Post-war British Drama

Michelene Wandor, a respected commentator on sexual politics in the theater, looks again at the best-known British plays of the post-war period.
Juxtaposing the period before 1968 when statutory censorship still existed with the years following, Wandor scrutinizes a careful selection of plays, many of which are firmly in place as part of our contemporary canon, through the lenses of World War II, the testing of gender roles, the development of the welfare state, and finally, identity politics.
During this period, playwrights and theatergoers transformed the theater into a forum where they could explore rapidly changing interpersonal relationships. These changes led Wandor to some starling conclusions about the different gender focus of male and female playwrights.