Suffrage drama (also known as suffrage plays or suffrage theatre) is a form of dramatic literature that emerged during the British women's suffrage movement in the early twentieth century. Suffrage performances lasted approximately from 1907-1914. Many suffrage plays called for a predominant or all female cast. Suffrage plays served to reveal issues behind the suffrage movement. These plays also revealed many of the double standards that women faced on a daily basis. Suffrage theatre was a form of realist theatre, which was influenced by the plays of Henrik Ibsen. Suffrage theatre combined familiar everyday situations with relatable characters on the stage in the style of realist theatre.
Pro-suffrage plays
Suffrage dramas in favor of women's suffrage often portray strong female characters who illustrate the qualities of rational, informed voters. They are meant to imply the obsolescence and inaccuracy of gender stereotypes that justified denying women the vote, such as separate spheres philosophy. Such characters often convince male or female anti-suffragists to revise their beliefs and support women's suffrage. Other plays satirize anti-suffragists as buffoons or narrow-minded individuals opposing progress. Many of these plays deliberately required few props and no sets. This was to allow amateur acting companies to perform the dramas at minimal cost, allowing them to be more widely performed and spread pro-suffrage sentiment. Due to the low cost of organizing a performance, suffrage plays were often performed in the drawing rooms of private residences and in small professional theaters.
United Kingdom
During the suffrage movement in the United Kingdom, eighteen short plays were published that have been coined women's suffrage drama but these represent only a few of the numerous plays with suffrage themes, the majority written in support of the Cause, that have been identified. Susan Croft's 'Chronology of Plays addressing or supporting Suffrage Issues 1907-1914' lists 170, a figure further supplemented by additional plays, discovered since publication, listed online. Elizabeth Robins's Votes for Women and Cicely Hamilton and Christopher St. John's How the Vote Was Won are two predominant examples of suffrage plays. Elizabeth Robins's Votes for Women was one of the first published women's suffrage plays. It was performed in 1907 at the Court Theatre in London. Julie Holledge, British actor and director, wrote that Votes for Women “heralded the beginning of a suffrage theatre” and assisted in organizing actresses and “their involvement with the women’s rights movement and their dissatisfaction with a male dominated theatre, these women had begun to develop a drama that could express the reality of women’s lives...With the emergence of the mass suffrage movement in the Edwardian era, over a thousand actresses were thrust into the fight for votes for women. Out of their struggle the first ‘women’s theatre movement of the twentieth century was born.”
The characters in these plays were realistic, middle class characters fighting for or against women's suffrage. These plays often featured female characters talking with each other about the suffrage movement and often broke the boundaries between class. Suffrage plays led to the 1908 formation of the Actresses' Franchise League that “provided the infrastructure to promote women’s endeavors on a large scale.”
Suffragists used plays to create changes in social attitudes. Attending a play was a social and community event, therefore their message reached a large audience in a short period of time. Some suffragists would say, “a change in legislation was attributed to the production of one play.” Suffrage plays were a source of optimism for the female suffrage movement. Suffrage theatre gave prominence to women's roles and issues for the first time and greatly influenced the women's suffrage movement.