Learning Thisby's part--or--what's Hecuba to him?
| Publisher | Shakespeare Bulletin |
| Publication | Shakespeare Bulletin |
| Subject | Arts, visual and performing |
| Format | Magazine/Journal |
| ISSN | 0748-2558 |
| Issues per Year | 4 |
| Volume | 22 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Published | 2004-09-22 |
| Role | Type | Name |
| Author | n/a | Carol Chillington Rutter |
Every schoolchild knows that there were no women actors on the Elizabethan stage; the female parts were taken by young men actors. But every schoolchild also learns that this fact is of little consequence for the twentieth-century reader of Shakespeare's plays. Because 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 disregarded it, as we would disregard the creaking of stage scenery and accept the backcloth forest as 'real' for the duration of the play.
Lisa Jardine,...
[This journal article is 10626 words long]
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