LAURA ENGEL and ELAINE M. McGIRR (eds). Stage Mothers: Women, Work, and the Theater, 1660-1830

Abstract

The essays collected in Stage Mothers make a strong case for the importance of theatrical motherhood to the study of eighteenth-century maternity. The figure of the stage mother encompasses both the female performer, who was often (but not always) herself a mother, as well as the maternal roles she played on the eighteenth-century stage. The concept of stage motherhood, then, contributes to what Diana Solomon calls ‘betweenness’, the overlap between the actress’s persona and the character that she plays. Maternity, either in real life or in the world of the play, could also form part of the way in which an actress constructed her persona for an audience using what, in studies of female performers and celebrity culture, Joseph Roach terms ‘public intimacy’ and Felicity Nussbaum has named an ‘interiority effect’. Furthermore, the apparently inevitable sexualization of the actress by some of her audience gives new resonance to the erotic connotations of motherhood (a state which while idealized also draws attention to the woman as a sexual being). This volume provides a welcome addition to recent scholarship on motherhood in the eighteenth century by Toni Bowers, Marilyn Francus and Ruth Perry, amongst others. The editors and contributors acknowledge their indebtedness to this work, with Francus’s concept of the ‘spectral mother’, a figure absent yet haunting, applied frequently in the case studies offered here. The essays also extend research on the topic in important new directions. Engel, McGirr and their contributors demonstrate that stage mothers are uniquely positioned to provide insight into the various dimensions of maternity because of the complex interplay between their on-stage and off-stage identities.