‘Not One Thing Exactly’: Gender, Performance and Critical Debates over the Early Modern Boy‐Actress

Coined by Harley Granville Barker, the term ‘boy‐actress’ describes young male actors, probably aged between 10 and 22 years, who appeared in women's roles on the early modern stage of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. These boys, their techniques, and their cultural meanings have recently become the subjects of heated critical debate. In our time as in their own, the impact of their onstage cross‐dressing on their gender identities and on the sexual desires of their spectators has proved particularly controversial. This essay outlines key early modern sources for our knowledge of the boy‐actress before considering the conflicting ways in which scholars have interpreted this evidence. Critical debates about the early modern boy‐actress may have as much to teach us about our own era's constructions of gender, sexuality and performance as about the realities of the Shakespearean stage.