Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-01-30
sHAKsPEARE's WOMEN.

Troublesome Double Observation-Disclosures
nisn,s IN Modern Representations of
ROsGIind.
In Judging of what Shakespeare did in
Gas You Like IT, and other plays of SINH
lar construction, we must first of all take
into consideration the conditions under
which he wrote. The most important of
these in our present view is that, in his
day, there were no actresses upon the stage,
all women's parts, young and old, were
played by men. This was added to the
marvel of his creation of enchanting
womanhood, that he was writing those
women's words for actors who had to be
shaved before they were ready to
go on with their parts. But in plays
like Gas You Like IT. the complication
was yet greater. There was doubt in
version. His woman's words, his self-re-
vealing, almost self-creating woman's
man pretending to be woman, but by a
man pretending to be a woman who pre-
tended to be man. Shakespeare, how
ever, was surely troubled by nothing of
this. He stuck right at the heart of things,
and made his woman for US as she lived in
his imagination. Whether Anne Page was
to be presented by an Anne Page, or by
lubberly postmaster's boy, or whether she
was not to be presented it was quite the
same to him. If he was to make her at all
he must make her as he did. To produce
her thus was just as easy for him as for an
inferior workman to turn out his clumsy
creature, Who might indeed be q post
masters boy in petticoats. But so far rs
the performance was concerned, stage
illusion, or whatever we may call that i'm
preston which we receive from the mimic
life of the thsater, this performance of
women's parts by young men was of the
greatest importance when we come to con-
slider the representation of female person
ages who assume the dress and character
of men. For, in the first place, as it will
be seen, the male guise was then not
disguise. What the spectator saw before
his eyes was actually young man, who
might or might not upon occasion, assun
certain feminine airs and grace With more
or less success. And this physical fact was
of the more Importance, because in these
plays, generally, the woman is disguised
through the greater part of the perform
again, if at all, only in the last
scene. Nor does the reverse of
the action present. any difficulty at all
equal to that which has been thus over
come. A handsome, smooth-fsced young
man, skilled in the actors art, and dis
guised By wig and paint, could very easily
present face to his audience which would
not think for = moment of doubling that
was that Of a woman, and when he was
playing the woman scenes of his woman
part, all that was distinctively masculine
in his person would be concealed in his
wenan's dress. In his woman's scenes
his disguise would be so easy that to q
skilled and practical actor they would pres
ent no difficulty that would give him
moments trouble. This was even more SO
iniShakspsaEe's day than it is now; for then
the dress of lady, with its high ruff, its
stomscher, and It's huge farthingals destroy
ed in every case all resemblance to the lines
of woman's figure as nature has bounts-
ously vouchsafed it to us. No one can
study the portraits of gentlewomen of the
time of Elizabeth and James I. without
seeing that the human creatures within
that portentoas raiment might Just as we'll,
for all their semblaIfce to woman, be mas
culine as feminine. And if there had not
been almost equal absurdity and extrava-
gance in some parts of male costome of
that day, the difficulty in this matter of
disguise weuld have been rather in the &C.
ceptance of the pretending man as wom
an in masquerade. For, referring to the
impossibility above set forth that Rosalind
could have been mistaken for young man
by haF lover, we see that even her face was
masked or hidden, and her dress revealed
her woman's form as it does upon our
stage, no man who had sufficient appreci-
alton of a woman's beauty to deserve to
possess it could be deceived in the sex of
Ganymede for one moment. And yet it