Innocent flowers: Women in the Edwardian theatre

by Julie Holledge

The Edwardian actress, glamorous and privileged, was the sex symbol of her time. Yet her life was a off stage she could marry, divorce and take lovers with impugnity; on stage she had to play dutiful wives or daughters or 'scarlet women'.Thousands of these spirited women set out to change the conventional roles they played - and to change the world. Some of them were famous - Athene Seyler, Kitty Marion, Elizabeth Robins, Edy Craig, many others unknown. Managing their own companies, they put on hundreds of plays all over the country - many on taboo subjects such as divorce, sex, venereal disease, prostitution - by little known playwrights as well as established dramatists like Shaw, Ibsen, Barrie. They took the establishment theatre by storm; and they made their mark on the political stage too, forming the Actresses' Franchise League and joining the battle for the vote.Innocent Flowers tells the story of these astonishing women (and includes some of their plays). By tracing their lives and loves, Julie Holledge has rediscovered an inspiring period in the history of women and the theatre.

Genres: History

218 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a virago publication from 1981 about women of the Edwardian theatre, looking at the significant tensions between onstage and offstage roles and the impact of the Suffrage movement. I managed to find out a little about Julie Holledge (as I was unaware of her previously). She worked in the alternative theatre in the 1970s and moved to Australia in the early 1980s, spending the rest of her career teaching at Flinders University. She I an acknowledged expert on Ibsen and that also shows in this book as she charts how his plays were first received in the UK.
There is a considerable section on the links between the theatre and the suffrage movement and at the end of the book three mini plays used as propaganda for the movement.
Holledge looks at the life of Edith (Edy) Craig, daughter of Ellen Terry. This, of course involves the history of the Pioneer Players and Craig’s interesting home situation (a menage with Christabel Marshall and Clare (Tony) Attwood).
Holledge makes extensive use of source materials and the book is well researched. The role of the actor managers meant that roles for women could be very limited and Holledge looks at the growth of independent theatre companies where women had more freedom.
I also rediscovered Elizabeth Robins:
“we had further seen how freedom in the practice of our art, how the bare opportunity to practise it at all, depended for the actress on, considerations humiliatingly different from those that confronted the actor. The stage career of an actress was inextricably involved in the fact that she was a woman and that those who were masters of the theatre were men. These conditions did not belong to art: they stultified art. We dreamed of escape through hard work, and through deliberate abandonment of the idea of making money”
Which reminds me I must read The Convert soon.
It is a story of struggle and difficulty rather than glamour, but it’s interesting and well written.

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up in Theatre and found this book mind-blowing. Learning about the socialist and pioneering work women were creating in this era was inspiring. Learning about Edy Craig supported me on my coming out journey, too. The fact that this era historically precedes and informs our own present theatre work makes this book far more important than is recognised. And it is shocking that these stories and characters are not better known.