The
Roaring Girl is another example of collaborative drama from the English
Renaissance era. Here Thomas Middleton
and Thomas Decker base their title character on a living person. This is one of the first accounts extant of a
theatrical depiction of a living person.
The character Moll Cutpurse is based off Mary Frith a woman notorious
for dressing like a man, brawling, and theft.
There is also documented evidence that Mary Frith attended a performance
of The Roaring Girl, sat on the edge
of the stage, and interacted with the actors and audience. This play was written in 1611 and first
performed at the Fortune Theatre.
In The Roaring Girl a nobleman, Sebastian, wishes to marry a woman Mary Fitzallard. His father disapproves of the marriage due to Mary’s dowry. Sebastian attempts to place Mary in a better view with his father by pretending to be infatuated with Moll. His father however hires Trapdoor to pin Moll in the act of a capitol crime and thus ruin Moll. Moll of course is not corrupted by these actions and helps the lovers unite by the end of the play.
One of the biggest notions of this play is gender and identity. Moll is a woman who takes up the clothing and actions of a man. She adopts male attire deliberately and publicly. There is an androgyny in her apparel where masculine and feminine attributes signify her nature. The play itself devotes a considerable attention to the clothes she wears. When she first enters the text notes that Moll wears a frieze jacket, a man’s coat, and a black safeguard, a woman’s outer shirt. Later a tailor approaches her to discuss the clothes that she has ordered, specifically a new pair of breeches. When Sir Alexander fears that his son wishes to marry Moll he states “I have brought up my son to marry a Dutch slop and a French doublet: a codpiece daughter.” The visual semiotics that worked as stable codes delineating masculinity from femininity in other plays are purposefully crossed here.
Moll does not merely bend the rules governing apparel on the early modern stage; but she breaks them entirely. She breaks them so thoroughly that she is defined by her deviancy. Before she appears on the stage Moll is described as the exception to the rules governing the visual presentation of masculinity and femininity. However all of the other characters in the play cling firmly to the visual codes governing gender that maintained in early modern drama. Only Moll presents an exception and in doing so she fails to change the rules. Moll is an exception to the society’s rules governing women’s behavior and dress but not a fundamental threat too the sex-gender system or the visual codes of the stage. Although she is desired by men Moll has no sexual interest in them and refuses to ever marry. Moll’s character strengthens the rules of the English Renaissance Era while being a deviant for the ways herself.
In The Roaring Girl a nobleman, Sebastian, wishes to marry a woman Mary Fitzallard. His father disapproves of the marriage due to Mary’s dowry. Sebastian attempts to place Mary in a better view with his father by pretending to be infatuated with Moll. His father however hires Trapdoor to pin Moll in the act of a capitol crime and thus ruin Moll. Moll of course is not corrupted by these actions and helps the lovers unite by the end of the play.
One of the biggest notions of this play is gender and identity. Moll is a woman who takes up the clothing and actions of a man. She adopts male attire deliberately and publicly. There is an androgyny in her apparel where masculine and feminine attributes signify her nature. The play itself devotes a considerable attention to the clothes she wears. When she first enters the text notes that Moll wears a frieze jacket, a man’s coat, and a black safeguard, a woman’s outer shirt. Later a tailor approaches her to discuss the clothes that she has ordered, specifically a new pair of breeches. When Sir Alexander fears that his son wishes to marry Moll he states “I have brought up my son to marry a Dutch slop and a French doublet: a codpiece daughter.” The visual semiotics that worked as stable codes delineating masculinity from femininity in other plays are purposefully crossed here.
Moll does not merely bend the rules governing apparel on the early modern stage; but she breaks them entirely. She breaks them so thoroughly that she is defined by her deviancy. Before she appears on the stage Moll is described as the exception to the rules governing the visual presentation of masculinity and femininity. However all of the other characters in the play cling firmly to the visual codes governing gender that maintained in early modern drama. Only Moll presents an exception and in doing so she fails to change the rules. Moll is an exception to the society’s rules governing women’s behavior and dress but not a fundamental threat too the sex-gender system or the visual codes of the stage. Although she is desired by men Moll has no sexual interest in them and refuses to ever marry. Moll’s character strengthens the rules of the English Renaissance Era while being a deviant for the ways herself.
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