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The eighteenth century saw a remarkable increase in the number of works written by women, and also the number of women who made a living by writing. For the first time, being a writer was a viable career choice for a woman, and it was possible to support a family by writing, despite the backlash some individual writers, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, faced for their work. This thesis focuses on the work women did in the eighteenth-century theatre, and how they reconciled the demands of being a professional writer with their society's gender expectations. By analysing a variety of play texts written by different women, I show that they engaged critically with ideas about female virtue, the marriage market, and women's participation in the literary scene, the working world, and national politics. The plays of this period are relatively under-researched, and often do not appear at all in critical studies of eighteenth-century literature. My aim, therefore, is to rectify this situation, and to join other critics in rediscovering this interesting and vital era of female playwriting.

This thesis closely examines the utilisation of dramatic characters’ comments on matters of literary and theatrical criticism. This phenomenon shaped a trend in European theatre during the first half of the twentieth century, and Egyptian theatre in the second half of the century. My main hypotheses are, firstly, that dramatic characters’ comments on literary and theatrical matters of criticism respond to specific problems that challenge theatre practice. Thus, my reading of literary and theatrical criticism within the dramatic texts studied in my thesis focuses on this criticism’s reformative function to rectify the crisis that faces theatre practice in general, rather than playwrights’ individual motives, such as responding to their critics. Secondly, socio-political, economic, and cultural aspects shape historical circumstances, which influence the current state of the theatre industry. Therefore, although Egyptian plays are noticeably influenced by European metatheatre, Egyptian playwrights utilise these borrowed techniques to highlight specific problems of Egyptian theatre such as the corrupt administration of governmental theatre and censorship. Finally, while Egyptian plays exploit European metatheatrical techniques, Egyptian playwrights claimed their works as a revival of intrinsically anti-illusionist traditional forms of entertainment such as the shadow play and Karagöz. This claim reflected increasing calls for pure Egyptian theatre, as part of the anti-Western jingoistic discourse of the political regime of the 1950s. In order to examine these assumptions, my theoretical approach draws from the fields of metatheatrical studies; literary and performance studies of parody and intertextuality; the history of European and Egyptian theatre; sociological, political and cultural studies; theories of modern criticism, and critical reviews. My contribution to the field of metatheatrical studies is in highlighting the reformative function of literary and theatrical criticism, whether as a discourse or a metatheatrical device, within a group of European plays that belong to different movements of the avant-garde during the first half of the twentieth century. More significantly, my study investigates the same phenomenon in Egyptian plays that, since the 1980s, have gradually been marginalised as fringe theatre and neglected by academic studies.

The central purpose of this thesis is to explore the interconnections between historical, political, economic, and cultural context of a society and the creation of socio-cultural meaning through a specific theatrical style and genre. Known as In-Yer-Face (IYF) this genre of theatre became highly controversial and could be said to represent the zeitgeist of the 1990s in Britain, mainly through its reflection of post-Thatcherite concerns and anxieties relating to the increasingly precarious conditions of everyday life which dominated the British society at the time, particularly in the context of Britain’s youth. With regards to those anxieties, this study explores IYF theatre in light of Frank Furedi’s (1997, 2006) theories on culture of fear and Ulrich Beck (1992, 2001) and Anthony Giddens’ (1991, 1997) theories of individualization, risk society and late modern uncertainties. The thesis aims to align the forgoing sociological theories with the blatantly provocative, relentless, confrontational and aggressively shocking content of IYF theatre, the work of a group of young British playwrights that included Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, and Anthony Neilson. In examining the texts of selected plays by these and other IYF playwrights, the thesis endeavours to understand how socio-economic circumstances can culminate in immense cultural shifts which in turn can alter the cultural products and artistic perspectives of a nation, in this case Britain during the early 1990s. To this end, the thesis is divided into two interconnected sections, the first of which begins by situating IYF in the broader tradition of avant-garde British theatre. This is followed by establishing the theoretical framework upon which I ground my own interpretation of IYF theatre as well as a brief examination of the socio-historical context of Britain in the 1990s. This first section is concluded by the study of IYF in alignment with other forms of cultural product, suggesting that the political and economic philosophy of IYF takes stylistic and methodological nourishment from punk music and fashion of the 1970s. In doing so, IYF theatre is considered in a broader cultural trajectory of oppositional and polemical cultural practices. In this respect the similar historical, cultural and socio-economic state of affairs that resulted in the emergence of Punk and IYF is explored and analysed. In the second part of the thesis, three selected IYF play scripts are textually analysed to demonstrate how the exemplary artefacts of young playwrights of the 1990s are thematically representative of the socio-economic malaise dominating the society of the time. The overarching themes explored in these plays include, but are not limited to, the culture of escapism and therapy culture as a response to risk society and social insecurity, representation of the culture of fear within working class society and among working class subcultures such as skinheads, and dissociation of familial bonds and intimate relationships as a result of domination of post-modern interpretations of social and familial values. The thesis is drawn to a close by looking at the legacy of IYF in the context of contemporary British theatre, particularly investigating the state of today’s theatre in representing contemporary uncertainties, social insecurities and economic and political fears on stage.

This dissertation calls attention to six important contemporary texts that portray the effects of the Congo armed conflicts on individuals and their communities. Using trauma and literary theories, I examine how the psychological consequences of war are represented in two novels by Pius Ngandu Nkashama and Mashingaidze Gomo, two plays by Lynn Nottage and Fabien Honoré Kabeya Mukamba, and two memoirs by Lisa J. Shannon and Joseph Mwantuali. My dissertation demonstrates how the selected writers help their readers understand the long-lasting devastating impact of violence on civilians by recreating in their texts moments and symptoms of emotional and psychological trauma. By focusing on the narrative and stylistic techniques these writers deploy in their texts, I reveal the differences and similarities in the way they approach the various issues of armed conflicts and in the goals they are attempting to achieve in their texts. Some of these writers, as this work illustrates, present fragmented speeches and dialogues to draw attention to the effects of traumatic memories while others incorporate songs and poems into their texts to highlight the role that music and poetry can play in the healing of trauma. My dissertation ultimately shows that the differences among the selected writers underscore the complexities involved in the narration of war stories.

This thesis investigates contemporary Australian script dramaturgy as a form of mentoring. It analyses conventional dramaturgical practices, and the forms of professional development for dramaturgs and playwrights currently used by the arts industry. These issues are explored through two case studies that are self-reflective descriptions of my dramaturgical practice in different playwrighting contexts. Although there is considerable international literature on the practice of production dramaturgy, there is extremely limited literature on the subject of Australian dramaturgy. While dramaturgy has often been the subject of industry debate, few dramaturgs have discussed or analysed the specificities of their practice. As an extensive investigation of personal dramaturgical practice my thesis is unique, and therefore makes a significant contribution to the literature on Australian dramaturgy. My research discovered that there were considerable congruencies between dramaturgy and mentoring, which constitute the main forms of development for writers and new work in the Australian arts industry. Mentoring theory therefore provides the conceptual framework of my research. My research uses a modified form of feminist phenomenography as its methodology. Data was analysed using a combination of feminist research and phenomenographic techniques. Data was primarily collected through interviews with the research participants; my own work notes; and personal reflections. An inclusive approach to my research invited the participants to comment on and contribute to the analysis of their own interviews and case studies. The first case study describes my experiences as dramaturg for Queensland playwright, Margery Forde in the development of X-Stacy (1998). The second case study describes my experiences in the collaborative development of a satirical cabaret Slings and Arrows (1999) with WIT, an unfunded, feminist theatre group. Each of these case studies represents, respectively, a mentoring partnership and group mentoring. The final chapter draws together the thematic findings from the case studies and the key implications of the Literature Review and Conceptual Framework to address the initial research questions and propose some recommendations based on the research findings. My research demonstrates that there is clear evidence to support an interpretation of dramaturgy as mentoring, but that the arts industry needs to reconsider the methods and methodologies of both practices for contemporary and future relevance. In light of these findings, my research makes a number of recommendations for the arts industry; dramaturgs; educational and training institutions; and funding bodies. These key recommendations include: 1. That the arts industry redefine and implement dramaturgy as a form of mentoring; 2. That dramaturgs develop more accessible and in-depth analysis about their practices in order to demystify the role and purpose of dramaturgy; 3. That relevant training courses and qualifications be established for dramaturgical practice; 4. That funding bodies examine the distribution and amounts of funding and account for long-term investments in the development of playwrights and new work. These recommendations are made on the premise that there are considerable improvements to be made on the current development of Australian playwrights and their work, and to ensure a vibrant, innovative creative future. The introduction of mentoring practices can only improve the discipline or profession of dramaturgs and playwrights in Australia and the quality of their practice.

Almost all English drama suffers from the awful curse of having been written either before or after the works of William Shakespeare. It is generally admitted that no English dramatist rivals Shakespeare ; as a result, ever since the invention of "literacy criticism" sometime in the nineteenth century, Shakespeare has received the lion's share of critical attention paid to the theater. Later playwrights have, indeed, been given a certain amount of critical treatment. The real losers have been the plays written before Shakespeare's time-- the theater of the Middle Ages.

My purpose in this work is to examine the major social problems with which the playwrights of the decade between 1930 and 1940 have dealt.