by AMANDA VICKERY
Caught in the act … Mary Robinson as Perdita (1782) by John Hoppner. PHOTO/Chawton House Library, Hampshire
Is it any wonder actresses are neurotic about their appearance? If anyone ever doubted the sexist scrutiny they are up against, Michael Parkinson’s 1975 interview with Helen Mirren (a YouTube sensation) is a sobering reminder. “Critics spend as much time discussing her physical attributes as assessing her acting ability,” says Parky, by way of introduction for the “sex queen” of the RSC, that byword for “sluttish eroticism”. Nor does he seem much interested in Mirren’s acting, either. “You are, in quotes, a ‘serious actress’; do you find what might best be described as your equipment hinders you in that pursuit?”
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The emergence of the actress on the Restoration stage was revolutionary. As every pupil of Shakespeare knows, it was men in drag who took the ladies’ parts before. Imagine the frisson, then, when Nell Gwyn first showed herself aged 14 to a packed house at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, in 1664. This unprecedented female exhibition provoked salacious frenzy, which theatre companies hoped to harness to their profit.
The showcasing of beauties in “breeches roles” exploded ideas of decorum. Actresses welcomed the chance to demonstrate the virtuosity demanded by parts such as Viola and Rosalind. But the display of their shapely legs was condemned as an exercise in “brazenness” which confirmed the shameless immodesty and sexual availability of the actress. That both theatre-land and prostitution had their metropolis in Covent Garden was not lost on the press. From the first, the “actress” of popular imagination was a shimmering mixture of whore, coquette, talent and celebrity.
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via WOH