Performing Shakespeare's Women in His Own Time

The performance of Shakespeare's women's roles was constructed against a set of conventions which are no longer prevalent in the presentation of his plays. This chapter examines the traditions, conventions and assumptions which prevailed in the Shakespearean public playhouse, which made up the circumstances under which some of the great classical women's roles of the Renaissance English theatre were created. The performance of women's roles by boys and men win a brief but influential period of British theatrical history, rare thought it was in Europe, on the other hand brings Shakespeare closer to the great Asian performance traditions