Boy Actor

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In the practice of Elizabethan and Jacobean theater in English-speaking countries, the term boy actor (also boy player or children actor ) denotes a young male performer of female roles. In the German-language literature, on the other hand, the term boy actor is predominantly used.

Theater history background

From around 1558 to 1642 women were legally prohibited from working professionally as actresses . The ban only applied to English women. French and Italian theater companies were able to organize their guest performances with their female members.

Because of this limitation, the professional theater groups, for example the Lord Chamberlain's Men , resorted to male adolescents when performing female roles. These youngsters were enrolled as apprentices with the guilds of London , who loaned them out to the professional theater companies for drama (where they then spent most of their apprenticeship).

Theatrical troupes are also known from this period, which consisted only of young actors. The best known had their origins in the choir singers of the church choirs of the Chapel Royal or the royal chapels (Children of the Chapel and Children of Windsor) and the Latin school of St. Paul's Cathedral as early as the 16th century . One or more leaders were responsible for their training, teaching the children and young people the languages, singing and acting. These training directors were often playwrights or playwrights themselves, such as John Lyly in the 1680s or Samuel Daniel 1604 and Robbert Daborne in 1610. In contrast to professional actors, who could independently decide whether to accept or reject a play, this was the case Decision-making authority over the choice of the piece to be played by the heads of the boys' troops.

Part of the former Blackfriars Theater on Spain Lane, London, was restored in 1963

From 1576 to 1584 and 1599 to 1613 these troops appeared within the city walls in private theaters , including the Blackfriars Theater , for a fee. Until the takeover of the Blackfriar Theater in 1608 by Shakespeare's drama group the Lord Chamberlain's Men or King's Men, as they called themselves from 1603, only children appeared in private theaters.

For professional adult troupes, these children's groups sometimes represented serious competition, since children's play was viewed by the theater audience of that time as more refined and socially upscale. In addition, their game was often made more appealing through diverse dance or singing interludes. In addition, the drama presented by the humanistically trained children often turned out to be intellectually more pointed due to the natural talent that the boy actors brought with them, especially for parody , satire or polemics . Especially in the performances of the classical drama of John Lyly or Ben Jonson , the young actors were seen as the more suitable actors and were for a long time the celebrated audience favorites. The children's troupes were also attractive to some of the important playwrights of the time, such as Lyly, Jonson, Chapman and Marston , as they enjoyed greater freedom than the established adult troupes under the restrictive, anti-theater conditions of the Elizabethan stage. This competition between the boys' troops and the professional actors of the Elizabethan folk theater reached its climax especially in the years between 1599 and 1608, when Richard Burbage gave Blackfriars to the Children of the Chapel, who from 1603 to 1605 also called themselves Children of the Queen's Revel were allowed to designate, rented and this created an unexpected competitive situation.

The rivalry between the boys' troops and the adult professional actors should not be overstated, however. The children's troops usually only performed once a week in closed houses in front of a maximum of 400 to 500 spectators, whereas the professional adult troops mostly gave daily performances in the large open-air public theaters in front of an audience of 2,000 to 3,000 spectators each.

Famous children's actors of the Elizabethan theater

literature

  • Bastian Kuhl: Negotiating Childhood. The English children's actors of the Shakespearean period. Universitätsverlag Winter, 1st edition Heidelberg 2017, ISBN 978-3-8253-6827-2 .
  • Helmut Castrop: The Elizabethan Theater. Section 10d: The Boy Actors. In: Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. Time, man, work, posterity. 5th, revised and supplemented edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 109f.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See, for example, the section “Die Knabenschauspieler” in Ina Schabert (Hrsg.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. The time - the person - the work - the posterity . 5. through u. supplementary edition. Kröner-Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 109f. See also Wolfgang Weiss: The Drama of Shakespeare's Time. Attempt at a description. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart et al. 1979, ISBN 3-17-004697-7 , here chapter 1.1.2: Die Kindertruppen, p. 22ff. Available online as a PDF file at [1] . Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  2. ↑ See Dorothea Schuller: Male, female, what you want: Shakespeare and the pleasure of playing with the sexes, on the prohibition of the occupation of female roles with female actors . In: Frauke Reitemeier (Ed.): "Look here, at this painting and at this ..." - For dealing with pictures from John Boydell's Shakespeare Gallery. Göttinger Schriften zur Englischen Philologie, Volume 2. Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-941875-02-9 , pp. 15–38, here pp. 20ff.
  3. ↑ Cf. Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. The time - the person - the work - the posterity . 5. through u. supplementary edition. Kröner-Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , p. 105. See also Wolfgang Weiß: The drama of Shakespeare's time. Attempt at a description. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart et al. 1979, ISBN 3-17-004697-7 , here chapter 1.1.2: Die Kindertruppen, p. 22f. and p. 60. Available online as a PDF file at [2] . Retrieved December 28, 2018.
  4. ↑ Cf. Ina Schabert (Ed.): Shakespeare-Handbuch. The time - the person - the work - the posterity . 5. through u. supplementary edition. Kröner-Verlag, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-520-38605-2 , pp. 105f. See also See also Wolfgang Weiß: The drama of the Shakespeare period. Attempt at a description. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart et al. 1979, ISBN 3-17-004697-7 , here chapter 1.1.2: Die Kindertruppen, p. 22f. as well as p. 34 and 46ff. Accessible online as a PDF file at [3] . Retrieved on December 28, 2018. In his account, Weiß sees the reason for the move of the boys 'troupe from the royal chapel to the building of the former Blackfriar Convent primarily in the planned commercial exploitation of the choirboys' acting skills.