The discourse of female body in contemporary Croatian women's playwriting and theatre

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present selected aspects of medicalization and politicization of the female body as a theme in contemporary Croatian drama and theatre. Our analysis presents artistic proposals discussing women's reproductive functions and dysfunctions (such as pathology of pregnancy, the destructive power of the pregnancy metaphor, physiology and philosophy of pregnancy, infertility and in vitro) illustrated by four plays written by women playwrights from Croatia. The exemplification is an abridged overview of the most representative textual-theatrical strategies in the socially and politically engaged "ginedramas" (ginodrame). Three acclaimed writers and directors, Lada Kaštelan (Before Sleep, original: Prije sna, 2005), Ivana Sajko (Woman Bomb, original: Žena-bomba, 2003; Landscape with the Fall, original: Krajolik s padom, 2011) and Magdalena Lupi Alvir (Barren, original: Jalova, 2011), deal with the fundamental questions of woman's existence, combining elements of art and medicine. Some matrophoras, i.e., metaphors of motherhood and mother-child relations which demystify and reinterpret female physiology, are analysed in the text.

Keywords

• croatian drama and theatre
• female body discourse
• pregnancy
• infertility
• in vitro