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17th Century Drama

Professional Women and Restoration Theatre The position of women in the eighteenth century made it relatively difficult for a woman to be professional; however, the changing cultural climate meant that the theatre in particular opened up a variety of possibilities for women who wished to escape the confines of domesticity. As playwrights and actresses, women had the opportunity to follow socially rewarding- if not socially acceptable- careers, and the increasing female patronage of theatres, along with the advances of professional women in the theatre, meant that the content of plays became more concerned with female problems of marriage, gender constructs, sexuality, and morality. Three main points are worth noting about the professional woman in this period: the woman as a writer had the power to both explore and re-write popular conceptions of the woman; the concern of the public with women's bodies and with their sexuality and morality put actresses into a position of power on the stage; and that both of these positions, combined with the increasing female patronage of the theatre, led to a more challenging and ambiguous portrayal of the woman in theatre than had been previously seen. This essay will explore these three points, as well as offering a reading of Behn's "The Rover", which incorporates aspects of all three.

Women as Professionals

The Restoration period in English history saw an immense rise in the number of women writers. For a woman to be a professional was considered at the best improper, and at the worst taboo. Angeline Goreau (1980) says:

It was a bold act for a girl educated in the seventeenth-century manner to affirm that she intended to 'decide for herself', but trafficking her way through the battle of the sexes and dealing with the consequences her decision was likely to bring upon her presented considerable difficulties.

As the standard idea of women had, for centuries, been that she should be seen and not heard- chaste, silent, obedient, and, as a result, dependant, any woman who sought a profession was inevitably met with disapproval. To be public and self-reliant at the same time could be equated with only one female profession traditionally- prostitution. Writing, commercially, was particularly dangerous, as a woman was speaking out, displaying herself to the public for money. Any woman who chose to write professionally would have to face the difficulties of the male-dominated literary world of the time, as well as the social ideas concerning women which prohibited a respectable female from being ether vocal, public, or professionally self-supporting. Cheryl Turner (1994) says:

…there were several dramatists and prose-fiction writers amongst the earliest female literary professionals. In view of the mores governing female behaviour, it was perhaps inevitable that these pioneers should attract hostility, and it is arguable that the character of their work intensified contemporary hostility.

By this, Turner means that for a woman to write about women and for women was a particularly threatening phenomena in a society that was troubled about changing views of morality, gender, and relationships. The success of a woman as a writer would feed and give credence to the challenging female characters she could write, which would in turn support and legitimize women in the notoriety of being a writer, in a self-propitiating cycle that must have been threatening to those who sought to conserve traditional female cultural roles. However, despite all of the difficulties, the Restoration period saw a boom in the number of women writing, particularly for the theatre. Angela J. Smallwood (2000) says:

Of the 600 (known) plays written by women between 1660 and 1823, nearly 200 appeared between 1770 and 1800, a period which witnessed the culmination of a number of favourable developments. Professional opportunities for women writers generally had increased markedly; the London theatre audience had broadened to accommodate more of the middling classes and a newly respectable image; acting was becoming increasingly professionalized and the star system was flourishing, notably for top female players.

Changing cultural values and popular ideas of morality and respectability meant that women were able to push the boundaries of female propriety, and the position of a female playwright was particularly suited to such experimentation. Much like the playwrights, female actresses had a rough but rewarding battle to fight in the professional world of theatre. Anthony Masters (1992) discusses the role that the actress-mistresses of Charles II, such as the famous Nell Gwyn, played in both popularizing and patronizing the Restoration theatre, while The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre (Fisk ed., 2000) also discusses the involvement of the king, giving leave to actresses to perform in the name of morality, but also having sexual relations with several of them. It states:

The revolutionary introduction of women onto the English stage was a deliberate act of policy in the name of the reformation of morals, an act that was shared between the royal state and the 'Mimic State', a clear instance of cultural authority improvising itself through reciprocal performances onstage and behind the scenes…

With royal patronage to legitimize her position, the actress found herself in a unique cultural niche- she was both risqué and morally sanctioned (after all, the introduction of women to the stage was primarily due to concerns about the immorality of allowing boys to cross-dress to play female parts). The actress had a position of power, in that her public role allowed her to escape the confines of female propriety, even though such a freedom was ultimately a product of the commoditization of her body and sexuality. This can be seen particularly in the contemporary popularity of cross-dressed role for women, or 'breeches parts'. It is described in The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre:

Cross-dressed roles allow heroines to reverse the usual flow of power… such roles often merely offered the opportunity for a display of female legs and sexy roguishness, but they could also indicate that it is custom, not ability or intrinsic modesty, that keeps women covered and quiet.

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