Fanny Hill Onstage: TheatreState and April De Angelis’s Feminist Adaptations

Abstract

In 2014 and 2015 the British stage witnessed two contemporary feminist adaptations of the eighteenth-century pornographic novel Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, better known as Fanny Hill. TheatreState’s Fanny Hill Project Volume 2.0 juxtaposes Fanny Hill’s experience selling her body in 1747 with actor Tess Seddon’s experience selling her feet in 2010. Playwright April De Angelis re-imagines Fanny Hill, as a woman in her early sixties who has fallen on hard times and must write her erotic memoirs to pay off her debts. Both adaptations use the eroticism and comedy that is ubiquitous in Fanny Hill as a way to lull audiences into paying attention, only to then turn around and expose the darker side of sexuality and the gaze.