4 - New Women, new plays, and Shaw in the 1890s
from Part 1 - The social and cultural context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
Summary
In a moment of crisis in the 1890s masculine control of the theatre as an institution was shaken by the efforts of insurgent women and a few male sympathizers. Bernard Shaw, writing about the London theatre of 1894 - the annus mirabilis of the New Woman - described the importance of that revolt with a clearsightedness unusual, perhaps unique, among men of the theatre. Shaw declares in the preface he wrote for William Archer's Theatrical "World" of 1894, assessing developments of that year in the London stage:
We cannot but see that the time is ripe for the advent of the actress-manageress, and that we are on the verge of something like a struggle between the sexes for the dominion of the London theatres, a struggle which failing an honourable treaty, or the break-up of the actor-manager system by the competition of new forms of theatrical enterprise, must in the long run end disastrously for the side which is furthest behind the times. And that side is at present the men's side.
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- The Cambridge Companion to George Bernard Shaw , pp. 76 - 100Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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