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When Romeo was a woman : Charlotte Cushman and her circle of female spectators
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When Romeo was a woman : Charlotte Cushman and her circle of female spectators

Author: Lisa Merrill
Publisher: Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan Press, ©1999.
Series: Triangulations
Edition/Format: Book : Biography : State or province government publication : English
Summary:
At the height of her career, actress Charlotte Cushman 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. Biographer Merrill examines Cushman's correspondence to shed new  Read more...
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Details

Named Person: Charlotte Cushman
Material Type: Biography, Government publication, State or province government publication
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Lisa Merrill
ISBN: 0472107992 9780472107995
OCLC Number: 39733173
Description: xxv, 318 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents: Crossings : passion embodied and remembered -- The hero in the family and on the stage -- "Is such love wrong?" -- Embodying strong(-minded) women : the shapes Charlotte Cushman wore onstage -- Wearing the breeches : Charlotte Cushman's male roles -- Scribbling circles and strange sympathies : Charlotte Cushman's London circle of lovers and friends -- Building a community : Charlotte Cushman's Roman salon -- The Sapphic family -- The backlash and beyond.
Series Title: Triangulations
Responsibility: Lisa Merrill.
More information:

Abstract:

At the height of her career, actress Charlotte Cushman 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. Biographer Merrill examines Cushman's correspondence to shed new light on her relationships and in turn on our understandings 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 possibilities of lesbian desire. Illustrated with many previously unpublished portraits of Cushman in her various roles and other revealing photographs of her family, lovers and friends, the book examines as autobiography Cushman's own narratives, the stories she authorized others to write, and the letters she wrote to intimates.--From publisher description.

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