Transforming Gender Representations in Theatre: A Cultural and Historical Analysis

Berlanstein, L. R. (1996). Breeches and Breaches: Cross-Dress Theater and the Culture 

of Gender Ambiguity in Modern France. 

Isaka, M. (2023, November 1). Masculinized femininity of women characters on the Kabuki 

stage: Female Onnagata’s “cross-gender” performance in the “all-male” theatre. Sage Journals.

Reddy, V. (2003, January). Performative Identities: Race, Sexuality and Gender in 

Colleen Craig’s Crossing the Line (1989) and Apart (1995)1. https://journals-scholarsportal-info.proxy.queensu.ca/details/1013929x/v15i0002/138_pirsagcctlaa.xml

Week 7 class notes:

Early Japan

ORIGINS

• Shinto

• Polytheistic

• Animism – kami

• Myth about Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, 8th c CE

Ritual and Dance

• Kagura

• Ritualistic Shinto dance, derived from Uzume

• Performed at shrines by shamanistic priestesses, in villages at festivals, court

Buddhism

• mid-6th century

• Connections with Korea and China

• Not a replacement for Shintoism

• Gigaku

• Masked performance involving music and silent mime

Nara Period 710-794 CE

• Bugaku

• Court dance for upper classes and elites

• Gigaku eventually ceases; bugaku continues today

• Slow, elegant, precise

• Elaborate costumes and masks

• Raised stage 7m by 7m

• Slow intro and general increase in pace

• Sometimes narrative, sometimes abstract

• Hindu-Buddhist cosmology – four cardinal directions

• Reflection, contemplation, veneration of universe’s laws

Heian Period 794-1185 CE

• Lots of cultural developments

• Samurai increase in power = dominant social class

• Shogun • = shift in cultural taste

• (broadly) from elegant to brash

2 main types of popular performance

• Dengaku

• closely related to Shinto religion (animism)

• SHOCKING!

• Political turmoil, mass hysteria, dangerous

• “Dengaku madness”

• In-between regulated forms of being – wearing wrong clothing for class/gender, behaving i llega lly, dance naked in the street

• // Shinto religion in terms of fertility dances, supernatural female powers, unbridled female sexuality

• Sarugaku – pantomime, acrobatics, magic

Eyewitness Account

• from 1349 describes exotic animal skins, golden curtains, huge audience: The number of those who died among the great piles of fallen timber is past all knowing. In the confusion thieves began stealing swords. . . . Cries and shouts rose up from people who had had limbs broken or slashed; from others, stained with blood, who had been run through with swords or halberds . . . and from others still who had scalded themselves with the boiling water used for making tea. . . . The dengaku players, still wearing devilmasks and brandishing red canes, gave chase to thieves escaping w ith stolen costumes . . . Young servants unsheathed their weapons and went after men who had carried off their masters’ ladies. . . . It was as if Hell’s unending battles and the tortures of its demons were being carried out before one’s eyes – O’Neill, 1958: 75-77

Towards Noh

• 16 yr old shogun Yoshimitsu known for “wild tastes”

• dengaku

• aristocratic advisors want to move him away from the female, Shinto, transgressive dengaku towards rational “masculine” values which are less threatening

• advisor takes him to sarugaku in 1374

• Sarugaku -> Buddhist burial rites = calm, stoic, masculine

• Yoshimitsu sees 11 year old Zeami perform and   brings him back to court as a companion (likely for a sexual relationship)

• Over time, and under the inf luence of the court, Zeami transforms Sarugaku into Noh

• Stately, poetic, all-male, Buddhist

• Writes several plays including Atsumori and also treatises on performance

• + father Kan’ami considered founder of Noh

Noh

• Zeami has a clear formula!

• Draw from myth, legend, history

• Clear main character starts disguised in Act I, revealed Act II

• Often ghost or demon

• Noh—its name derived from nō, meaning “talent” or “skill”—is unlike Western narrative drama. Rather than being actors or “representers” in the Western sense, Noh performers are simply storytellers who use their visual appearances and their movements to suggest the essence of their tale rather than to enact it. Little “happens” in a Noh drama, and the total effect is less that of a present action than of a simile or metaphor made visual. The educated spectators know the story’s plot very well, so that what they appreciate are the symbols and subtle allusions to Japanese cultural history contained in the words and movements. – from the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Noh Theatre

Zeami wrote a great deal about the aesthetics of Noh, and put forth two important concepts: monomane and yūgen.

MONOMANE “Monomane is the imitation of character. By imitating “the three roles”(male, female, or old person), the actor reveals the fictional character’s invisible body. For Zeami, a mask allows the actor to become another character; his body becomes a vessel inhabited by another’s “essence,” which resides in the mask. According to Steven T. Brown, “Underneath the actor’s costume and mask is the body of the actor transformed into the virtual body of the other” (2001: 26)

YUGEN Yugen is a deep, quiet, mysterious beauty tinged with sadness. Zeami expands its meaning to refer to both text and performance, emphasizing the fleeting, melancholy nature of human existence. The greatest yugen appears in plays about aged, dispossessed, or formerly beautiful women who are reduced to poverty, madness, or regret.” – Bruce McConachie, et al. Theatre Histories : An Introduction. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2016, 98.

Noh Key Features

• Shite – lead actor (the doer)

• Waki – secondary (the listener), often priest

• 3-4 musicians (flute and drums)

• 8-15 chorus members

• All male performers

Masks

• Carved from wood; minimal

• 450 different masks, based on sixty types

• Gender, social class, age, humanness (e.g. animal, demon, divine)

• Only shite wears usually

• Slightly smaller than actor’s face

Kōken

• Stage Assistants

• Handle props, assist with costumes, prompt actors

• Visible to audiences; but unobtrusive

Kyōgen

• Short comedic plays inbetween Noh performances

• 5 noh, 4 kyogen

• Male

• May also have small part in noh

• SOCIAL INVERSION

Theatrical Duality

• Theatrical duality: simultaneous real/unreal

• Liminal? Or Binocular Vision?

• Victor Turner on lim inality: “neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremony” (1969: 95)”

Ongoing Themes

• Theatre as a tool; as utilitarian (assimilation, dictatorial control, etc.)

• The impact of social class stratification on performance

• Perceived seat of power: playwright, actor, audience

• Theatre’s interaction with Religion and Spirituality

Japan to the 17th Century

Theatrical Duality

• Duality

• Why might you want an audience to continually maintain an awareness of reality?

• “Art is something that lies in the slender margin between the real and the unreal.” — Chikamatsu Monzaemon cited in Naniwa Miyage by Hozumi Ikan (1738)

Tokugawa (edo) period 1603-1868

• So much civil war 1467-1590 – now is relative stability

• Turn inwards = isolationist, little influence

• Deeply hierarchical, including sumptuary laws

• Merchants become wealthier as economy improves

• MORE $$$$ = MORE FUN FUN FUN

Kabuki 歌

• Izumo no Okuni

• Female dance troupe 1603

• Perform Buddhist dances and lewd/boisterous/suggestive plays Kyoto dry river bed

• Sex work

• Gender role play, sex workers, cross- dressing, foreign dress

• Kabuku – to tilt or slant dangerously

• Kabuki-mono – counter culture

• Today kabuki is written using the Chinese characters for “songdance-skill” or “songdance-technique”: 歌舞 伎

• Becomes very popular!

• Many theatres in Yoshiwara (red-light district) of Edo (Tokyo)

• Business relationships with brothels

• Female, male, mixed-gender troupes

• This makes the government v. nervous….

• Sex work – fine, cross-dressing – fine, lewd behaviour – fine but class mingling! =Social Rebellion!

• Forbid upper-class women, samurai, aristocrats from attending – But we all know that sometimes rules don’t work so well

Onna-kabuki

• 1629 onna-kabuki

• (women’s kabuki) banned (and then a couple more times)

• Not enough

Wakashū-kabuki

• 1652 wakashū-kabuki (young male kabuki) banned

• Class mingling vis a vis love affairs and sex work

Yaro-kabuki

• We end up with adult male performers

Stage Architecture

• Builds off of Noh

• Look for similarities/differences

• Hanamichi (花道 flower path) extends into audience

• Increased spectacle

Kabuki vs. noh

“Noh is austere, kabuki flamboyant; noh ritual, kabuki spectacle; noh offers spiritual consolation, kabuki physical excitement; noh seeks chaste models, kabuki delights in the eccentric, the extravagant and the willfully perverse; noh is gentle, kabuki cruel; noh is concerned with the hereafter, kabuki bound by the here- and-now” – Peter Arnott

“Counter-Culture”

• Danger of social rebellion

• Disapproval leads to professionalism – rules and regulations: disrupting or supporting growth/development?

• So when does counter-culture become culture?

• Romanticism, Hippies, Punk, Drag…

Onnagata

• Male actor specializing in female kabuki roles

• “Realer than real? Imaging ‘woman’ in kabuki” by Tamara Underiner with Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei and Tobin Nelhaud

• Yoshizawa Ayame I (17th and 18th century)

• Male onnagata should also live as women, even if they are married to a woman and have children

• ”No one objected. And no one was fooled.”

• We can read “female” while also knowing “male”

• Bandō Tamasaburō V

• At first, this is as a result of legislation

• But after the ban on female performers is repealed and relaxed in 1888… why does it persist?

• “in Japan, males are superior to females in every way – from the shape of the face, eyes, nose, and mouth to body type and size. Females can be beautiful too, but they usually have some flaw… since these flaws do not allow an actress to complement a male lead, it is only obvious that males should continue to performance women onstage” (Male Japanese theatre scholar in 1914, qtd in Robertson 1998: 57).

• Feminist pushback from 1868

• Some female performers (not professional)

• E.g. Ichikawa Kumehachi I (1846- 1913)

• “onstage, nobody can tell that she is not a man”

• “authentic” kabuki

• Portrayal of male-identified aesthetic ideals: patriarchally inscribed, stateregulated “female”

•  A level of ideal ‘feminine’ that women cannot achieve

• A model for females offstage to emulate and a sex object for males offstage to proposition

Gender performance

• What ideas about gender are present in your cultural background?

•  What resonances (if any) exist between kabuki performance of ‘woman’ and contemporary drag performances of ‘woman’?

• Are exaggerated gender performances (as seen in Kabuki and drag) disruptive of gender norms or reinforcing of gender norms? Does it reinforce binarism (binary of man and woman)? Or does it trouble it?

• Judith Butler – gender is a social construct, built up through repeated performance. They thinks of gender as a verb rather than a noun.

Judith Butler’s GENDER THEORY

• In brief:

• We have multiple selves, hailed into being in different contexts. These selves are discursively constructed.

• Davies and Harre 1990, Althusser

• E.g. discourse (written or spoken communication) is one of the key constructors of identity.

• I post twenty Instagram photos of nature, and I become ‘Kelsey, lover of nature.’ Who are you talking to? How does that impact which self you perform?

• Gender is a ‘performance’ of certain coded acts

• Women do such-and-such. I will do such-and-such, establishing myself as woman.

• Performativity of gender is a stylized repetition of acts, an imitation or miming of the dominant conventions of gender.

• Performativity has to do with repetition, very often the repetition of oppressive and painful gender norms . . . We are products of our world: we may unconsciously reperform genders because we are conditioned to do so.

• “Drag is subversive to the extent that it reflects on the imitative structure by which hegemonic gender is itself produced and disputes heterosexuality’s claim on naturalness and originality” (Bodies that Matter). Drag reveals gender as performance through its often exaggerated performance.

DRAM 200 Week 17

England had been alternating between Catholic and

Protestant, depending on the ruler

­Elizabeth I was Protestant

Puritans were an especially … ‘enthusiastic’ group of

Protestants

­there was still too much Catholicism in England

­were a very strict, conservative group

Salem witch trials or The Crucible by Arthur Miller: lots of Puritans sailed to America

to start or join colonies in the 16th and 17th centuries for religious freedom

Believed in constantly searching for signs of God’s anger or pleasure. 

ENGLAND: PARTY VS PURITAN

Henrietta Maria 1609-1669

– Married to King Charles I

– She loves performing and

has a very strong interest in

the arts

– She is also Catholic (the

country is Protestant)

– In 1633 Maria plans on

performing in The Shepherd’s

BUT this becomes an example of draconian

measures of monarchy

­King Charles I is executed in 1649

­Oliver Cromwell comes to power

INTERREGNUM

No King = country comes to be ruled

by a man named Oliver Cromwell

Cromwell is MP and leads Parliament

of England’s army against the King

during the Civil War

one of the people who signs King

Charles I’s death warrant

…”Lord Protector” from 1653-1658

Portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper, 1656

INTERREGNUM

•Surprise! Another Puritan. He is intensely religious,

infamously cancelling Christmas:

• No Christmas!

• “Our Christmas lords of misrule, together with dancing,

masks, mummeries, state players, and such other Christmas

disorders, now in use with Christians, were derived from these

Roman Saturnalia and Bacchanalian festivals, which should

cause all pious Christians eternally to abominate them.”

THEATRE?

• No Theatre!

• Theatres have been closed since 1642 during First Civil

War: In these “times of humiliation” “public stage-plays” are

representative of “lascivious Mirth and Levity”.

•Ban reinforced in1648 by an act: treatment of actors

as rogues, the demolition of theatre seating, and fines for

spectators.

•…some secret and private performances

Musicals have not been specifically banned!

­William Davenant essentially invents English language opera

­Operas are viewed as “better” and not quite so distasteful

WHAT/WHEN IS THE

RESTORATION?

Political crisis when Cromwell

dies in 1658: his son becomes his

successor

His son has no real

supporters/power and is forced

to resign

Charles II (son of Charles I) is

invited (restored) back to the

throne in 1660

Cromwell is executed in 1661 BYE PURITAN

HI MERRY MONARCH

EXECUTING THE DEAD?

This is a picture of the death warrant of King Charles I with the 59 signatures and wax seals of the commissioners of the ‘High Court of Justice’

Restoration

­ King Charles II comes to power (1660-1685)

CHARLES II: THE MERRY

MONARCH

Loves theatre + entertainment

­… and sex

­Restoration becomes know for

raucous, fun, partying, etc.

­See Historical Wife Swap

Engraving of King Charles II and Queen Catherine

signed “F. H. van HOVEN” – Frederik Hendrik Van den

Hove (c. 1630-171?). Party hat not included.

CHARLES II: THE MERRY

MONARCH

­Establishes two theatres with royal

patents, much like Elizabeth I did

when she set up the system of

licensed actor troupes

­essentially creates a dual monopoly:

only these two theatres are legally

permitted to operate, they have state

support to do so

Engraving of King Charles II and Queen Catherine

signed “F. H. van HOVEN” – Frederik Hendrik Van den

Hove (c. 1630-171?). Party hat not included.

The King’s Men

• Thomas Killigrew

• Start in former

tennis court

• Build Theatre

Royal, Drury Lane

• Focus on replicating

pre-restoration

theatre with

experienced actors

The Duke’s Men

• William

Davenant

• Renovate Lisle’s

Tennis Court in

Lincoln’s Inn Fields

– 1st moveable

scenery

• All about

spectacle and

had to

experiment with

new forms due to

Which do you think was more popular? play divvying up

Portrait of Thomas Killigrew by

Anthony van Dyck 1635

Engraving of William Davenant

The Duke’s Men!

­It seems people were actually not as interested in

returning to previous forms of performance and instead

wanted something new

­… what has happened post-Covid?

Interestingly, when public taste starts to wane in the

1680s, the two companies combine to form the

United Company.

THE MERRY MONARCH:

KING CHARLES II

While in exile overseas, he enjoyed

female performers, and so he said

women should be professional

actors: we get women on stage in

England

Is this progressive or regressive?

He maybe liked them too much…

NELL GWYNN 1650??-1687

­Likely the daughter of a

“madam” who ran a brothel;

possibly a sex-worker herself?

­Killigrew opens Drury Lane,

Nell hired as “orange girl”

Portrait of Nell Gwynn by Peter Lely

NELL GWYNN 1650??-1687

­1 year later becomes an actress

in the King’s Company, taught to

act by Charles Hart

­By 1665 prominent actress, known

for her wit and comedic ability

­ famously referred to as “pretty

witty Nell” by Samuel Pepys

Portrait of Nell Gwynn by Peter Lely

NELL GWYNN 1650??-1687

­… By 1668 she is one of the

King’s mistresses. They meet after

they both attend a performance

in 1668. Nell has at least two

children by him and we think they

were very close: he provides for

her to her death

Portrait of Nell Gwynn by Peter Lely

NELL GWYNN

­Wild stories of her life:

nicknames, laxatives, syphilis,

Charles III In 2015, a new play called Nell Gwynn premiered at Shakespeare’s

Globe by Jessica Swale, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Nell.

RESTORATION PERFORMERS

Charles Hart

­Before restoration he plays women, after highly

masculine leading man

­Often paired with Nell Gwynn (aside form

being acting teacher) and they have publicized

affair

RESTORATION PERFORMERS

Ned Kynaston

­Last actor to play female roles: last female

role 1661, last role 1699

­According to Samuel Pepys, “the loveliest lady

that I ever saw in my life” even if “her voice

not very good” (August 18 1660)

­There were also rumours about his gender

identity and sexuality; apparently he would

go out in his theatrical garb (aka dressed as a

woman) and there is gossip about a possible

affair with George Villiers, a duke

RESTORATION PERFORMERS

Thomas Betterton

­highly popular actor and theatre manager

­took over the Duke’s Company after

William Davenant dies

­inventive and resourceful, inventing new

stage machinery, writing operas, etc.

RESTORATION PERFORMERS

Thomas Betterton

­wrote the first English guide to acting and

played many Shakespeare roles

­Once he performed a role, it became part of his

‘repertoire’ and he continued to play it (e.g. v. old

Hamlet)

­He and wife, also a performer = power couple,

even despite acting as disreputable

Colley Cibber

known for playing “fops”: foolish, effeminate

aristocrats

he wanted to perform in serious drama too,

but was apparently terrible at it

kind of over-the-top exaggerated manner

and liked to improvise and ad-lib

RESTORATION PERFORMERS + BREECHES ROLES

Imagine… its 1660 and the theatres have just reopened

after the Interregnum. Charles II is letting ladies on the

stage!

­Cutting edge, super exciting to see real women playing women

BUT even better was seeing…. Women play men!

WHY?

RESTORATION PERFORMERS + BREECHES ROLES

BREECHES ROLES

In theatre and opera, a breeches role is

one in which a female-identified

performer appears onstage in male

clothing.

Breeches are tight, form-fitting pants

(usually for riding horses) that were

typical male clothing in the 17th century.

While the term continues to be used in

opera to refer to operas that involve a

male character sung and acted by a

female singer, it has a more specific

historical usage in theatre. An Actress at Her Toilet, or Miss Brazen Just Breecht (John Collet, 1779)

ANNE BRACEGIRDLE

adopted by Thomas Betterton

and so grew up in the theatre

known for breeches roles

admired for radiance,

desirability, and had many

parts written specifically for

her

Apparently Colley Cibber was obsessed with her and desperately

wanted to play her lover in a production (it never happened).

In his autobiography he writes, “She had no greater Claim to Beauty

than what the most desirable Brunette might pretend to. But her Youth

and lively Aspect threw out such a Glow of Health and Chearfulness,

that on the Stage few Spectators that were not past it could behold her

without Desire. It was even a Fashion among the Gay and Young to have

a Taste or Tendre for Mrs. Bracegirdle.” (From The Garrick Club)

Another primary source from the time from Anthony Aston writing in

1748 says she was “of a lovely Height, with dark-brown Hair and Eye- brows, black sparkling Eyes, and a fresh blushy Complexion; and,

whenever she exerted herself, had an involuntary Flushing in her Breast,

Neck and Face, having continually a chearful Aspect, and a fine Set of

even white Teeth.”

ANNE OLDFIELD

• reported to be the “best

actress” of her time and

eventually pushes Bracegirdle

out: there were intense rivalries

at the time amongst performers

• known for her roles in polite

comedy and for being very

beautiful, but also a capable

businesswoman who negotiated

to become the highest paid

actress at the time

ELIZABETH BARRY

• “The ugliest woman in the world off

stage” but “the finest woman in the

world upon the stage” according to A

Comparison Between the Two

Stages from 1702

• known for the beauty of her voice and

oration abilities

famous for her tragic roles and ability

to quickly shift from emotion to emotion

convincingly

ACTING IN RESTORATION ENGLAND?

Given the information that we have about actors at the time, what

conclusions can we suggest?

Well, let’s start with the question of what gets recorded?

Looks

Voice and oration abilities

What about other details?

Not big into realism (Betterton plays the same roles over and over..

even as he ages out and becomes an old man playing young Hamlet)

The start of celebrity, including roles written specifically to showcase

certain performers

“Art is something that lies in the slender margin between the real and the unreal.” — Chikamatsu Monzaemon cited in Naniwa Miyage by Hozumi Ikan (1738)

ENGLISH RESTORATION THEATRE Week 17

REMINDERS

• Any questions about upcoming work?

• Take notice of one thing you’re doing really well and one thing

you’re grateful for

• Courses for next year

• Cromwell’s son; fine for attending theatre (Bawcutt 2009)

RESTORATION PERFORMERS + BREECHES ROLES

Imagine… its 1660 and the theatres have just reopened

after the Interregnum. Charles II is letting ladies on the

stage!

­Cutting edge, super exciting to see real women playing women

BUT even better was seeing…. Women play men!

WHY?

RESTORATION PERFORMERS + BREECHES ROLES

BREECHES ROLES

In theatre and opera, a breeches role is

one in which a female-identified

performer appears onstage in male

clothing. Breeches are tight, form-fitting

pants (usually for riding horses) that

were typical male clothing in the 17th

century.

While the term continues to be used in

opera to refer to operas that involve a

male character sung and acted by a

female singer, it has a more specific

historical usage in theatre. An Actress at Her Toilet, or Miss Brazen Just Breecht (John Collet, 1779)

ACTING IN RESTORATION ENGLAND?

Given the information that we have about actors at the time, what

conclusions can we suggest?

Well, let’s start with the question of what gets recorded?

Looks

Voice and oration abilities

What about other details?

Not big into realism (Betterton plays the same roles over and over..

even as he ages out and becomes an old man playing young Hamlet)

The start of celebrity, including roles written specifically to showcase

certain performers

NAHUM TATE: PLAYWRIGHT

Shakespeare needs some

editing

How does context shape art?

And does/should artistic

output respond to audience

taste and demand?

… what makes good theatre?

NAHUM TATE: PLAYWRIGHT

i.e. The History of King Lear

­ Cordelia lives!

­ Cordelia marries Edgar!

­ Edgar declares: truth and virtue shall at last succeed!

This version “supplanted Shakespeare’s play in every

performance given from 1681 to 1838,” and was “one of the

longest-lasting successes of the English drama.”

(Stanley Wells, “Introduction” King Lear Oxford Edition)

Can you think of any examples of re-tellings that have been

altered to suit new contexts?

APHRA BEHN: PLAYWRIGHT

APHRA BEHN: PLAYWRIGHT

•1st woman in England to earn her

living as a writer “professional

writer”

• Wrote several plays (at least 19)

during the Restoration period,

featuring women as central

characters on topics like arranged

marriage, colonial oppression,

women’s rights

Portrait of Aphra Behn by Peter Lely 1670

APHRA BEHN: PLAYWRIGHT

•The Rover according to the British Library, “features powerful female

characters who argue wittily for their rights. In the play, two women battle

for the affections of the cavalier Willmore. One is the sparky Hellena,

who declares that she would rather become a nun than be forced into

marriage with a man she does not love; the other is the sex worker

Angellica Bianca. In their struggle, Hellena and Angellica must also fight

against the limitations of sex and social class. The play, which is set in

Naples amidst a licentious society of exiled libertines and Spanish

noblemen, is strikingly modern in its frank discussion of gender roles and

pleas for sexual freedom.”

AGENT 160/ASTREA

She wrote novels, poetry, and translations,

but also served as a spy for Charles II, and

spent time in debtor’s prison.

“palimpsest: she has scratched herself out”

Germaine Greer

“lethal combination of obscurity, secrecy

and staginess which makes her an uneasy

fit for any narrative, speculative or factual.

She is not so much a woman to be

unmasked as an unending combination of

masks” Janet Todd Portrait of Aphra Behn by Peter Lely 1670

RESTORATION

COMEDY

Witty, sexy, smutty, upper class

people looking for love (usually

via adultery)

Distrust of conventional morality

(i.e. the Puritans failed)

Marriage is not a happy ending:

skeptical of love, honor, fidelity

THE COUNTRY WIFE BY WILLIAM WYCHERLEY’S 1675

Harry Horner tells everyone he is impotent with the help of his “doctor” Quack. He

does this so that husbands will leave their wives with him, assuming he has no

interest in sex.

Pinchwife marries a young naïve girl Margery but is so paranoid about her being

faithful he won’t let her leave the house and keeps her in the country. Margery

eventually manages to meet Horner after dressing up as a man and she becomes

very interested in sex and him, despite her husband’s best attempts to keep her

away from corrupting influences.

The third plot point concerns Harcourt and Alithea. Alithea is betrothed to foppish

Sparkish and forgives his many, many faults. She accidentally ends up in a

compromising position with Horner and Sparkish eventually dumps her. Harcourt

believes her to be virtuous and they fall in love.

Horner sleeps with everyone. Weird metaphors about china. 

THE COUNTRY WIFE BY WILLIAM WYCHERLEY’S 1675

THE CHINA SCENE

RESTORATION COMEDY

­Insight into historical context

­Insight into performance techniques

Position of Women

­Breeches roles

SAMUEL PEPYS

He is a really, really honest diarist

Historical does not mean formal/un

–

human/infallible

– resist the urge to

treat history as something precious

And also a very, very sexually

voracious man (think of his model)

He writes “in code”:

Spanish/French/Italian

By John Hayls 1666