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On the Stage . . .

                   Theater is an expressive and versatile art form: it can be used to challenge certain thoughts, to criticize, to satirize, to amuse. It was a very threatening medium to the piously Protestant population of England, because most aspects of it challenged their beliefs and customs.                  

 A Chaste Maid was performed during the reign of King James I:


[12]

Because women were not allowed on the stage, males (mostly the younger boys whose voices were still high) had to don female clothing in order for the part to be played convincingly. This cross-dressing was a serious issue, even if it was only for play-acting. The concept of a man dressing up and acting as a woman was controversial and considered blasphemous. William Prynne condemns cross-dressing for the theater using the Bible as proof:

                  "[One] thing considerable in the very action of Stage-playes, is the apparell in which they are acted, which is first of all womanish and effeminate, belonging properly to the femalle sex; therefore unlawfull, yes, abominable unto men . . .

                  . . . [this is] undeniably confirmed by Deuteronomie 22. verse 5. The Woman shall not weare that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a womans garment; for all that doe so are abomination to the Lord God. God himselfe doth here expresly inhibit men to put on womans apparell, because it is an abomination to him: therefore it must certainly be unlawfull, yea abominable for Players to put on such apparell to act a womans part. . .

                  . . . sundry common Actors . . . make a daily practice of it to put on womens attire . . . they are within the expresse condemnation of this Scripture. . . ." [13]

                   Some scholars argue that "cross dressing . . . opened a gap between the supposed reality of one's social station and sexual kind . . . To transgress the codes governing dress was to disrupt an official view of the social order in which one's identity was largely determined by one's station or degree" [11]. This view is supported by a time that recently emerged from one of the most hierarchical systems of the all: feudalism.

                   Then there are those who will argue "was not so transgressive as critics and scholars have suggested, not was it necessarily symptomatic of a sex-gender system in distress" [5].

                   In any case, the very virtues of theater may have been considered immoral, especially in a homophobic society: if a man could accurately and convincingly play the part of any woman on the stage, then why wouldn't another man be attracted to him?

                   Another issue of conflict between the Church and the theaters was that they both occupied the same time slot:

                   "The ampitheaters needed optimum daylight for their plays, so they established a pattern of performances starting at 2 or 3 p.m., depending on how close to midsummer it was...

                    Afternoon church services began at 2 p.m., and the clash between churchgoing and playgoing was a constant irritant to the more puritanical divines and city fathers." [9]

                   Not only did theaters (at least those on the other side of the Thames) generally occupy the same area of bear-baiting and women of dubious virtue (whores and the like), but people could opt to go to the theaters instead of to church - a tempting way to skip mass and have some fun around London!