Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast Episode 296 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 14b: Actresses and the Stage

Saturday, September 21, 2024 - 07:00

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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 296 – Our F/Favorite Tropes Part 14b: Actresses and the Stage - transcript

(Originally aired 2024/09/21 - listen here)

Introduction

This episode is the second part of the “our f/favorite tropes,” essay on theater and actresses as a driving motif in historic romance. One subset of tropes particularly popular in contemporary romance are those focused on specific careers or jobs. When I started thinking about doing a show based on actresses, I realized that the situation was more complicated than simply talking about the dynamics of a romantic relationship involving a particular profession. Dramatic performance—especially the aspect of playing out roles with other people—adds in a whole other angle to romantic relationships that aren’t well represented in ordinary society.

In the first part of this essay last month, we looked at the content of plays and the nature of the profession of acting as a means for identifying, experiencing, and communicating female same-sex desire in historic settings. As part of that, we discussed when, where, and how women participated in theater. But was a sapphic presence on stage purely hypothetical? A motif that might stimulate the imagination of a fictional character? Or were lesbians part of the tradition of stage performance? (Regular listeners to the podcast will already know the answer is yes.) So today we’ll finish up the topic by looking at the historic association of actresses with non-normative sexuality, and especially with lesbianism.

Actresses as Sexual Beings

Several motifs contributed to social attitudes toward the sexuality of actresses, all stemming from the baseline misogyny and sexual double-standard of western culture. One element was a sense that women should not be “public beings.” That they should not have a public presence or role in society, but rather that their identities should be channeled through patriarchal structures, as an appendage to the family unit. This attitude affected many types of creative endeavor, including writing, poetry, and art. But it was especially pointed when applied to theater.

A women who participates in public theatricals was considered to be stepping outside the bounds of respectability. But more to the point, offering her public image and performance for the consumption of others was considered equivalent to offering her body for the consumption of others. To be an actress was, therefore, to be a type of prostitute, regardless of her actual sex life.

This attitude haunted professional actresses across the centuries, either pressuring them to combine the roles of performer and courtesan, or creating a sharp dichotomy between performers who embraced a libertine life in the demi-monde and those trying to maintain an image of “respectable” theater.

Moral objections to the participation of women in professional theater were often grounded in this reaction, resulting in widely varying official responses to the profession of actress, depending on the extent to which licensing bodies considered themselves responsible for policing public morals.

But it was also the case that when society classified actresses as inherently sexually transgressive, the roles of actress and courtesan could become merged. And although acting could give women a degree of economic agency and independence that was difficult for most women to achieve, it could also leave them socially vulnerable if they had no patron or protector. In some historic contexts, it was common for acting to be a “family profession” with women following a father or husband onto the stage. But in other contexts the nature of the profession set them outside typical family structures. For example, in later 18th century France, actresses were technically forbidden from marrying (as well as from receiving the sacrament).

As a consequence, in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was typical (though not universal) for an actress to find a male “protector” where it was expected that she would also serve as his mistress. But in a relevant twist, not all protectors were men.

Starting around the turn of the 19th century, English and American theater began to emphasize “respectability,” which meant that actresses often found their lives closely scrutinized. It also created something of a split between the bawdy music hall and vaudeville type performances and the more serious stage. Both existed side by side, but performers found it difficult to move between those worlds.

Coming back to the core focus of this podcast, in contexts when actresses were considered to be inherently libertine, one aspect was an assumption (or at least an accusation) that their sexuality encompassed both male and female partners. And in some cases there was a specific association with lesbianism, especially when an actress played “breeches roles” or when she declined to accept male protection.

Let’s look at some specific actresses who are either known to have been in same-sex relationships, or who were accused of it, or where the question played a significant role in their careers. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means—and, of course, most actresses were completely heterosexual. But these lives—even though sometimes improbable—can provide models for their fictional sisters.

Some Stage Lesbians (Real and Rumored)

As I’m going to do this roughly chronologically, it means I’m starting with a 17th century English woman who’s questionable both on the “actress” and “sapphic” aspects: Mary Frith, also known as Moll Cutpurse. As a fictional character on stage, it is implied that she desires both women and men, and she certainly messed with gender categories in habitually wearing male-coded garments and even occasionally completely cross-dressing. It is likely that she performed on stage herself, though it wasn’t her regular profession. She appears briefly as a character in Nathan Field’s 1618 play Amends for Ladies and it’s quite possible that Moll played the role on stage herself.

Two women in theatrical professions appear in thin disguise in Delarivier Manley’s early 18th century political satires. In The New Atalantis, one member of the sapphic “New Cabal” is intended to represent aristocrat Lucy Wharton, who had several female lovers, including opera singer Catherine Tofts. Playwright Catharine Trotter (whose work Agnes de Castro has themes of passionate friendship between women) is also satirized as part of the New Cabal, along with her lover Catherine Colyear, who was created Countess of Dorchester in her own right as a consequence of having been the mistress of James II. Hey, these folks had complicated personal lives.

Another late 17th century actress with an extremely complicated personal life was Julie d’Aubigny, whose stage name was Mademoiselle de Maupin, or simply “La Maupin.” Raised somewhat unconventionally, including instruction with the sword, as a teenager she became the mistress of her father’s patron, who arranged a marriage of convenience for her with the Sieur de Maupin. Whereupon she ran away with her fencing instructor and the two went on tour giving fencing exhibitions and singing. She joined an opera company in Marseille and fell in love with a young woman there who was then packed off to a convent, but Julie broke her out. On her way to Paris, she wounded a nobleman in a duel, but then became his lover. She joined the Paris Opera courtesy of the influence of two mentors and made a name for herself on stage. Off stage, she continued to make love to women (and men), fight duels, and go through cycles of being exiled and pardoned. The last and greatest love of her life was the Marquise de Florensac, but when Madame la Marquise died unexpectedly, Julie retired from the stage with a broken heart.

France seems to have been center stage for flamboyantly lesbian actresses. In the later 18th century, Françoise-Marie-Antoinette-Joseph Saucerotte, known as Mademoiselle de Raucourt, followed the family trade of acting from an early age. By the early 1770s, she became famous playing roles with the Comèdie Française and enjoyed the dubious benefits of having Queen Marie Antoinette as a patron. Mademoiselle de Raucourt became a target of hostility both for her royalist loyalties and her reputation for female lovers including one Mademoiselle Souck and singer Sophie Arnould. Although she did occasionally have male lovers, Raucourt became a unique icon of lesbians on stage when she was turned into the fictional leader and spokesperson for the possibly apocryphal “Anandrine Sect” a supposed secret society of lesbians featured in pornographic literature. Despite some close calls during the revolution, Raucourt survived to become a director of the French theater in Italy under Napoleon traveling with a female companion, Henriette Simonnet de Ponty.

There’s at least a hint that England may have had its own theatrical-led Anandrine society, if this note from a German visitor to 1780s London is to be believed. He notes, “There are females who avoid all intimate intercourse with the opposite sex, confining themselves to their own sex. These females are called Lesbians. They have small societies, known as Anandrinic Societies, of which Mrs Y--, formerly a famous London actress was one of the presidents.” Regardless of the truth of the observation about lesbian sex clubs, the comment cements the popular connection between actresses and sex between women.

But it must be remembered that few of the actresses we’re discussing in this era were exclusive to one sex in their affections. French actress Gabrielle Malacrida, nicknamed “Carline,” was known for taking female lovers but also married a man. Marguerite-Henriette d’Aumont, duchess de Villeroy, didn’t let her marriage get in the way of organizing salons for a wide circle of aristocratic women with sapphic relationships, or in the way of being a patron for her lover the actress Clair Josèphe Hippolyte Leris. “La Clairon,” as she was known, described in her memoirs an early version of “method acting”.

Like several of the other women featured in this episode, 18th century English actress Charlotte Cibber Charke came to acting as a family profession, her father being actor, playwright, and theater manager Colley Cibber and her mother being actress and singer Katherine Shore. Charke became famous for playing “breeches roles” on stage…and off, leaving open the question of whether her penchant for going about in male disguise as “Mr. Brown” was a role or an identity. Both on stage and off she attracted the romantic interest of women who variously were and were not aware of her identity. Charke had a long-term partnership with another actress, identified in her memoirs only as “Mrs. Brown” with whom she raised a daughter from a brief early marriage. It isn’t clear whether their relationship was sexual, but Charke’s autobiography—which is the most detailed source of information on her life—may not have been candid on that point as it was published as a fund-raiser.

A generation later, sorting out the relationship between actress Sophia Baddeley and her long-term companion and business manager Elizabeth Hughes Steele isn’t any easier. Baddeley was a sometime actress and performer who found her talents more practical when turned to the business of entertaining rich and handsome men. Her tendency to spend freely and make rather bad choices in male protectors meant that Elizabeth’s deep and rather dysfunctional passion for her has more the flavor of co-dependency than romance. Through explosive breakups and tender reunions their lives remained entwined until Sophia’s death. At least one biographer concludes they were lovers (in between Sophia’s liaisons with men) and regardless of that aspect they were certainly emotionally entangled.

Late 18th century English actress Elizabeth Farren was definitely not a lesbian. Absolutely not. Despite the rumors that her close friendship with absolutely-a-lesbian sculptor Anne Damer was the reason why she resisted becoming the mistress of her protector, the Earl of Derby. In the end, she cut the friendship with Damer to maintain a spotless public reputation (and was eventually rewarded with marriage to the Earl, once his inconvenient wife died). But widespread beliefs about the sexuality of actresses were what made her consider such a drastic step necessary.

Two American actresses illustrate polar opposites in terms of theatrical respectability in the mid to late 19th century.

British-American actress Annie Hindle made her reputation in the mid to late 19th century performing as a male impersonator. After a brief and unhappy marriage to a male performer, all her subsequent romantic liaisons were with women, several of whom she married under the name Charles Hindle. It could be argued that Hindle should be considered transmasculine, but her stage performances were specifically as “a woman performing in male dress” and she only chose to pass as a man for the purpose of marrying women and not in everyday life. Her press clippings, though admiring, always carry an air of sensation and scandal.

In contrast, Charlotte Cushman, despite having a similar string of female lovers, maintained her image as a serious and respectable thespian, gaining international fame and fortune. Cushman played a wide variety of roles but gained particular fame for her breeches roles, including Romeo played opposite her sister’s Juliet. Her career took her from Boston and New York to London, where she found friendship and lovers among a circle of feminist intellectuals. Eventually she was part of an expatriate community of artists in Rome. Through it all, she had an overlapping series of female romantic partners that included journalist and actress Mathilda Hays, sculptor Emma Stebbins, and the much younger Emma Crow.

In contrast with the push for respectability in English and American theater, late 19th century Paris became the epicenter of sexual decadence, with both male and female homosexual communities converging around the theater, including drag performance, either in the form of performers or spectators. Lesbian scenes in theatricals could prompt censorship, as happened in the case of author Colette performing with her lover Mathilde de Morny in Rêve d’Égypte. But many other less well known women acted on similar Parisian stages.

Conclusions

In summary, during most of the known history of women on stage, there was a public perception that actresses had…shall we say “irregular” sex lives, and that irregularity could include having female lovers, whether among their fellow performers or with wealthy patronesses. Because theatrical performers were often considered to stand outside of respectable society, their romantic lives might be treated as yet one more public spectacle, to be accepted though not approved. At the same time, there could be a constant tension between striving for a respectability that society was disinclined to grant them and embracing the combination of freedom and vulnerability that came with living an unconventional life. These tensions underlie the appeal of theatrical romances up through the present day, where actresses balance between the fame and success that comes with becoming a public property, with the hazard of one’s most personal romantic life being treated as just another performance for the audience.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

Actresses as sexual outlaws
Specific actresses known to have had same-sex romances

Bibliography

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