Volpone and Stage Androgony in the English Renaissance

Commentary by Celeste Collins

During the Renaissance period women were not allowed on the stage. Therefore, men had to cross-dress to play their parts. This means that the part of Celia in Ben Johnson's Volpone (1606) had to be played by a male actor. Manipulation of costume, hair, and gesture and language was the primary way a boy actor could successfully come across to his audience as a woman.

Clothing and language had the power to do a lot to the body. One way the boys of the period may have cross-dressed would have been to wear very unrevealing clothing. The bottom of the dress would reach the ankles and the top would cover the neck. Considering the extreme modesty of the character Celia, this is most likely how the actor portraying her would have dressed. The actor would have relied on his ability to convincingly take on the gestures of a very timid and chaste woman to complete his gender transformation. In all honesty the part of Celia would probably not have been very hard to play, both in costume and acting ability. There are two ways in which the Renaissance stage could have attempted to produce the illusion of breasts on boy actors. One is that the male could have worn a vest of tight lacing, gathering up flesh to create cleavage. It is hard to believe this alone could have been used for the part of Celia. It would take an overweight man to have enough flesh on his chest to accomplish this and Celia is suppose to be dainty and beautiful. A much more believable way the illusion could be accomplished would be through the addition of prosthetic breasts to the costume. Although this would not have been attempted in Volpone, in several Renaissance plays the cross-dressing male would reveal a single breast in order to reinforce the audience's illusion that he was in fact female. The problem with the theory of prosthetic devices being part of the stage costume is that no evidence of this can be found. The single most important part of the cross-dressing costume was not the clothing or the breasts however, it was the hair. Long hair was the defining characteristic of the female. A boy actor could switch back and forth playing the part of different genders simply by putting on or taking off a wig. The actor playing Celia would most likely have worn a wig of long hair pulled neatly up above her shoulders in a bun to convey her chastity.

There is a major difference between cross-dressing in Renaissance tragedy and Renaissance comedy such as Volpone. During the theatrical presentation of the tragedy, all that was possible was done to make the audience believe the cross-dressed male was actually female. None of the masculine aspects of the male actor playing the female are alluded to. In comical plays, the role playing and disguise are part of the genre. Often the cross-gender disguise in comedy is played with until the point of undoing. Language and props would often be used to put a subtle reminder in the audiences head that the female character they are watching was really a male. In the comedy of Volpone, this is done through language. In that part of the play that has come to be known as the "rape scene", Volpone tries unsuccessfully to woo the beautiful Celia into bed. In the lines "I acted young Antinous"(3.7.163), Volpone makes reference to his past experience as a stage actor. In making this reference, Volpone brings to the audiences attention that they are watching a play. This simultaneously brings attention to the fact that only males are on the stage and, that the character Volpone is trying to convince to have sex with him is none other than. This scene is the climax of the play. It was very common for the Renaissance theater to draw attention to its own transvestitism at the moments of greatest dramatic tension. This is an extremely subtle way of bringing attention to the cross-dressing occurring on stage. Another way in which the theater would draw attention to transvestitism is through the use of props. Often a mole or birthmark on the female character's breast would be alluded to. Another common way to point out the trans-genderism on stage would be to have scenes where the woman would be dressing or undressing. Of coarse not a lot of flesh would be shown during these scenes but the point would successfully be brought to the surface. In such ways the contradictory realities of gender role playing were forced at one another.

Women were kept off the stage in the Renaissance period because it was believed that acting would cause them to be corrupt. However, having a boy dress up like a woman is not without it's problems. The most obvious of all would be the homoerotic desires that could be conjured by these plays. This can be scene quit clearly in Volpone. Here is a man, in reality, trying to woo another man into bed and even threatening to do it by force. There are also several less conspicuous problems that cross-dressing caused. It was feared that by dressing like a woman, desires to be female would be awakened in these boys. The fear was that males might successfully become effeminate in their everyday life out of drag. Having a very cute boy dressed as a very beautiful woman could understandably cause some confusion in the audience's otherwise heterosexual desires also. Is the audience attracted to the male or female characteristics of the actor? How do they know? Such plays could cause people to question their sexuality. More social than sexual is the concern that transformation of power could be accomplished be the act of cross-dressing. The fact that a man put on women's clothing and took on their gestures could be scene as making the man and woman equals in social class. Also remember that many of the female characters portrayed in Renaissance plays were of upper-class. Putting a commoner (the actor) into aristocratic clothing could strike fear of the lower classes social mobility into the hearts of the status quo. With all of these dangers in mind, and due to some actual eventual social mobility of women, the English eventually abolished their rules to keep women off the stage.

??