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By Hebe Dotson

Catch up with Part One

As we saw in Part One all roles -- male and female -- were played by men in ancient Greek and Roman theatre. Although female roles were commonplace, it was uncommon for an actor to perform the role of a man dressed as a woman. So far, I have found only three examples of this, and none calling for an actor to play the part of a woman dressed as a man. (My knowledge of Graeco-Roman theatre is by no means encyclopedic -- I have skimmed through the Roman plays, but have only touched on the Greek repertoire. If you know of other examples that I’ve missed, I’d like to hear about them.)

Maccus as a Maiden

The fabula Atellana featured four stock male characters, one of them Maccus, the stupid clown. No Atellanan texts have survived, but a number of titles have. One of these, Maccus as a Maiden, clearly featured a cross-dressed male character.

The Casina of Plautus

The 20th-century Broadway musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, was based on two Plautus comedies, the Pseudolus and the Casina. In A Funny Thing, the principal character, the slave Pseudolus, at one point dresses as a heavily-veiled bride-to-be. While the plot of the Pseudolus of Plautus revolves around the purchase of a bride, Pseudolus does not disguise himself as a woman. The false bride element comes from the Casina. According to Duckworth, this play (produced ca 185 BC) was based on a Greek play by Diphilus, but may have drawn its false bride theme from "earlier popular Italian farces, e.g. the fabula Atellana."

In Plautus’s comedy, lecherous old Lysidamus has fallen in love with pretty Casina, one of his wife’s young maids. Cleustrata, his wife, has decided to marry Casina to their son’s armor bearer, the slave Chalinus. Lysidamus has other ideas; he plans to marry Casina to his overseer, the slave Olympio, who has agreed to let Lysidamus replace him in his bridal bed on the wedding night.

Cleustrata opposes Lysidamus’s plan, on the grounds that it is her prerogative to decide who her maids will marry. When she learns of the arrangement Lysidamus has made with Olympio, she decides to thwart her husband and teach him a lesson. She and her friend Myrrhina dress Chalinus as a bride to marry him to Olympio in place of Casina.

The audience is told about this crossdressing (which takes place indoors and thus offstage) by one of Cleustrata’s maids. We then see Chalinus, veiled and dressed as a bride, as he comes out of the house, escorted by the other maids, who give "Casina" to her groom. Lysidamus orders the maids back into the house, and he and Olympio escort the bride to the house next door, which Lysidamus has borrowed for the wedding night.

Cleustrata, Myrrhina, and the maids come out of the house to enjoy the forthcoming fireworks. Before long, Olympio comes running out to the street. His bride has rebuffed him and thrashed him. Olympio’s account is quite bawdy, but there are many gaps in the manuscript, so it is probably less so than in the original play. A few minutes later, Lysidamus -- similarly rebuffed and battered -- runs out of the house, followed by a taunting Chalinus. In a whirlwind of plot resolution, Lysidamus admits his sins, pledges reform, and is forgiven by Cleustrata.

Does this mean that the valiant Chalinus can marry pretty Casina? No; a final wrap-up by the Chorus reveals that Casina is actually the long-lost daughter of the man next door. She is therefore a free-born person rather than a slave, and she will be married to Euthynicus, the son of Lysidamus and Cleustrata. No Tony awards for this turkey!

The Bacchae of Euripides

The third example of a male character in female guise is found in a powerful Greek tragedy, the Bacchae. One of 19 surviving plays of the 92 reputedly written by Euripides, it was first performed around the end of the fifth century BC.

As the play begins, Dionysus (Bacchus), the god of the vine, has come to Thebes in mortal guise to spread his cult among the people. Historically, this cult appealed particularly to women. The Bacchae (or Bacchantes) who worshipped Dionysus did so in frenzied, orgiastic rites that frequently culminated in rending a sacrificial victim (usually a goat) limb from limb and devouring the raw flesh. In general, the cult was strongly opposed by males, who attempted to suppress it.

Pentheus, the king of Thebes, has imprisoned all of the Bacchae in his kingdom (including his own mother, Agave) to prevent them from participating in Bacchic rites. Pentheus doesn’t recognize Dionysus’s divinity and, seeing him as a human troublemaker, orders him captured and brought before him. When his troops return with Dionysus, they tell Pentheus that their prisoner came willingly, but all the Bacchae have escaped -- their chains and locks vanishing as if by magic -- and fled to the mountains.

Pentheus soon receives reports of Bacchanalian orgies, led by Agave, on Mount Cithaeron. He decides to send his troops to break up the rituals and capture the Bacchae. Dionysus, telling him that the troops will fail, asks Pentheus if he would like to observe the orgies himself. When Pentheus says that he would, Dionysus offers to lead him there. He must go openly, because he will be detected if he tries to sneak in, and he must go dressed as a woman, for the Bacchae will kill him if they see him as a man.

Dionysus (who has clearly been using his godly powers on Pentheus’s mind) wraps Pentheus in women’s robes, braids his hair, and places a bonnet on his head. He leads him through the streets of Thebes and up into the mountains. Pentheus has now become completely involved in his role-playing, but Dionysus betrays him to Agave and the other Bacchae. In their frenzy, seeing Pentheus as a lion cub, they choose him as their sacrificial victim and tear him limb from limb.

Note: This summary is based on an 1865 translation by Henry Hart Milman (Euripides, Bacchae. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1997).

A Footnote on Contemporary Theatre

Let’s fast-forward about 24 centuries to New York City in July, 1998. The Theatre section of The New Yorker magazine dated July 6, 1998 listed 69 current theatrical productions. Seven of these featured one or more crossdressed male performers:

• Eddie Izzard’s Dress to Kill

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Lillian (a male actor performing a female role)

Miss Coco Peru’s Liquid Universe

Nunsense A-Men (an all-male version of Nunsense)

Blue Man Group/Tubes

Rent

In addition to these, at least five other productions probably had transgendered proclivities.An Evening with Quentin Crisp starred a well-known crossdresser. One-man, multicharacter shows often include female characters -- two strong possibilities in the listings were Sakina’s Restaurant and Freak, the latter starring John Leguizamo of Wong Foo fame. R&J, a play about schoolboys performing Romeo and Juliet, almost certainly includes males taking female roles. Finally, Forbidden Broadway Strikes Back includes some crossdressing, if I recall the review correctly.

All in all, that’s seven certains and five strong possibilities -- at least ten percent and perhaps 17 percent of the 69 productions. That’s not the 100 per cent we would have found in ancient Greece and Rome, but it’s much better than we would have seen ten or twenty years ago.

If you have any comments or criticisms, Hebe would love to hear from you. You can e-mail her at hebedotson@tgforum.com.

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