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Women on the Verge, Unite!

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Gender and Genre
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Abstract

David Mamet is, by all accounts, a man’s playwright. Actresses longing to sink their teeth into visceral roles like Lady Macbeth, Blanche DuBois, and Hedda Gabler do not generally turn for inspiration to America’s foremost macho playwright, whose milieu runs the gamut of pool halls, porn theaters, cheap bars, Hollywood offices, and other traditionally male arenas, and whose characters do “guy” things: curse, gamble, cheat, wheel and deal. By and large, women in Mamet’s plays have been peripheral at best and absent at worst, with their occasional presence relegated to inherently subordinate relationships such as father/daughter or teacher/student.

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Authors

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Christopher C. Hudgins Leslie Kane

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© 2001 Christopher C. Hudgins and Leslie Kane

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Blansfield, K.C. (2001). Women on the Verge, Unite!. In: Hudgins, C.C., Kane, L. (eds) Gender and Genre. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230109209_9

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