The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.2549  Monday, 5 November 2001

[1]     From:   Geralyn Horton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Saturday, 03 Nov 2001 01:02:09 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2534 Re: Schoolmaids

[2]     From:   Adrian Kiernander <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 05 Nov 2001 12:34:26 +1100
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2534 Re: Schoolmaids

[3]     From:   Kathy Crosby <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Sunday, 04 Nov 2001 23:24:46 -0400
        Subj:   Re: SHK 12.2528 Schoolmaids?


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Geralyn Horton <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Saturday, 03 Nov 2001 01:02:09 -0500
Subject: 12.2534 Re: Schoolmaids
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2534 Re: Schoolmaids

> From:           Andrew Walker White <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>

>The video
> indicates that the courtship scene is hilarious, and precisely because
> of Toby Cockerell's protruding Adam's Apple
> Do others get the same impression?  That Shakespeare's company may not
> have tried to hide the boy's identity as a boy, even when in a skirt?

I believe that the video may be misleading. I was a "groundling" at that
performance, and although on one level I "knew" Cockerell was male, I
"saw" a high born female whose girlish shyness and high spirits were
restrained and shaped by courtly manners.  For me, Cockerell's excellent
performance "proved" that the appropriate acting style for such roles is
the same as that used by Cockerell when doubling as a page, and by the
wonderful character actor who doubled Dame Quickly--- not "camp".

I have heard, however, that there were some performances when the
audience heckled and whooped and refused to allow a suspension of
disbelief, and Cockerell went "over the top" into flouncings and parody.

> This goes to the core of interpreting any number of comic scenes, IMHO,
> and I'm not sure how many scholars have read them from this perspective,

Geralyn Horton, Newton, Mass. 02460
<http://www.stagepage.org>
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Adrian Kiernander <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 05 Nov 2001 12:34:26 +1100
Subject: 12.2534 Re: Schoolmaids
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2534 Re: Schoolmaids

>  From:   Andrew Walker White <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
>
> Do others get the same impression?  That Shakespeare's company may not
> have tried to hide the boy's identity as a boy, even when in a skirt?
> This goes to the core of interpreting any number of comic scenes, IMHO,
> and I'm not sure how many scholars have read them from this perspective,
> if any.

I have written about one aspect of this question in an article entitled
"'Cupid's bow burn'd': or, difference endangered in John Lyly's
Gallathea and Shakespeare's cross-dress comedies".

I argue, partly on the basis of having directed Gallathea, that in those
plays where young female characters are disguised as boys (i.e. where
the boy actors double-cross-dress) there is a double sense of the
*character* as simultaneously boy and girl (with the image of the boy
often predominating).  I refer to AYLI, 2GV, TN and Cym. The article is
published in the "Renaissance in the South" special issue of
Australasian Drama Studies 33, October 1998, pp. 54-64. This may
(unfortunately) be difficult to access for people outside Australasia,
so I could send an electronic copy to anyone who is interested.

All the best,
Adrian Kiernander

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Kathy Crosby <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Sunday, 04 Nov 2001 23:24:46 -0400
Subject: 12.2528 Schoolmaids?
Comment:        Re: SHK 12.2528 Schoolmaids?

Andy White writes,

>Do others get the same impression?  That Shakespeare's company may not
>have tried to hide the boy's identity as a boy, even when in a skirt?

A few weeks ago in an honours seminar (overseen by the list's Dr.
Luckyj) my class addressed a similar issue when dealing with As You Like
It. It was proposed during the discussion that attention had to be drawn
to the very issue of male actors portraying women during the courting
scenes involving Rosalind and Orlando. Rosalind, played by a male actor,
dresses as a male, Ganymede (to escape into the forest) and engages in a
mock-courtship with Orlando where "Ganymede" becomes "Rosalind." The
result is a boy-actor, portraying a woman, who is dressing as a man,
pretending to be a woman. In this play the gender identity of the actor
would certainly add to the convoluted sexual identity of Rosalind and is
therefore highly significant.  I agree whole-heartedly that
Shakespeare's audiences knew the "girls were boys."

Regards,
~Kathy Crosby

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The S H A K S P E R Webpage <http://ws.bowiestate.edu>

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