Essay: History of drag in theatre

Cross dressing is found in Norse, Greek, and Hindu mythology. It’s not a new idea. The first recorded cases of drag in England can be found in theatre. With women unable to take part onstage they would use pre-pubescent boys. It’s said that the term “drag” originated in theatre: when the men wore costume dresses, to play female roles, they supposedly would discuss how the dresses would drag across the stage floor. Shakespeare’s playful flexibility with gender roles appears in roughly a fifth of his thirty-seven plays, with three of them (Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and Merchant of Venice) using cross dressing as a tool to propel the plays story line forward. As well as a comedic devise, it is the spark that ignites the rest of the action onstage. It’s not only a convention used in his comedies but in his histories (Henry VI and King John) and tragedies (Cymbeline) too.
Twelfth Night, by today’s standards, is a queer play. With genderbending, evidence of homoerotic attraction between Sebastian and Antonio, Orsino’s sexuality being called into question, and an, albeit unknowing, lesbian relationship, it continues to push boundaries to this day. However, as it is a comedy and everything must end up back firmly in the status quo, all the characters finish the play in heterosexual couples. This is a strategy used by many TV production companies to this day and is more commonly referred to as ‘queerbaiting’. This derogatory term is the tradition of insinuating, but then not actually following through with, an LGBT+ romantic relationship, mainly in film or television, to gain a queer audience. This potential romance is usually then ignored, overtly rejected, whether onscreen or offscreen, and even, in some cases, explicitly mocked. In Twelfth Night we see this mirrored, but not through wanting to gain a queer audience. Instead this is as much representation as could be allowed in a time where the act of “buggery” between two men was punishable by death. Sebastian and Antonio, described by Stephen Orgel (1996) as ‘the only overtly homosexual couple in Shakespeare’, display an affection for each other that goes beyond the typical demonstrations of male friendship that were so prevalent in Elizabethan times. Antonio says of Sebastian, ‘I do adore thee so / That danger shall seem sport’ (2.1.43–44). The gap of social rank between the two men could be one reason for this captivated and fawning language, which also occurs in the exchanges between Olivia and Cesario/Viola, and Cesario/Viola and Orsino; but if the sexual nature of the latter two partnerships are so recognised, we can’t rule out the opportunity of a non-platonic relationship between Sebastian and Antonio. The heterosexual couplings at the end of the play show the need to conform and adapt to Elizabethan society rules concerning gender and sexuality. This is still very prevalent in today’s society, even within the drag community itself, an apparent safe space for a marginalised community. This is most obvious within RuPaul’s Drag Race. Edgar (2011) discusses Season 1 of the show, arguably the most diverse season with queens such as Bebe Zahara, Nina Flowers, and Rebecca Glasscock, who make up the final three. Edgar goes on to state;
“…the Queens face differing critiques aimed to the effect of normalizing their performances. Nina Flowers is one of the most androgynous performers of Season 1. Even in this androgyny, Nina must conform to certain standards… she learns that her drag appearance needs to be more identifiably feminine and less androgynous in order to be well received.”
Whilst seemingly idolising femininity, there is a glaring lack of female performers in the drag community. Drag Kings, the female counterpart to Drag Queens, aren’t nearly as popular or mainstream as their Queens are. Drag is a heavily male dominated industry. This is reflected throughout history as there are far fewer historical mentions of lesbianism than male homosexuality, because historical writings and records focus principally on men. There are practically no records on female-female relationships or sex in Ancient Greek or Roman culture, a time thought to be fairly lenient in terms of fluid sexuality. The audience reaction from the 2012 Globe Theatre’s all-male production of Twelfth Night is particularly telling of our society’s, albeit subconscious, reaction and perception of male versus female homosexuality. The relationship between Sebastian and Antonio was accepted without question, however the relationship between Viola/Cesario and Olivia felt as if it was being played for laughs. Viola/Cesario and Olivia’s relationship does have much more room for humour with the added layer of deception and dramatic irony, however, I wonder if it would it be the same if it was an all-female cast? RuPaul himself has come under fire for his stance on allowing both cisgender and transgender women on RuPauls Drag Race:
“[Would I consider a contestant who had fully transitioned?] Probably not. You can identify as a woman and say you’re transitioning, but it changes once you start changing your body. … We’ve had some girls who’ve had some injections in the face and maybe a little bit in the butt here and there, but they haven’t transitioned.” (Keeley, 2018)
Many performers from the community where frustrated, as minorities that have faced so much exclusion from mainstream society, to have found a community that preaches acceptance but does not deliver and that continues to judge based solely on physicality, many felt dissatisfied with RuPaul’s response. It is important here to note that performing in drag is not necessarily rooted in questioning one’s gender identity, much the same as acting onstage. It is merely a form of self-expression and entertainment, much the same as acting onstage.
The history of homosexuality and drag is an extensive and complicated affair. Much like a convoluted Shakespearean plot there have been highs, lows, and everything in between. We live in a society that is slowly and surely becoming more accepting of minorities, however I still feel that to utilise and appropriate femininity whilst refusing the inclusion of cisgender and transgender women is not much different to the attitudes at The Globe Theatre in 1600. Twelfth Night, and many other works of Shakespeare, are performed today with gender bent casting and queer romances throughout. It was Joseph Pequigney (1997) who pointed out that Orsino “proposes marriage to a girl he has known and come to love only as a male servant, has seen only in masculine attire, has addressed only with the masculine name Cesario and never once as Viola, and who when proposing to call’s her ‘boy’”. Orsino, and Olivia, fell in love with a complex and empowered person, and it just so happened that she was a girl. Gender bending roles shows the universal nature of Shakespeare’s stories, and performing as character of the opposite gender, with his iconic language unchanged, can have the powerful effect of reducing these characters to their sheer humanity.
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