In this work, I promote a dialogue between Drama and Performance Studies concerning the performance of gender in everyday life and on the stage. While Judith Butler and others have argued that the performativity of gender must be examined outside of theatre, I argue that theatre can provide us with a unique lens through which to examine aspects of gender that can be overlooked in everyday life. The plays and performance art I have chosen highlight different modes of performing gender through representations of the female body, which introduce the tension between the discursively produced body and the lived, phenomenological body onstage. By exploring this tension, I argue that the performativity of gender onstage arises from a combination of words, the presentation of tangible bodies, and the audience's response to the stage action. I bring together iconic playwright Samuel Beckett with Cuban-American performance artist Ana Mendieta and Irish playwright Marina Carr in order to represent different modes of performance. This study should prove useful for scholars in theatre, performance studies, and gender studies, who are interested in examining gender in a theatrical context.

Essays in part one of Theatre History Studies, Vol. 35 address theatrical production in very specific historical contexts, among them German theatre "from the rubble of Berlin" and German nationalist mass spectacles. Essays in part two are devoted to the theme of "Rethinking the Maternal" in contemporary and historical theatre. Also included is the Robert A. Schanke Award-winning essay "Whispers from a Silent Past: Inspiration and Memory in Natasha Tretheway's Native Guard," a keynote essay by Irma Mayorga, and eighteen reviews of new book publications of note. Theatre History Studies, published since 1981 by the Mid-American Theatre Conference (MATC) is a leading scholarly publication in the field of theatrical history and theory. The conference encompasses the states of Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The purpose of the conference is to unite persons and organizations within the region with an interest in theatre and to promote the growth and development of all forms of theatre.