Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage/Women on the Stage in Early Modern France: 1540-1750

Abstract

Pamela Allen Brown and Peter Parolin, ed. Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage. Series: Studies in Performance and Early Modern Drama. Burlington VT and Aldershot UK: Ashgate, 2005. 2008. 329 pp. bibl. $130 (hardback). $29.95 (paperback). ISBN: 9780754665359.Virginia Scott. Women on the Stage in Early Modern France: 1540-1750. Cambridge University Press, 2010. 325 pp. $95 (hardback). ISBN: 9780521896757.Pamela Allen Brown's and Peter Paroline introduction to the collection of essays, Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, justifies the contention which unites all the essays in the book, which is that women were involved in performance across all social groups and in religious and secular arenas and in a variety of places. "In the alternative playing areas of the street, alehouse, market square, parish green, manorhouse and court, women could be found performing; connecting these places were female spectators, patrons and travelling entertainers" (1).The essays that follow this feisty introduction are not all equally convincing to the reader but they are all enthusiastic and committed. They cover performance in both London and the provinces and include a European section entitled "Beyond the Channel" within the timeframe of about a hundred and fifty years. Overall the collection provides an excellent place at which to start any discussion about female participation in the varied culture of early modern England. The essays offer considerable information on female roles, duties, expectations, and obligations as understood in the period under review. Hence, the collection will be useful not only to students interested in theatre and performance but also will be a welcome addition to any course on women's history in early modern England.One of the most interesting essays in the collection is Melinda J. Gough's "Courtly Comediantes: Henrietta Maria and Amateur Women's Stage Plays in France and England" (193-218). Gough uses a specific performance at the early Bourbon court, that of Bradamante in 161 1, to demonstrate and discuss the tradition of accepted elite female performance at the French court which was sponsored by Queen Marie de Medici- a Florentine with knowledge of Italian theatrical traditions. The picture which is offered here of Marie de Medici is very much in accordance with Jean-Francois Dubost's revisionist study, Marie de Medicis: La reine devoilee (Payot: Paris 2009). As Gough remarks "... play acting for invited elite audiences allowed young royal women ... to visibly exercise their most decorous sociopolitical function: the mirroring back to the court of its own most graceful magnificence ... and enhancement ofthat court's prestige within the European court nexus as a whole" (194). This custom of elite female performance travelled with the Princess Henrietta Maria when she arrived at the English court in May 1625, and Gough demonstrates that the young queen and her ladies not only danced but themselves took speaking parts in plays performed for the court and king.The process of cultural transmission outlined here is also discussed in Julie D. Campbell's ""Merry, nimble, stirring spirit [s]': Academic, salon and commedia dell'arte Influence on the Innamorate in Love's Labour Lost" (14371). In this intriguing and speculative essay based on wide reading across three languages, Campbell suggests that Shakespeare drew upon female performance from the commedia dell' arte as well as performances by the learned and talented ladies of the later Valois court for his play, Love's Labour Lost. These elite French women performed with brio and success at court entertainments and presided over literary salons discussing topics similar to those discussed by the Princess and her ladies in Shakespeare's play. Using the work of the distinguished French historian Jacqueline Boucher, Campbell draws attention to "traces of relationships between French noblewomen and Italian comedians with courtiers receiving dancing lessons from Italian dancers" (148-49). …