Theatricality and Cosmopolitanism in Hannah Cowley's The Belle's Stratagem

TheatricalityandCosmopolitanism in Hannah Cowley's TheBelle'sStratagem Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace In act 3 of Hannah Cowley's 1780 comedy The Belle's Stratagem,1 the character Hardy contemplates the choice ofa costume for an upcoming masquerade: Let me see.—What shall my dress be? A Great Mogul? No.—A Grenadier ? No;—no, that I foresee, would make a laugh. Hang me, if I don't send to my little Quick, and borrow his Jew Isaac's dress:—I know the Dog likes a glass of good wine; so I'll give him a bottle of my Fortyeight , and he shall teach me. Aye, that's it—I'll be the Cunning Little Isaac! Ifthey complain ofmy want ofwit, I'll tell 'em the cursed Duenna wears the breeches and has spoiled my part. (3.1, p. 40) The humor of this scene relies on a metatheatrical in-joke: Hardy was originally played by the versatile actor John Quick (1748-1831), who had played notonlythe role ofIsaac Mendoza in Sheridan's TheDuenna (1775) but also Tony Lumpkin in a 1773 production of She Stoops to Conquer.2 Cowley counts on her audience to recognize the transparency ofHardy's announcement: Quick both calls attention to the idiosyncrasies of his previous role and reminds us that he only plays at being Hardy here. This metatheatrical moment is consistent with Cowley's attempt to foreground performance throughout her comedy as she encourages her audience to recognize a Shakespearean paradox: if human subjectivityis definedbyconstant role-playing,then onlyon the stage do people reallyappear aswhatthey are.The actor is the onlytruly sincere beingsince herperformance is the explicit demonstration ofevershifting human potential. And so in act 4, Quick plays Hardy playing the Jew Isaac Mendoza, whom the audience (and presumably the characters also, for they seem to have seen The Duenna as well) recognize not as an actual Jew—nor 415 416Comparative Drama even as a representation of an actual Jew—but as a specific dramatic rendering ofJewish identity. Hardy enters into an altercation with another masker, who taunts him with racial slurs: "Why, thou little testy Israelite! Back to Duke's Place; and preach your tribe into a subscription for the good of the land on whose milk and honey ye fatten.— Where are your Joshuas and your Gideons, aye? What! all dwindled into Stockbrokers, Pedlars, and Rag Men?" Putting his fingers to his head, Hardy replies: "No, not all. Some of us turn Christians, and by degrees grow into all the privileges of Englishmen! In the second generation we are Patriots, Rebels, Courtiers, and Husbands" ( 4.1, p. 50). This is certainly an interesting response, one that could be played in a number ofdifferent ways. Is the playwright condemning or condoning the process by which Mendoza's ethnic origins are erased? Is a Jew who has turned Christian still a Jew who only masquerades as what he is not? Does he therefore only perform the role ofPatriot, Rebel, Courtier , or Husband, thereby covering, hiding, or disguising what was originally stamped upon his character? Or, is Cowley here endorsing the idea that the Jew turned Christian leaves behind his origins and that he successfully adopts a new English identity? On the one hand, as a play, The Belle's Stratagem evinces an awareness of the destabilizing effects of performance as well as the anxiety this destabilization can produce. As the character Sir George Touchwood complains, society has become "one universal masquerade, all disguised in the same habits and manners" (2.1, p. 27). He is unsettled because he can no longer recognize distinction of character or class of female. Indeed, the masquerade scene in act 4 introduces us to a variety ofposeurs—shady characters who exploit appearances to get what they want. Miss Flutter claims she can tell the histories ofhalfthe people at the event: "In the next apartment," she alleges, "there's a whole family, who, to myknowledge, have lived on Water-Cresses this month, to make a figure here to-night—; but to make up for that, they'll cramtheirpockets with cold Ducks and Chickens, for a Carnival to-morrow" (4.1, p. 52). Yet, on the other hand, Hardy's speech as Mendoza...