The Restoration Actress in Her Seventeenth-Century Social, Political, and Artistic Context : Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Barry, and Anne Bracegirdle

This book investigates the lives and careers of the Restoration era's three most famous actresses: Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Barry, and Anne Bracegirdle. It elucidates how these powerful women's offstage reputations and their greatest performances were agents of political, social, and cultural behavior, producers of - as well as products of - social meanings. The actresses provide a lens for the evolution of the English Restoration theatre and the connections between actresses' lives, performances and shifts in social and cultural behavior.