Negotiating Genders from the Page to the Stage: Marina Carr and Suzan-Lori Parks

Abstract

'Negotiating Genders from the Page to the Stage: Marina Carr and Suzan-Lori Parks' explores how two female playwrights, from different cultures and backgrounds, challenge oppressive traditions. It offers the first major comparative study of the theatre works of Marina Carr (1964- ) and Suzan-Lori Parks (1963- ): two significant, internationally-successful dramatists. Employing a wide range of theories in feminism and gender studies, this thesis analyses how Carr and Parks disrupt western literary traditions, national myths and accepted gender roles in liberating rather than didactic ways. Both do so not just through the written word but also through other important signifiers such as costume and gesture. Existing scholarship and criticism have tended to circumscribe each playwright within certain parameters based on form, language and national identity. However, comparing the works of Carr and Parks reveals that they belong to a generation of theatre-makers that seeks to transcend limiting categorisations. By moving from text to intertext to stage action and image, and examining the dramatists in relation to their distinct national contexts as well as the western milieu that they share, I hope to broaden our frameworks for understanding each playwright's work.