SOURCE: "Private Theatricals and Baillie's The Tryal," in Closet Stages: Joanna Baillie and the Theater Theory of British Romantic Women Writers, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997, pp. 143-68.

In the following essay, Burroughs explores "closet plays " — performed for private audiences—and their usefulness to women authors in advancing feminist perspectives. Burroughs also discusses domestic relations in The Tryal, as well as Baillie's theory of comedy, which emphasized the importance of presenting realistic, everyday situations.

 No pay, we play, so gay, all day—
Curse the expense, chase care away!
—Richard Brinsley Peake, Amateurs and
Actors: A Musical Farce in Two Acts
If here our feeble powers
Have lightly wing'd for you some wintry hours;
Should these remember'd scenes in fancy live,
And to some future minutes pleasure give,
To right good end we've worn our mumming guise,
And we're repaid and happy—ay, and wise.1
—Joanna Baillie, "Epilogue to the...