In pointing to the way in which women have been historically represented (or left out altogether) and the reality of women's lives, feminist performance makes the histories, lives and desires of women visible, as this volume of plays from the 1990s aims to illustrate. Historical focus is shared by all three plays in this volume, as is the stylistic challenge which they offer to the "malestream" version of history. In "Walking on Peas", Erika Bloch takes the "hidden", unknown historical lives of women who cross-dressed and joined the army as its subject. Foursight Theatre has made looking at history through "the eyes of women such as Eva Braun, Pope Joan, Mae West and Ulrike Meinhof" a key focus of their work. Their group devised a one-act play on Mary Tudor and Queen Elizabeth I, "Bloody Mary and the Virgin Queen". Julie Wilkinson's "Mrs. Beeton's History of the World" fuses the "great" and the "ordinary" by representing Mrs Beeton in juxtaposition with the figure of her working-clas maid, Caroline.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.