After researching many names of actors – specifically boy-actors of the period, I tried to find a name which had very little information attached to that name. For example, Nathan Field, originally a boy actor is fairly well-known and therefore has plenty of information about him, and is often commented upon in numerous articles. I wanted to find a person who had no significant information written about them, I essentially wanted a blank shell which I could then use to effectively create the character. So I managed to find a name with very little – to nothing apparently associated with it, which was ‘Samuel Daniel’. Therefore, this is the name I have taken for my boy actor character.
I have a particular thought in my head for the type of personality Samuel has, I imagine that he is confident, border lining on cocky. He is proud of his position, playing the heroine leads, perhaps even slightly smug in the knowledge that, according to antitheatricalists, he is making men in the audience ‘confused’ based on the whole gender-confusion debate that rages between the antitheatricalists and the players. However, unlike with cosplay where the character has already been created and therefore you can embody the character easily – being well aware of their personality traits, behaviour and so on this is unfortunately the other way around. I have a personality in mind for the character, but until I put the costume on and start presenting myself as the character, a completely different personality for the character could come forward. Often I have found, when presenting a made-up character first on page and then in terms of a minor performance, the character personality could go under either a minor or a major personality shift. It of course, depends entirely on the type of reactions they are given in terms of others. A very confident character, when presented with an equally – if not more so confident and outspoken character, can very easily discover that they are in fact suffering from anxiety or uncertainty in their own confidence. So it shall be interesting to see just how Samuel Daniel reacts to what might occur in phase 3 of the project. Whether the basic personality I have in mind will remain intact, or if he shall appear completely different to how I imagined him.
Clothing and costume is a significant part into determining a character and their personality, I did lots of research into what type of clothing was worn in the period – specifically young men, such as Samuel Daniel’s age group. The type of style, colour and their reasons for wearing the particular types of clothes they did.
During the 1560s and onwards there was a significant increase in laws, legislation and proclamations which announced the type of clothing people of the realm could, and could not wear, on account of class, rank and estate:
‘Much of the 1562 edict was devoted to determining which rank of men could wear what kind of hose and, according to the proclamation, servants were allowed to wear plain hose only. As members of ‘the meanear sort,’ male servants, apprentices, and students were not permitted to wear hose made of velvet, satin, or ‘any other stuff above the estimation of sarcenet or taffeta’ or stockings that were stuffed with more than a yard and three quarters of material. (Baliey 27)
Of course, whenever laws are put in place to try to bring a definitive sense of order to something as open as clothing, there are always those who rebel, or who like to take such laws to an extreme, or just simply ignore them altogether. Young men of the period are noted to be the type to wear bright clothing and such, bypassing or just generally ignoring the rules set down by the clothing proclamations:
‘The clothing proclamation of 1588, for example, boldly asserts that youths practise ‘excesses of apparel’ more than any other group.’ (Bailey, 25)
I believe my character would likely be one of the young sort who would use ‘excesses of apparel’ having bold outfits, particularly ones that would stand out so as to make a point of his personality. He would most likely be surrounded by a collection of bright young men, all showing off their new, bright – and possibly expensive-looking apparel to each other. It should be noted that:
‘Gosson drives home his point that young men wear sumptuous clothes not simply to role-play but to play it up. ‘To jet’ meant to carry oneself in an affected way and to convey an ostentatious manner, for instance by strutting ‘like a peacock or turkey’. (Bailey, 24)
I can certainly see Samuel Daniel taking it upon himself ‘to jet’. I believe he would think highly of his clothes, seeing his own items of clothing almost as a costume of sorts, a chance to perform to his friends and the people he meets, while taking on a role of a female for the stage. In my opinion, the character is not from a rich family – as I have discovered via research that most young boy-actors were not, and were in fact from more middle-class families, often the second or third son who was not likely to earn the inheritance from their father’s estate. Therefore, I feel the character most likely wears clothes which appear to be expensive, or appear to be exotic in an attempt to bring across a certain air of indulgence with his attire. Perhaps he bought his clothes second or third hand – as was most likely of the time, yet presents it as new, modern and extremely fashionable. Clothes were often bought and resold. Those involved in the stage often had their costumes donated to them from wealthy families who found their clothes too old or threadbare to be worn for daily use anymore:
‘The head of the Rose Theatre, Philip Henslowe, for instance, regularly rented out and sold items of apparel that had been used as costumes. Most of the profits that he received from such arrangements were for less than thirty shillings, indicating that small sums of money could allow one to purchase clothes that, although thread-worn, still conveyed some sense of resplendence.’ (Bailey, 43)
This is quite probably the case with Samuel Daniel, having bought a collection of clothes for cheap from the theatre, or second hand, creating his own illusion of his own wealth and prosperity, while also daring to antagonise the antithatricalists with his ‘jetting’ behaviour and performing as women on the stage. In my mind he appears to be quite the peacock, proud of his appearance, and always playing to the crowd, both on and off the stage. Perhaps this is not always a good thing, and his confidence could appear to be both a good thing, and somewhat of a flaw. As for whether this will be the case when I put on the outfit and bring across the character through photos is another matter. Perhaps it will become apparent in my body language presenting the character, perhaps not. It really depends on when I put on the costume, however, these notes have been taken into account, in both the style and type of clothing that is expected of him, along with his possible personality traits.
There is a considerably large debate with academics in regards to the representation of the female gender – specifically by boy-actors – when performed on the Jacobean stage. For my project, therefore, I wished to explore this interplay of gender blurring, by going so far as to essentially ‘cosplay’ a character who is a young male-actor playing female roles on the Jacobean stage. In this respect, I’ll be a girl, dressed, and playing as a boy, who himself dresses, and plays as a girl. Perhaps even some of the parts he plays on stage, would be characters such as Viola or Rosalind, in which case, it would extend the blurring of boundaries, levels of gender and confusion further in that I would be a girl, performing as a boy, who performs as a girl on stage, who happens to play at being a boy during the action of the play.
‘… “play-boys” probably occupied a lower social status than the adult male actors playing adult male characters. In the two recent all-male productions [of As you like it], however, Rosalind was played by very experienced adult performers – Ronald Pickup and Gregory Floy for the National [1967 and revived in 1974], Ronnie Lester for Cheek by Jowl [1994]. Even with play-boys, the effects of such cross-gender casting for modern audiences would be different from what they were for Elizabethan spectators. For us it is a novelty; for them it is the norm.’ (Shapiro, 177)
In dressing as a boy actor, I would want to bring out this feeling of what might be the norm, of this play on dressing, a performance of sorts, but making it appear neither as drag, nor as transvestism. From my knowledge and experience of being within the cosplay community, the general attitude towards cross-dressing boys and girls differs. There are plenty of girls who cross-dress as boys, to the point that within such a community, it is considered the norm. In fact, the more convincing a boy a female can make, the more commended they are after they have made the transition back to being a girl. A male on the other hand, cosplaying as a female character, however, seem to do it at varying degrees, in the past, I have noticed from experience that a male ‘crossplay’ tends to be done in the most modern sense, to make it a novelty, a piece of drag and comedy. However, lately, due to new shows and games appearing with an almost all-female cast, it seems some male cosplayers are daring to try and be as convincing as their female counterparts. Unfortunately, such views are not seen as so normal to the ‘ordinary public’. It is strange to think almost that during the sixteenth century, play-boys were the norm, men often played female parts in plays in England, and were taken very seriously in their roles. ‘In the three centuries since the introduction of actresses, audiences have come to accept the use of women in female roles as natural, when in fact it is merely conventional and at one time was considered innovative.’ (Sharpiro, 178) And as such, seemed to have taken the view of cross-dressing as being ‘bizzare’, ‘unnatural’ or merely a comedic device. Frankly, I would prefer it if such a notion was considered so normal that there was no real view taken on it at all. This is the sort of characterisation I wish to bring up when playing as the boy-actor. This notion of cross-dressing being a perfectly normal art or behaviour is something I wish to bring across in the videos I will do for Phase 3.
In essence, the boy-actor that I would be dressed as and be playing, would theoretically at the time have heard of such words against his position, his gender and role. While in actual fact, I myself, as the boy-actor would have such claims directed unto myself. After all, I will be dressed as a boy in regards to this, and so in regards to several anti-theatricalist writers of the time, I would be garnering and creating the same ‘uncertainties’ that the boy actors of the time may have created.
‘[Philip] Stubbes claims that the sign can alter the essence, that wearing the other sex’s clothing can literally “adulterate” gender: “What man so ever weareth womans apparel is accursed, and what woman weareth mans apparel is accursed also… Our Apparell was given to us as a signe distinctive to discern betwixt sex and sex, and therefore one to wear the Apparel of another sex, is to participate with the same, and to adulterate the veritie of his own kinde.” The claim here is that costume is constitutive. Men and women who wear each other’s costume, says Stubbes, “may not improperly be called Hermaphroditi, that is, Monsters of both kindes, half women, half men”. (Levine, 22)
The conundrum that has so far eluded me in terms of my academic research, is whether the anti-theatricalists considered roles wherein boy-actors would play women who would disguise themselves as men to be part of this ‘monster’? Was it still viewed as being monstrous when the boy-actor played a women who had disguised herself as a man? Yes? No? The part was still a part of play? In theory they were still playing a woman, who had simply donned male attire – was it therefore a further gross viewing for this? Or was it merely the boy-actor performing as his ‘true self’ when playing a woman disguised as a man? There is a brief mention of how it could have been viewed, but little detail really goes into it:
‘…in an all-male production of As You Like It, the first time we see Ganymede, we don’t see a pert female ingénue swaggering around adorably in a pair of breeches – the image typically offered on the contemporary American stage. Rather, we see the undisguised boy. The exaggerated descriptions of Ganymede’s underlying femininity – “I could find in my heart to disgrace my man’s apparel and to cry like a woman. But I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat” (II, iv, 3-6) – are a necessary means of identifying the character and sparking the play’s central irony. These lines and the vision we behold tell us: this is and is not Rosalind.’ (Solomon, 31)
Therefore, as I present myself as this character, I am essentially both myself and the character, however, when I present myself as the boy playing the woman I would be ‘the undisguised self’? But then, I would be playing the female role as if I was a boy performing the female role. So even though I am undisguised in my dress sense, I would not be quite so undisguised in my own attitude, behaviour and what I may perform as the female role.
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