checking by the Ministry of Education. 

Teachers who were significantly more likely to be happy to enrol their child at their centre or another one like it worked at centres with higher than the minimum staffing ratio (p= .05) and staff were paid well (p= .05).  When an ECE centre shows it supports quality it is valuing children and their teachers. 

The results suggest that a greater emphasis by centre operators and the Government/ Ministry of Education on relationships in centres is needed to support all teachers to provide quality care and education.  The ability to develop relationships with children is fundamental to providing quality care that supports children to be capable and confident individuals and meet childhood curriculum (Te Whāriki) requirements. 

It is recommended that the Government and the Ministry of Education focus on quality to ensure that each and every centre supports its teachers well to provide quality care and education. The ministry should be more open about quality assurance problems and limitations, allowing greater transparency. 

Teachers clearly have a unique insiders’ view and are a key source of information about quality and what goes on in centres when parents cannot stay with their children.  It is therefore important that their views are sought and listened to.   
Report by Warwick Marshall and Karen Payne (New Zealand)
This report is available from ChildForum's website.  Also see a news release, and an analysis of responses to the report at the ChildForum website;  www.childforum.com

From 1855 until 1863, the Marsh Troupe of Juvenile Comedians, a professional acting company of approximately thirty children, entertained audiences with their nuanced performances of adult roles on stages around the globe. In Childhood and Nineteenth-Century American Theatre: The Work of the Marsh Troupe of Juvenile Actors, author Shauna Vey provides an insightful account not only of this unique antebellum stage troupe but also of contemporary theatre practices and the larger American culture, including shifts in the definition of childhood itself.
Both a microhistory of a professional theatre company and its juvenile players in the decade before the Civil War and a larger narrative of cultural change in the United States, Childhood and Nineteenth-Century American Theatre sheds light on how childhood was idealized both on and off the stage, how the role of the child in society shifted in the nineteenth century, and the ways economic value and sentiment contributed to how children were viewed.

This new collection of essays on American stage and film melodrama assesses the multifarious and contradictory uses to which melodrama has been put in American culture from the late 18th century to the present. It focuses on the various ways in which the genre has periodically intervened in debates over race, class, gender and sexuality and, in this manner, has also persistently contributed to the formation and transformation of American nationhood: from the debates over who constitutes the newborn nation in the Early Republic, to the subsequent conflict over abolition and the discussion of gender roles at the turn of the 19th century, to the fervent class struggles of the 1930s and the critiques of domestic containment in the 1950s, as well as to ongoing debates of gender, race, and sexuality today. Addressing these issues from a variety of different angles, including historical, aesthetic, cultural, phenomenological, and psychological approaches, these essays present a complex picture of the cultural work and passionate politics accomplished by melodrama over the course of the past two centuries, particularly at times of profound social change.

Collective Creation in Contemporary Performance examines collective and devised theatre practices internationally--with emphasis on Russia, Europe, and North America--from the late 20th century, into the present. Building upon the authors’ previous work, A History of Collective Creation, this volume situates contemporary collective creation in a tradition which emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century, and traces the aesthetic, social and political shifts that have marked this mode of theatre making, from mid-century manifestations as a theatrical expression of the New Left, to present-day devising practices.

American James Henry Hackett transformed the Yankee character in 1828 from an abusive slave trader into a celebration of capitalism and shrewd bargaining. Reading Hackett’s 1828 Jonathan in England play as a response to English comedian Charles Mathews’s depiction demonstrates how Hackett’s proto-capitalist Yankee was forged through negotiating the contradiction between American proclaimed principle of liberty simultaneous with the practice of slavery. The timing of Hackett’s play in 1828 after slavery was abolished in New York enabled Hackett to emphasize that some American states shared abolitionist values with England.