“Feeling Feminism”: Politics of Mischief in Contemporary Women’s Theatre

Abstract

Fragkou considers mischief as a feminist affective strategy in the context of contemporary theatre created by women. Situated within feminist and queer affective theory, the chapter examines how contemporary feminist theatre uses mischief through the staging of willful subjects who challenge popular norms of happiness and playfully disrupt neoliberal capitalist and postfeminist narratives of progress. Fragkou specifically explores how mischief as political strategy in the theatre works in conjunction with emotions such as anger and joy through an analysis of two contemporary theatre examples: Alice Birch’s Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (2014) and Sh!T Theatre’s Letters to Windsor House (2016).