SOURCE: Bessai, Diane. “Sharon Pollock's Women: A Study in Dramatic Process.” In Amazing Space: Writing Canadian Women Writing, edited by Shirley Newman and Smaro Kamboureli, pp. 126-36. Edmonton: Longspoon/Newest, 1986.

In the following essay, Bessai analyzes Pollock's addressing of feminist, social, political, and familial issues in her works, and surveys Pollock's experimentation with dramatic techniques to convey her message.

At a summer 1985 conference in Toronto on Women's issues in the theatre, Rina Fraticelli cited playwright Sharon Pollock (along with the American Joanne Akalaitis and British Caryl Churchill) as representing ‘the distinct female viewpoint’ that in her estimation would eventually ‘transform the (male) esthetic code that has dominated Western Culture.’¹ Pollock herself resists the ideological label of ‘feminist’ along with any other that restricts her artistic independence.² However, since her plays from Blood Relations (1980) to the present show increasing attention to feminine individuality, Fraticelli's appropriation of Pollock as a...