Playing and scripting the past while imagining futures in Charlotte Yonge's 1864 Historical Dramas
Author
Faculty Advisor
Date
2024
Keywords
playscripts, discussion, youth, theatre in literature
Abstract (summary)
This chapter, focusing on Charlotte Yonge's 1864 Historical Dramas, discusses ways that Yonge's three story-frames concerning the young people of Barnescombe house, and the actual scripts Yonge writes, could be provocative thinking tools for readers and young thespians. While Yonge supports conservative views regarding strict gender roles and limited possible futures for women, she has more liberal views regarding ways dramatic practices can invite young people to think and explore different ways of being in the world. Reassuring young people that playing-at something else would not result in becoming something else in daily life, she nevertheless shows ways in which the collaborative creative work associated with theatricals has the potential to benefit individuals and families. By presenting scripts as works in progress, and writing stories that show how fictional children explore and create their own worlds through theatre, Historical Dramas could inspire young people to make thoughtful theatre, and to use theatre-making to think.
Publication Information
Fitzsimmons Frey, H. (2024). Playing and scripting the past while imagining futures in Charlotte Yonge's 1864 Historical Dramas. In G. Wolfe (Ed.), The Routledge companion to theatre-fiction (pp. 263-279). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003204886-25
Notes
Item Type
Book Chapter
Language
Rights
All Rights Reserved