"Women began playing Romeo in the nineteenth century, when one leading man after another failed miserably in a role that calls for both furious sword fighting and acting unmanned. Shakespeare has Romeo kill first Tybalt, then Paris, but also has him tell Juliet, “Thy beauty hath made me effeminate,” and has him collapse, weeping, as the Friar chastises him: “Art thou a man?… Thy tears are womanish…. Unseemly woman in a seeming man.” It apparently took a gay actor like Cushman (though she never came out publicly) to render these extremes convincingly in an age of Manifest Destiny, when America experienced a crisis of manhood, as a masculinity that embraced moderation, virtue, and domesticity was elbowed out by a more aggressive one characterized by physicality and domination.
Between the 1820s and the Civil War more than a dozen women played Romeo on stages in New York City alone; The New York Times declared that “there is in the delicacy and gentleness of Romeo’s character something which requires a woman to represent it” and that the character’s “luscious language…seems strange on the lips of a man.” Fifteen years after that Boston performance the fires that had fueled Manifest Destiny were largely extinguished, having consumed the lives of some 700,000 young men who fought for the Union and the Confederacy. Female Romeos soon vanished from the stage, and this episode in theater history was all but forgotten, along with what it revealed about ultimately tragic fissures within the culture."
I think you'll find it interesting. I will say that opening is the only section that is explicitly about gender. The rest makes an argument that Hollywood versions of Romeo and Juliet have pushed expectations towards a simplified, more archetypal sense of the story and missed important details from the original play.
Seeing the Ren Faire photo . . . you might like the essay on Romeo and Juliet in the latest NYRB (paywalled online but if the library has print copies it's probably nicer to read in print anyway), which opens by talking about gender: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/01/16/rebels-without-a-cause-romeo-and-juliet-sam-gold/
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"Women began playing Romeo in the nineteenth century, when one leading man after another failed miserably in a role that calls for both furious sword fighting and acting unmanned. Shakespeare has Romeo kill first Tybalt, then Paris, but also has him tell Juliet, “Thy beauty hath made me effeminate,” and has him collapse, weeping, as the Friar chastises him: “Art thou a man?… Thy tears are womanish…. Unseemly woman in a seeming man.” It apparently took a gay actor like Cushman (though she never came out publicly) to render these extremes convincingly in an age of Manifest Destiny, when America experienced a crisis of manhood, as a masculinity that embraced moderation, virtue, and domesticity was elbowed out by a more aggressive one characterized by physicality and domination.
Between the 1820s and the Civil War more than a dozen women played Romeo on stages in New York City alone; The New York Times declared that “there is in the delicacy and gentleness of Romeo’s character something which requires a woman to represent it” and that the character’s “luscious language…seems strange on the lips of a man.” Fifteen years after that Boston performance the fires that had fueled Manifest Destiny were largely extinguished, having consumed the lives of some 700,000 young men who fought for the Union and the Confederacy. Female Romeos soon vanished from the stage, and this episode in theater history was all but forgotten, along with what it revealed about ultimately tragic fissures within the culture."
Oh that’s fascinating!!
I have thoughts but I need to go find this article first. Huh. Neato.
Thank you!!
I think you'll find it interesting. I will say that opening is the only section that is explicitly about gender. The rest makes an argument that Hollywood versions of Romeo and Juliet have pushed expectations towards a simplified, more archetypal sense of the story and missed important details from the original play.
What fine writing. A life explored is a good life. A life explored publicly is a generous one.
What a lovely thing to say. Thank you!