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Show It is well known that, on the English stage, previous pre-vious to the middle of the seventeenth century, the female fe-male characters were uniformly uni-formly presented by boys or young men. We also know, from passages pass-ages in classical authors, that the same practice prevailed pre-vailed in the theatres of ancient Greece and Rome. This custom, however, was broken at an early period in the theatres of continental Europe. Women performers were common throughout Italy and France long before their introduction on the English stage. In a pamphlet published in 1962, the author writes in defense of the English stage and boasts that the London actors were '"not as the players beyond the sea, a sort of squinting, bawdie comedians that have common com-mon courtesans to play women's wo-men's parts." The following account is given of a comedy enacted at Venics in 1608: "The house is very beggarly beg-garly and base, in comparison compari-son to our stately playhouses play-houses in England: neither can their actors compare with us for apparel, shows and music. Here I observed certain things that I never saw before; for I saw women wo-men act, a thing that I never saw before; though I have heard that it hath ben sometimes used in London; and they performed perform-ed it with as good a grace, action, gesture, and whatsoever what-soever is convenient for a player, as ever 1 saw any masculine actor." It was the Puritans who vehemently inveighed a-gainst a-gainst the assumption, by men, of the female garb, citing and perverting many passages of scripture for the purpose of proving that it was altogether sinful and abominable. It was, in fact, one of their major objections a-gainst a-gainst the stage. So numerous had the puritanical party become at Cambridge University that the greatest difficulties were encountered when the comedy, "Ignoramus," was to be acted there in 1614. The stu.lt nts were unwilling to act the parts of Rosabella, Rosa-bella, Surda. etc., suddenly affirming that it was unlawful unlaw-ful for a man to wear female fe-male dress. Even after the Restoration, Restora-tion, when the Puritans had b.-en defeated, when women appeared in female characters, charac-ters, the objectors were still not satisfied. |