Compleat Female Stage Beauty

I chose to attend Compleat Female Stage Beauty by Jeffery Hatcher at the Hilberry Theater. The play was about a man in the 1600’s named Edward Kynaston that acted all of the female parts in plays because women were not legally allowed to act. He takes his roles very seriously, making it so that acting is his whole entire life. A woman named Margaret Hughes gets parliament to give her permission to be able to act in a play. When she auditions for the theater that Kynaston is working at, he says no that she can’t act there, ever, just because she is a woman. Another woman was there that day, Nell, and she wants to audition to. Kynaston also tells her no. Unfortunately for Kynaston, Nell was King Charles mistress, and goes to him to have him change the laws. King Charles puts out a decree saying that it is illegal for men to act the female roles, and that woman were now allowed to act in theater. Kynaston is left with nothing. He no longer has a job, no longer has a career, friends, anything. He eventually turns to acting in drag, simply because he only knows how to act as a woman. A friend comes and rescues him from this place, and slowly he recovers from his downfall. He begins coaching the woman that made him have to stop acting, and makes her into the best actress possible. Kynaston becomes a partner in the theater he used to act for, and continues on to coach many different ladies, to make them into really good actresses as well.

The stage was quite small, and had no curtain. The stage would be considered a thrust stage, because it jutted out a bit. There was not very many props used, just a couple of benches, bed, table and stools. The scenery was all very blah, not too exciting. The costumes were quite elegant, definitely looked like they were from the 1600’s time period. By using the costumes that they did, you could easily tell who was one of the more “rich” characters, and then who was more of a peasant. The main character was a peasant, but was really good friends with a lot of the rich people. All this is easily able to be deciphered by the use of the costumes. My favorite costume was this yellow dress that the King wore, because it was just so pretty. It looked a little bit awkward, since it was a man, who was supposed to be so prestigious that was wearing it, but it was still pretty all the same. The “stage” on the stage had an archway over top that made it look like a mini stage. This was for the acting of Kynaston and the others.

The man who played Edward Kynaston did a wonderful job portraying his feelings about everything that was going on in his life. He was a very emotional guy. He acted wonderfully thorough out the entire play. There was even a few times when he was really down on his luck, and people were being so mean to him, that I wanted to stand up and say something. The duke that was Kynastons lover also did a very good job being serious and funny throughout the play. I loved the guy who played King Charles because his character was rarely serious, and he was a really funny guy to watch act. Overall I thought