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Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
"If It's Not Right, You Have To Put It Right": The Play And Work Of Children In Matilda The Musical, Kristin Perkins
"If It's Not Right, You Have To Put It Right": The Play And Work Of Children In Matilda The Musical, Kristin Perkins
AWE (A Woman’s Experience)
Perkins considers issues of subversive theatrical criticism and exploitative child labor as they combine in Matilda the Musical, examining the performances as a holistic, if ambivalent, production. In a play where the lead figure is a little girl, this essay uses the lens of gender and age to provide context for the revolutionary character of Matilda in a female-dominated play that critiques established norms, at the same time that the play is produced in, and by, a system that reproduces troubling power structures.
The Feminine Peter Pan, Felicia Jones
The Feminine Peter Pan, Felicia Jones
AWE (A Woman’s Experience)
Cross-casting in performances has effected outrage and social dilemmas in audiences, despite the important cultural messages those characters display. Since its beginning as a play, women have been cast as the young boy Peter in Peter Pan. J.M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan through inspiration from the young deaths of his brother and childhood friend, who will always remain in their youth. In order to capture that youthful innocence, females have been cast as Peter. This choice in casting was also made to achieve androgyny and transcend gender by blurring gender lines.