SHAKESPEAREAN BOY ACTORS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 160, 1 April 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

SHAKESPEAREAN BOY ACTORS

"Shakespeare's Boy Actors,” by W. Robertson Davies (London: Dent).

Il is not generally realized nowadays that, the women’s roles in the plays of Shakespeare, and, for that matter, those of his contemporaries and predecessors, were designed to be acted by boys or young men. Certain critics wlio have written treatises on the heroines of Shakespeare, and, in particular, on their psychology, have tended to forget this. Mr. Davies is right when he says ot the women in the plays: "It is doubtful. if uity valid opinion can be reached upon tlicin unless tlie fact is kept in mind that all these roles were written to be acted 'by boys, .and that no English women are known to have performed in the public theatre of his limo. Shakespeare's women, whatever characteristics may be attributed to them in the void, were conceived to suit the peculiar talents and limitations of the boy actor, for it is only reasonable to suppose that the convention whereby women, on the Elizabethan stage, were always represented by male actors, bail an influence on tlie technique of the dramatic authors of the time.”

The main purpose of Mr. Davies's book is to point out the differences between the women’s roles in Elizabethan plays and those written after actresses made their appearance on the stage, and to show what, effect the convention of the boy actor had upon the drama of the period. He begins with a discussion of the position and training of the boy actors in the Elizabethan theatre, and discusses also tile Puritan attack on the stage which resulted from their presence. The remainder of the book deals in detail with tlie women's roles in I he Shakespeare plays, and contains a great deal of interesting material which throws new light on the subject. Mr. Davies sums up neatly when lie says: “it cannot be said that, in tragedy, Shakespeare was ungenerous in tlie parts which he wrote for boy actors, for some of tile tragic heroines are ol first-rate importance, but it may justly be claimed that they are objective, rather than subjective, in their presentation. They are conceived and executed in simple terms, and there is never, the least doubt as to what they mean or what, they are. They are never tortured h.v doubts, either of themselves or of others, nor are they ever seen in a situation in which there is more than a nominal decision as to which course they shall lake.”