Staging women in prisons: Clean Break Theatre Company’s dramaturgy of the cage

Walsh, Aylwyn Mae (2016) Staging women in prisons: Clean Break Theatre Company’s dramaturgy of the cage. Crime, Media, Culture, 12 (3). pp. 309-326. ISSN 1741-6604

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Item Type:Article
Item Status:Live Archive

Abstract

The article explores the limitations of the dramaturgies of the cell through a close reading of several key play texts commissioned by the UK’s leading arts in criminal justice organisation working with women, Clean Break.

The apparently humanist positioning of women in prison as just like everyone else erases the specificity of women’s backstories. Conversely, by adhering to the constructions of female prisoners as holding binary positions of either ‘monsters’ or ‘victims’ of the system, plays can re-inscribe morally unitary approaches to women’s deviance and resistance. Many plays about women in prison hold a claim for resisting stereotypes and are in opposition to the injustice of criminal justice processes, and yet, in the realist mode, the monster/victim position seems to be an inescapable binary.

Keywords:Resistance, Clean Break, Women in prison, feminist criminology, NotOAChecked
Subjects:W Creative Arts and Design > W440 Theatre studies
L Social studies > L320 Gender studies
Divisions:College of Arts > School of Fine & Performing Arts > School of Fine & Performing Arts (Performing Arts)
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ID Code:18487
Deposited On:02 Sep 2015 14:23

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