February 19, 2002
When Charles II was restored to the English throne
in 1660, one of the areas his reign affected most was the theatre. Having been
raised in the French court of Louis XIV, not only did he reopen the theatres,
which had previously been closed by the heavy Puritan influence after the
Renaissance, he sought to imbue them with French style and spectacle. One of
these elements of spectacle was the allowing of women to appear on stage for
the first time. In Britain, during the pre-Puritan, Renaissance theatre, women
were expressly forbidden from appearing on the stage. Men or young boys played
all female parts, and female writers were almost unheard of. However, following
French tradition, the introduction of women onto the stage became one of the
most important and groundbreaking innovations of the Restoration stage, opening
up the world of theatre not only for actresses, but for women as managers and
playwrights, as well.
The fact
that actresses did not appear on the Renaissance stage is common knowledge, but
even with the absence of physical women from the stage, the roles that were
written for women tell much about their rights and place in society at the
time. Female characters typically fit into one of three categories; ingénue
(such as Shakespeare’s Ophelia), matriarch (such as Lady Mac Beth), or servant
(such as the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet). These roles fit the roles that
women played in Elizabethan society. A woman had no legal power to herself. All
her legal power lied in either her father or husband. An odd juxtaposition
considering that it was also a female sitting on the throne, and one who would
turn out as one of England’s greatest monarchs. Most often, women were there
solely as plot devices, support to the male lead. Very few women in Elizabethan
drama exerted power, independence or free will, and of those that did, most
befell tragedy in the end, such as John Webster’s Duchess of Malfi.
Meanwhile,
in France, theatre burgeoned, especially in the royal court. Catherine de’ Medici brought with her from
Italy aspects of scenery and spectacle and her water pageants set a standard
for court performances. While ballet was gauche at court for a period of time,
in the 1640’s, it was brought back into vogue with a vengeance by King Louis
XIV (Brockett 218). It was in this court that Charles II of England spent his
formative years. Extravagant ballets were performed, some starring Louis
himself as “The Sun,” lending to his nickname of “The Sun King.” Other than
ballets at court, plays were also sometimes performed and in these plays,
Charles saw something never seen on the British stage: women. The French acting
companies commonly included numerous women. Thus, when Charles II was brought
back to England and restored to the throne in 1660, along with the scenery and
spectacle he had grown used to, this idea of female actors appearing on stage
along with men, arrived with him.
While it
was partly French influence that helped women gain entrance to the stage, it
was also necessity. When theatres were reopened in 1660, the new companies that
were formed by Killigrew and Davenant discovered something hindering to them:
due to the banning of theatre, no trained boy actors were around (Wilson 20).
And since the banishment of women from the stage was partly a Puritan edict
lost all ground along with the ground lost by the fall of the Puritans, women
were ushered into the profession from all around. At the beginning, it was
assumed that women on stage was only going to be a temporary fix, until
suitable numbers of boy actors could be trained (Hunt, 181), but the sheer sight
of females on stage brought popularity to the idea and the actresses, making
the ranks of actresses a veritable line-up of would-be mistresses for the upper
class gentlemen (Nestvold 1). Moll Davis and Nell Gwyn even got so far as to
become the mistresses of Charles II himself (Hunt 182). Some other actresses
could even have been spies on the side (“Roving” 1). In fact, in the turbulent
British social world, an acting career “became attractive to ladies whose main
concern was the acquisition of a rich husband or ‘keeper’” (Hunt 181), seeing
as without a husband, one had no clout in proper society, and the private lives
of the actresses and actors became almost more important than the art(Hunt
181). But popular or not, they still received lesser pay than their male
equivalents (Nestvold 1). The benefits
for women in the theatre did not end at actresses, however, in fact, many of
the women took to managing the theatre companies with or after the death of
their husband. The Dorset Garden Theater, under the management of Lady
Henrietta Maria Davenant was the most successful theatre company in London
(Nestvold 1). Other than management, the most affected career was as a
playwright. Female playwright sprouted up in abundance, including Aphra Behn,
Mary Pix, Catharine Trotter and Delariviere Manley.
Before
female-written plays became the vogue, however, actresses entranced the
audience in plays written by males. Many of these plays were neo-classical-ised
versions of Renaissance plays, such as King Lear or Othello. But
the male writers did not see female characters the same way female writers did.
In fact, one aspect that was almost exaggerated in these revisions was the rape
of a chaste woman. Some actresses even specialized in this type of role
(Marsden 188). The psychological reasoning behind this new fascination with
stage rape is there: real women were never before on the stage, and hence
neither was rape. With the new addition of actresses, a voyeuristic pleasure
could be taken from seeing the actress, making the rape become a “theatrical
spectacle only when visible signs of the female are present: breasts, bare
shoulders, and ‘ravished’ hair” (Marsden 186). In the male-written Restoration
comedy, however, the case was much different and the women were objectified in
another way. The new Comedy of Manners heavily featured almost stock
characters, stereotyping women into few categories that harkened back to the
limitations of Renaissance roles. But while, the male playwrights did take into
account the new station of women, it seems as if they didn’t quite know how to
find the middle ground and in some cases, made the characters “almost bipolar
in relation to each other” (Katovich 1). An independent female character could
be seen, but she was almost always balanced out by being so witty that she
almost came across as bitter. This was true even for the comedies. The bent was
to shift the focus from mocking all of the characters in a comedy, to mocking
“the newly enlightened woman” (Katovich 1). This stereotyping provided many
actresses with opportunities however, and many specialized in one area,
becoming great actresses of their time.
These new roles for
women in theatre, however, were not entirely reflective of the new roles for
women in society and culture. Women were still expected to live under the laws
of their father or husband, and truly, “women’s growing awareness of their
limitations and their aspirations for more freedom in expression does not in
the plays, and did not in society, translate into a change of female legal
status until the following century” (Galloway 8). Although the philosophies of
people such as Hobbes, focusing on self-interest and individualistic rights,
were coming into light, these philosophies very rarely made it to practice for
the average Restoration woman (Galloway 3). This is perhaps why so many female
writers turned to Shakespeare’s Othello for allusions and inspiration.
Oddly enough, and against the male point of view, the female writers tended to
identify with Othello, the moor, rather than with the heroine, Desdemona (Pearson,
14-15). They identified with his “otherness” (15), and associated with the
minority appeal that he had. In these Restoration rewrites, the character of
Othello was portrayed as a more sympathetic character, helping women identify
with his alienation, and “women writers, in producing more sensitive
representations of black characters, were also subtextually presenting more
positive representations of themselves” (Pearson 19).
Though there were soon
numerous female playwrights in the Restoration, four derive a prominent notice.
Catharine Trotter, was heavily influenced by the earlier Aphra Behn, and
“viewed writing for the stage as her moral duty” (“Female” 1), and introduced
strong, intelligent heroines into her works. Delariviere Manley, also a writer
of strong characters, focused more on burdens held against females from
society, including the “lack of educational opportunities” and the “blatant
prejudice against female writers” (“Female” 1). Her characters, instead of
sitting back and letting life happen to them, sought to govern their own lives.
Mary Pix, was the odd egg of the bunch. While the other writers sought to break
the stereotypes of female characters, Pix seemed to propagate the stereotypes.
Her women are weak and content to let themselves be ruled by others. What is
most notable about her writing however is the sheer volume of female characters
as opposed to other writers of the time (“Female” 2). No writer, however, was
more influential than Aphra Behn.
Aphra Behn is commonly
considered the first woman in England to make her living solely by writing
(“Roving” 1). As a middle class widow, she turned to writing to support
herself, and in The Rover, presented the most independent female
character seen up to that time, who still reads as an almost contemporary
figure, Hellena. Hellena and her sister Florinda typify the juxtaposition of a
strong female character with a weaker, “old-fashioned” one. The younger, and
overlooked sister, she is “clever, confident and eager for romantic conquest.
She might as well be a man,” says the author of “Roving Hellena” (2). Hellena
can best be related to such contemporary characters as Ally McBeal, or any of
the women on Sex and the City. She knows what she wants, and will use
all talents available to her, slight treachery, disguise and her sharp wit, to
get what she wants. Behn uses the character of Hellena to examine “how people
walk through their roles in society and how those roles are used in their favor
or to their disadvantage,” focusing especially on the roles of women and the
bias against them. Perhaps it is most notable about Hellena that she does
indeed win her object of desire, and she does it by using her own pragmatic and
practical approach to romance. “She is playing a game, and she has grown to
love both the game and the object thereof” (“Roving” 4-5). Such forwardness in
a female character was shocking and unheard of then, and still is to a degree
now, in the double standard held against women and men. Men are allowed to see
romance as sport, but it is still to this day considered very un-lady-like for
a woman to pursue the same behavior. Behn’s character of Hellena truly finds
herself on “equal footing” with her catch, something hard to achieve in the eye
of society then (“Roving” 5). She truly is the “Rover” of the title.
Although women were most
often little more than pretty faces (and other assorted body parts) to the
Restoration stage, this was still a breakthrough for women as actresses,
managers, and playwrights. In the female characters, and in the women who write
them, one can find the genesis of many of the self-confident, self-assured,
“I’m every woman” characters in theatre, film and television today.
Brockett, Oscar. History
of the Theatre. Eighth ed. Allyn and Bacon: Boston.
1999.
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>
Galloway, Shirley. “Love and
Marriage in Three Restoration Comedies.” 1996.
Accessed
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Hunt, Hugh. “Restoration
Acting.” Restoration Theatre. Edward Arnold, Ltd:
London.
1965. Call Number: 822.09 R43 c.2
Katovich, Megan. “Images of
Women in Three Early Eighteenth Century Plays.”
Accessed
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Quinsey,
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Nestvold, Ruth. “Women in
the Theater after the Restoration.” Aphra Behn Home
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Pearson, Jacqueline.
“Blacker Than Hell Creates.” Broken
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Quinsey,
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B867
“Roving Hellena: The
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Wilson, John Harold. A
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