Early Modern Gender and Androgyny

As many of you probably already know, theatre in Shakespeare’s time was considered to be an all-male reserve in terms of professional theatrical staging. Professional companies had all-male casts consisting of trained older male actors and boy apprentices (closer to the ages of “teenagers” or “pre-teens” in our modern vernacular). My research indicates that this practice was not one of ideology, considering many found it immoral for women to speak publicly, but rather of convenience. The apprenticing boys were not training to become actors in adulthood, but were rather trade apprentices (bricklayers, cobblers, etc.) who were required by their masters to participate in plays. The boys were typically play the women’s roles but they would have also helped fill in as members of a crowd, fairies, or small roles such as pages.

In early modern England, boys did not necessarily fit on the spectrum of male to female but possessed a transformative fascination. They were neither male nor female but one day must become one or the other. The early modern young man cannot simply be equated as having no distinct gender, but rather holds a not-yet-but-potential identity, which depends upon his transformative nature, the exact paradox that intrigued audiences of the time. Galenic medicine, a branch of medical philosophy, considers each individual to begin as female and, after an event which either occurs within the womb or outside of it, possesses the possibility to become male. The theory is that male and female sexual organs are identical, but one (female) remains inside the body while the other (male) is, at some time, pushed outward. According to Galenic medicine, if an already-born female were to contain too much heat she may push her sexual organs to the outside, thus turning her biologically into a male. Likewise, individuals who are born with male genitalia are born with an excess of heat within them, having pushed out their sexual organs while still in the womb. Women, in this case, are imperfectly formed or incomplete men.

Therefore, a transvestite theatre in which boys dress as women depicts both fear and expectation; fear that young, impressionable boys might physically become women through the act of on-stage cross-dressing, and expectation provided by the popularity of theatrical cross-dressing. The idealized image of the androgyne – of the individual who goes beyond the limitations of the human condition and is both sexes in one – was popular in the sixteenth century. Theatre goers were intrigued by the boys’ ability to play women, which was not a difficult ideal as boys were physically and vocally more similar to women than they were to men.

Today many theatres still engage in cross-dressing practices, typically employing women to dress as and play men on the stage (a popular occurrence in Restoration theatre practices). The practice of re-gendering characters to match the gender of the actor (or actress) playing the character is gaining popularity in the modern theatre and enables actresses in particular to play such iconic roles as Falstaff and Prince Hal in their own bodies – not in the perceived gender of the character as it is written. As Judith Butler teaches us, all gender is performative, whether on or off the stage.

— from guest blogger, Jessica Schiermeister