Rival Queens: Actresses, Performance, and the Eighteenth-Century British Theater

Chapter 6. The Actress, Travesty, and Nation: Margaret Woffington

c h a p t e r 6 The Actress, Travesty, and Nation: Margaret Woffington You are tir’d of an Appendix to our Sex, that you can’t so handsomly get rid of in Petticoats as if you were in Breeches.” —Melinda to Sylvia in The Recruiting Officer In every Country, Decency requires, that the Sexes should be differenc’d by Dress, in order to prevent Multitudes of Irregularities, which would continually be occasion’d. —Universal Spectator (24 December 1728) John Rich reportedly found the actress Margaret Woffington (1720?–60 ) to be an impossibly beautiful woman. When the young Irish girl arrived in London in 1740 after taking Dublin by storm, she allegedly pestered Rich until he granted her a personal audience. The legendary scene of the dissolute Rich encountering the lovely wisp of a woman has been memorably captured in word and image: he met her while reclining “on a Couch, with one Leg lolling over the other, his left Hand holding a Play-Book, and his right a China Cup, out of which he was sipping some Tea. Round him, upon him, and about him, were seven-and-twenty Cats of different Sizes, Ages, and Complexions. Some were staring him in the Face, some eating the Toast and Butter out of his Mouth, some licking the Cream out of a cup, some frisking about, some lying down, some perched upon his Knee, some upon his Head,&c. Figure 12. “Woffington’s First Interview with Manager Rich.” Edward Francis Finden, engraving after Frederick Smallfield. Harvard Theatre Collection, Houghton Library. Travesty and Nation: Margaret Woffington 191 &c.&c.&c.&c.&c.&c. &c.&c.&c.&c.&c”1 (Figure 12). Woffington’s reaction to the manager surrounded by his virtual seraglio of felines is not recorded, but according to Sir Joshua Reynolds, only Rich’s recollection of his marriage allowed him to maintain his composure when confronted with the enticing actress: “Had it been otherwise, I should have found it difficult to retain my equanimity enough to arrange business negotiations with that amalgamated Calypso, Circe and Armida who dazzled my eyes. A more fascinating daughter of Eve never presented herself to a manager in search of rare commodities. She was as majestic as Juno, as lovely as Venus, and as fresh and charming as Hebe”2 (Figure 13). Rich hired her, but on many occasions Woffington found her negotiations with him difficult. She regularly quarreled with him over salary and other professional matters, including rivalries with other actresses. But it was Rich who eventually offered her the £800 per season that Thomas Sheridan had promised but reneged on when he fled Dublin after the Smock Alley affair. It may be startling, then, to recall that this mesmerizingly feminine woman, Margaret “Peg” Woffington, performed most memorably as a man in cross-dressed and travesty parts, beginning her career as Macheath (December 1731), followed later by roles as Silvia in Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer (each season from 1740–41 to 1756–57 with one exception); the comic libertine Sir Harry Wildair in Farquhar’s The Constant Couple (each season from 1740–41 to 1757); and the tragic libertine Lothario in Nicholas Rowe’s The Fair Penitent . In addition, Woffington developed a cross-dressed persona in numerous epilogues, not infrequently as a female soldier. Woffington thus created an ambiguously gendered persona in a series of patriotic epilogues that promoted national loyalty but also implied a critique of that identity by exposing through sexual impersonation its constructed nature.3 Among the dramatic roles Woffington frequently acted in travesty were Sir Harry Wildair in The Constant Couple and Lothario in The Fair Penitent, both devil-may-care, womanizing libertines, like the rakish Captain Macheath in John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, who might seem to be odd choices for a star actress. The Constant Couple comically addresses woman’s plight—a theme which, along with its patriotic and anti-Papist sentiments, contributed significantly to the acceptance of Sir Harry Wildair as a credible travesty role. The Fair Penitent ’s Lothario in Woffington’s hands was judged by many to be confusingly ironic rather than powerfully tragic, and her interpretation appeared somewhat perverse to a London audience, though less so to Dublin viewers. Characters originally written for a male actor and performed by an actress, or vice versa, united the rake and his beautiful prey, the victimizer and the victim, in the Figure 13. “Mrs. Margaret Woffington.” Mezzotint by John Faber...