Women on the Renaissance Stage

Women on the Renaissance stage provides a unique reassessment of women's relationship to performance in early modern England. A study of women's participation in the Jacobean court masque, it gives detailed historicised and interdisciplinary readings of the performances of Anna of Denmark (wife of James VI and I) in the Scottish and English Jacobean courts.

Clare McManus investigates the staging conditions, practices and gendering of Anna's performances, from the ceremonies and festivities of the Scottish court to the English court masques of Jonson, Daniel, Campion and others. Current critical theorisations of race, class, gender, space and performance are brought to bear on the courtly woman's body in dance, staging, scenery, costume and make-up within what might be thought of as female court. In doing this, McManus establishes a tradition of seventeenth-century female performance which provides a trajectory for the emergence of the professional female actors of the Restoration.

This innovative study of a hitherto neglected performance tradition will expand the understanding of gender and performance for scholars and students of early modern culture.