27. Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?

December 8th. On this date in 1660, a professional female actress appeared on the English stage in a production of Othello. It’s one of the earliest known instances of a female role actually being played by a woman in an English production. Up until this time, women were considered too fine and sensitive for the rough life of the theater, and boys or men dressed in drag to play female characters. An earlier attempt to form co-ed theater troupes was met with jeers and hisses and thrown produce.

But by the second half of the 17th century, the King’s Company felt that London society could handle it. Before the production, a lengthy disclaimer in iambic pentameter was delivered to the audience, warning them that they were about to see an actual woman in the part. This was, the actor explained, because they felt that men were just too big and burly to play the more delicate roles, „With bone so large and nerve so incompliant / When you call Desdemona, enter giant.“ / Writers‘ Almanac, 8.12. 2012

A Prologue to introduce the first Woman that came to act on the Stage, in the Tragedy called the Moor of Venice:
Delivered at theatre in Vere Street, on Saturday, December 8th, 1660 – written by Thomas Jordan.

„I came, unknown to any of the rest,
To tell the news; I saw the lady drest:
The woman plays to-day; mistake me not,
No man in gown, or page in petticoat;
A woman to my knowledge, yet I can’t,
If I should die, make affidavit on’t.

Do you not twitter, gentlemen? I know
You will be censuring: do it fairly, though;
‚Tis possible a virtuous woman may
Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play;
Play on the stage where all eyes are upon her:
Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?

In other kingdoms husbands safely trust ‚em;
The difference lies only in the custom.
And let it be our custom, I advise;
I’m sure this custom’s better than th‘ excise,
And may procure us custom: hearts of flint
„Will melt in passion when a woman’s in’t.

But, gentlemen, you that as judges sit
In the Star-chambers of the house the pit,
Have modest thoughts of her; pray do not run
To give her visits when the play is done,
With „damn me, your most humble servant, lady;“
She knows these things as well as you, it may be;

Not a bit there, dear gallants, she doth know
Her own deserts and your temptations too.
But to the point: in this reforming age
We have intents to civilise the stage.
Our women are defective, and so sized,
You’d think they were some of the guard disguised;

For, to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant,
When you call „Desdemona,“ enter giant.
We shall purge everything that is unclean,
Lascivious, scurrilous, impious, or obscene;
And when we’ve put all things in this fair way,
Barebones himself may come to see a play.‘