The Renaissance Theater’s Boy Actresses

Christine D. Billy

During the Renaissance the theater and the works produced therein were controlled by the laws and conventions of the period. Shakespeare’s great talent was thus constrained by these standards. His plays have become regarded as great works of literature today, but were then viewed chiefly as plays to be performed for the entertainment of the court and theater patrons. As such, Shakespeare created his productions on a mostly fixed stage with a small troupe of actors from which to select to play the intricate roles he created. The Shakespearean company of actors must have conformed to both the laws and customs which governed this business, including the custom of the theater as an all male profession. The production of plays during the Renaissance era, in particular the female roles, were directly impacted by the use of males in female roles and their ability to interpret the complex female characters Shakespeare created.

The medieval system of class distinction is present in the Renaissance with the theater being included as a professional guild similar to that of the other tradesmen. Within this system existed three basic classes: masters, journeymen and apprentices. Within each class members attained a ranking, or level of power within the organization of their business and the politics of their society. Unlike other business, actors were retained by a patron, usually someone of noble or royal stature, who was responsible for securing their license and maintained theatrical control over them. As such, the actors retained a place similar to that of a royal servant, which included many privileges and protections of the court.

Acting, much like all other professions, were all male. Members of a company were contracted to each other and shared both the expenses and proceeds of their labors equally. Entrance into the company required the departure of a member and the ability to buy out that member or his heirs. Shakespeare’s company is documented as having between nine and, at its peak, twelve members. Baldwin notes that the members of the company “could not unaided carry on completely the work they proposed. Therefore, they secured necessary labor regularly from two other sources; hired men, and apprentices” (25). The apprentices laws of the period required that an “apprentice must serve a minimum of seven years and be at least twenty-four at the end of his apprenticeship” ( Baldwin 33). This would suggest that the boys taken as apprentices began acting at the age of fourteen, however Baldwin notes several cases where the age of these boys can be documented closer to the age of ten. He states, “of eight fairly definite cases, one apprentice entered at ten, and five others almost certainly did; all were certainly taken before they were thirteen. It would seem then that ten was probably the usual age for a boy to begin his training as an actor” (35).

The young apprentices were “assigned to the different actors for instruction. They learned their trade from the masters, as other apprentices learned theirs from the blacksmith or cabinetmaker” (Nagler 77). The apprentice was bought by the master and paid weekly from the master’s earnings. In the acting profession, young men progressed from apprentice to master, and given the limited number of vacancies for members of the company, the masters had their choice of the best recruits. If in a few years the boy did not prove to be a talented actor he was no longer kept as an apprentice. Age also factored into the apprentice’s usefulness within the company. If the young man outgrew his believability in female roles was not expected to be retained as a member upon reaching the age of twenty-four, he was often let go by the age of twenty-one.

The impact of having boys play the female characters in the plays is often minimized as unimportant to the production itself. “The taking of female parts by boys was universal and commonplace, we are told, it was accepted as “verisimilitude” by the Elizabethan audience, who simply disregard it as we would disregard the creaking of stage scenery and accept the backcloth forest as real for the duration of the play” (Jardine 57). The young actors were dressed in female gown, appropriately padded and made up to look as much like women as possible. The absence of any female actresses with which to compare also helped sustain the illusion.

The believability of the male actor in the female role surpassed even the more obvious processes of natural maturation on the part of the actor. “Contrary to twentieth century expectations, and despite the dissatisfactions we have noted with the sound of the performers, there are no recorded complaints about the appearance of male actresses on the Renaissance, only complaints about their sound” (Callaghan 71). They were not often left alone on stage, frequently entering and exiting with other actors. “The boys were highly trained artists and, especially in the Jacobean period, some of the most demanding roles in the English repertoire were written for them” (Leggatt 10).

Shakespeare’s Cleopatra is arguably one of his most challenging female roles. “The Queen of Egypt is Shakespeare’s portrait of the consummate woman, endlessly alluring, at once passionate and shrewdly calculating” (Fallon 38). Callaghan notes that “in Cleopatra, Shakespeare is thought to have captured the very essence and allure of womanhood, the epitome of powerfully erotic, oriental femininity” (12). How difficult must it have been for a young man of barely fourteen to play a highly sexually charged role such as the role of Cleopatra? However the illusion of Cleopatra does not fall solely on the shoulders of the young actor playing her, rather the supporting characters help create her greatness. “Part of the reality of Cleopatra is the wayward, devious gypsy trickster we see; but another part is the great queen created for us by Enobarbus’s famous description of her barge, a speech that brings Egypt palpably on stage in the middle of a Roman scene” (Leggatt 76). Fallon also notes, “it is in the lines of Shakespeare’s matchless poetry, as various characters record their impressions of her, that we learn of Cleopatra’s legendary attraction” (38).

Some think that Anthony and Cleopatra was never performed during Shakespeare’s lifetime; however Baldwin documents the play Anthony and Cleopatra as having been performed once in the winter of 1606, crediting the role of Cleopatra to John Edmans, Pope’s apprentice. Regarding Edmans, Baldwin states “though he probably boyed even Cleopatra’s greatness, yet he never attained membership in the Shakespearean company” (277). The fact that the documentation has the play only being performed once could be attributed to many factors. The length of the play and the lavish costuming and staging of the play were certainly contributing factors. However, some critics point to the difficulty of the role of Cleopatra as a factor as well. Cleopatra is a powerful woman in full command of herself. Shakespeare has written more dialog for her, 670 lines, than any other female character, at times dominating scenes. Lamb writes, “Shakespeare’s longest tragic female role had to be played by a boy of fourteen or so. It has been suggested that Anthony and Cleopatra was not popular in Shakespeare’s time because the boy actor could not handle the part of the queen” (29, 30).

Another cause may have been the explicitly sexuality of the play. Anthony is a married man, and Cleopatra an experienced lover, having had other powerful men in her bed before him. “Conventional or no, the taking of female parts by boy players actually occasioned a good deal of contemporary comment, and created considerable moral uneasiness, even amongst those who patronized and supported the theaters” (Jardine 57). The cross dressing of the boy players has led some critics to suggest that abuse of these boys existed and may have even been common practice. Jardine notes, “Sexuality, misdirected towards the boy masquerading in female dress, is “stirred” by attire and gesture; male prostitution and perverted sexual activity is an inevitable accompaniment of female impersonation” (57). The thought of these activities going on in a profession that was supported so completely by the nobility of society would not be easily accepted.

The close relation of the master and apprentice, combined with the schooling of young boys in the ‘feminine wiles’ and submissiveness to a adult male authority figure have been cited as the prime elements of the exploitation. “Though working conditions were nowhere ideal, children of the theater were more visibly susceptible to exploitation than boys in other trades” (Callaghan 67). While these concerns have a legitimate place in the discussion of the life of the boy actor during the Shakespearean era, there is also great evidence of a more familial bond between master and apprentice having existed. John Edmans married his master’s ward, Mary Clark. Other documentation exists of a very tight knit community among the players. Licenses, birth records and wills can be found to trace the connections between the men.

The boy actresses of the Renaissance period were in many ways used and exploited for the natural abilities they possessed that their adult counterparts no longer retained. They worked hard to learn a craft for minimal pay and no guarantee of a future in the profession they were being trained to work in. They were molded and masked and asked to create an illusion of femininity, and many of them did so with great success. The creation of Cleopatra was the most challenging of all these illusions, and perhaps that is the reason it was only performed once by a boy actress.

Works Cited

Baldwin, Thomas Whitfield. The Organization and Personnel of the Shakespearean Company.

New York: Russell & Russell, 1927.

Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare without Women; Representing gender and race on the

Renaissance stage. London: Routledge, 2000.

Fallon, Robert Thomas. A Theater Goer’s Guide to Shakespeare’s Characters. Chicago: Ivan R.

Dee, 2004.

Jardine, Lisa. “”Boy Actors, Female Roles and Elizabethan Eroticism.” Staging the Renaissance;

Reinterpretations of Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama. Ed. Kastan, David Scott &

Stallybrass, Peter. New York: Routledge, 1991. 57-67.

Lamb, Margaret. Anthony and Cleopatra on the English Stage. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson

University Press, 1936.

Leggatt, Alexander. English Drama: Shakespeare to the Restoration, 1590-1660. London:

Longman, 1988.

Nagler, A. M. Shakespeare’s Stage. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958.

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