6 x 9. 344 pgs. 7 drawings, 24 photographs. (1999) Paper 978-0-472-08749-5 $27.95S  Available Add to Cart Search this Book's Content About the Book Praise Series Triangulations: Lesbian/Gay/Queer Theater/Drama/Performance Subjects Biography / Gender Studies--Gay and Lesbian Studies / Theater and Performance

When Romeo Was a Woman
Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female Spectators

Lisa Merrill

Winner: 2000 Joe A. Callaway Prize for the Best Book on Drama or Theatre

Examines the life of the androgynous nineteenth-century American actress and her work on the Anglo-American stage

---

About the Book

At the height of her career, actress Charlotte Cushman (1816-76) was one of the most famous women in the English-speaking world. Cushman challenged Victorian notions of gender in her stage portrayals of male characters and of strong, androgynous female characters. Offstage, she was a powerful businesswoman who supported her family, women lovers, and friends.

Lisa Merrill examines Cushman's personal correspondence to shed new light on the actress's relationships and in turn on our understandings of the nature of women's "romantic friendships." She demonstrates how Cushman's androgynous presence served as a symbol to many of her contemporaries, and revealed their multiple and often contradictory attitudes toward female performers, women, and the unspeakable possibilities of same-sex desire.

The biography draws upon unpublished archival material as well as on current critical work to view Cushman's career, relationships, and posthumous reception. When Romeo Was a Woman examines as autobiographical performance Cushman's own narratives, the stories she authorized others to write, and the letters she wrote to intimates. The book is richly illustrated with many previously unpublished portraits of Cushman in her various stage roles, including Romeo and Lady Macbeth, and other revealing photographs of her family, lovers and friends.

When Romeo Was a Woman will find an appreciative audience among general readers as well as specialists in gay/lesbian history, women's history, theater and performance, popular culture, Victorian studies, and American studies.

Lisa Merrill is Professor of Communication and Performance Studies, Hofstra University. She is the co-author of The Power to Communicate: Gender Differences as Barriers, and the co-editor of Untying the Tongue: Power, Gender, and the Word.