146 What is an audience? impressionability, lower-class male spectators are aligned not with affective production and sexual (re)prodiuction but, as we have seen, with the degraded functions of defecation, “the Foeces, or grow of your people,” and represent the potent eliminations of the social body. A Midsummer Night’s Dream With “take your places, ladies” (V.i, 84) in Midsummer Night's Dream, ‘Theseus commands the women to position themselves in the audi ence for the mechanicals’ entertainment. The lines incorpo: stage direction and specify the ladies in a way that may even su that this small audience, though close enough total, is none: gender segregated. Alternatively, Theseus’s direction may signal that the ladies seat themselves while the men stand, or may indicate any number of other po: for the physical arrangement of the actors.* Whatever blocking cue is imparted by the line, Theseus’ ‘words mark in literal terms what the play elsewhere explores in conceptual ones, namely, the place of the women in relation to dramatic spectacle, The duke’s instruction may even serve to re- mind his audience of possible correlations between theatre architecuure and gender, with primarily men in the yard (“groundlings” and and women perhaps confined to the seated les out the women, his motes an idea that is already in cultural circu- 's, that theatre, allegedly a site of women's intense and cally erotic pleasure is also a place where women in particular are subject to what antitheatrical pamphleteers such as Stephen Gosson regarded as “a kind of rape of the mind, a ‘ravish- ‘osson quoted in Levine 1996: 210)? For example, ‘when William Gager argued that “no hurt could come to any by the passions that were moved in your plays,” Puritan academic John i inded him: “your generall proposition do faulle in the wemen” (Rainolds quoted in Binns 1974: 110-20, esp. 113). If dramatic representation is esentially the power men have over women —in Quince’s telling definition the power “to disfigure, or to present” HL i. 56-7) then dramatic enactment becomes a kind of violent misrepresentation directed at women. ie context of the exempl: argued is shown toward wome! lence that Laura Levine has the play, the solicitous concern What is an audience? 147 of the lower orders about offending female sensibilities provides a ‘grotesque parody of the cultural postulate that women are ravishable either on grounds of cognitive delicacy or constitutional fragility. ‘They have chosen, after all, a spectacle that seems calculated to would entreat you not ° The ironies of the work- nce surface in particular ’s central spectacle of female sexual ap- petite, one whose overtly bestial croticism, as Bruce Bochrer has argued, “comes as close to enacted sexual intercourse as any scene in Shakespearean comedy” (Boehrer 1994: 132). Titania’s liaison ‘with Bottom offers an ironic commentary on the notion that “There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please ... which the ladies cannot abide” (III. i. 8-10). A possible source for Shakespeare’s parody of tragic love drama is the manu- script version of Thomas Moffetts unintentionally hilarious rendition of the story in The Silkwormes and Their Flies.’ Moffett casts silk- worms in the romantic roles of Pyramis and Thishe, whose plights he imagines will elicit compassion from his women readers. Moreover, in raising silk Joue” (Moffett 1599: L1). Such quasi-por- n about the production of female desire and the notion that what should, ostensibly, ter~ layed as atsome hardly a figure to inspire terror places the monstrosity of this union firmly with Titania, in whom the play rehearses the problem of both female perception and performance. Titania’s enchantment at the hands of Puck and Oberon (“with the juice of this I'l streak her eyes, / And make her fill of hateful fantasies” (II. i. 257-8), often dramatized so as tomake her ren sat of an amorous inebriate, offers a vivid instance of the problem of disorderly spectatorship more generally. She is making a spectacle of herself, which, as Mary Russo p her discussion of the female grotesque, has to do with “a kind of inadvertency and loss of boundaries” Russo While Titania as Venus Vulgaris, “aroused by Bottom’s ” may offer Bottom, the male spectator who watches “beastliness,¥ ‘emseafd 2yeury 10) ws20u09 ¥ se yor sauasaad 49a{q0 oreo o¢p Aq azmdns s,uewom ayp ‘ured apemiay ut 189129 (62-612 :[o9c1] goat suamdy) TING © tpt 2st89p ayeurpiouy 4 youonb assafasneo 10% prp SEBO Jo AetROW axp ayBROTp | Aqoisy ‘ou INA aansvo4d 724 Pey Pu Snoge punox Apog Aur pooeaquu souoosy 24s pos pare Suna rem oye ous mot a pe ynour monsuou! 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What is an audience? concern that is completely belied by ensuing events. When word of his exploits reaches Lucius’s master, the master the face of all the people, what I could doe. s status, the spectacle cannot be staged with the ma- openly have to doe” (Apuleius 1893 [1566]: But I, beside the shame to commit this horrible fact, and to pol- lute my body with this wicked harlot did greatly feare the danger of death: for I thought in my selfe, that when she and I were cemper his greedinesse, stat hee would tear her in pecces lying under mee, and spare nee with a regard of mine innocency. (Apuleius 1893 [1566]: 226) gave the matron perverse pleasure would constitute mal torment for an already condemned woman. In- deed, the proposed reenactment of bestial intércourse with a lower- class woman signals a status difference amiong women and their relation to pleasure that we do not see in Shakespeare's play, where women of the plebeian class are quite out of sight. Fortunately, way, having resisted, as it were, the temptation to be- fantasy. When Bottom is “translated” (IIL. i. rehearsals and has just missed his cue. The pare tator, Titania thus becomes enamored of an actor: ‘Come, sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed, ‘While I thy amiable cheeks do coy, ‘And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head, ‘And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. Titania is “over-eares in love with him,” like the ‘waiting-women who became infatuated with John Es actor of the 1620s, and sent for him to act in their privy chambers (Gurr 1992: 218). Actors and men behaving like actors (like y What is an audience? 151 ‘Lysander wooing Hermia) seduce women: “With feining voice verses of feigning love, / And stol’n the impression of her fantasy” (Li: 31-2). Male mimesis and female spectatorship thus take seduction, as their relatively benign paradigm. Bottom as an actor, in fact, bears q rather surprising affinity with Richard ITT, probably Shakespeare's most notorious seducer, whose charm lies precisely in his capacity to play the ladies’ man despite being physiologically ill-suited to the role. An accomplished actor— not an amateur like Bottom — he tests his capacities as both lover and villain by seducing the widow of the last man he murdered and by his direct addresses to the audience. Contemporary male mentators reported that women in the audience did indeed Burbage’s Richard III seductive. When Burbage playe: 1602, one woman allegedly “greue soe farr in liking wit before shee went from the play shee appointed him night unto hir by the name of Ri: the 3” (Rackin 1996: 42), "The animal attraction Richard III epitomizes and of which Bot- tom isa caricature was also pervasively associated with the corrupt nature of political authority, particularly in Bacon’s essay “Of De- formity,” which, though itreads like a description of Richard II, was probably provoked more directly by Elizabeth's hunchbacked, splay- footed, and physiognomically disfigured secretary, Robert Cecil.” ‘Quasibestial Cecil nonetheless appears to have appealed not only to ik fernale sovereign butalso to Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. ‘John Aubrey’s Brief Live offers a scandalous report of their liaison: She was very salacious, and she had a Contrivance in the Spring. of the yeare, when the Stallions were to cape the Mares, they were to be brought before such a part of the house, where she hhad a vidette (a hole to peepe out at) to looke on them and please herselfe with their Sport; and then she would act the like sport herselfe with fer stallions. One of. lary Herbert's] great Gallants was Crooke-back’t Cecill, Earl of Salisbury. (Aubrey 1949: 138; see also Boehrer 1994)!" ‘Aubrey thus fantasizes the countess of Pembroke as a female spec- tator, a voyeur, who resembles Titania in her perverse predilection for equine masculinity, although she is ‘completely in control of both spectacle and sexual encounter. Equally, Cecil is like the metamorphosed Bottom in his deformity ‘but unlike the asinine Athenian in that despite being, according to ‘Aubrey, anatomically subhuman, he remains politically potent‘ropu0 yemos amp 01 eax ow Uasard Amp amNY, SSoUMU HEIDgaId Jo Aseiuey snoxsysodaud ayp sasodoud umaucy Sain” souaunspyyy uasaidar 01 1omod arp aney you Soop 9y{ YPIHM FEHB. .omiystp,, suo ues “ypns se 4 Seo x00 ysnowp pareuatre sng sosse s,mmonog (g-cz "H po Jo aneatp 2poys e yStOAK ous ,‘snororpnl amp, ‘pas ad oyp 0» ded prnom angus 27eu110U pom ‘SoneUTEp Aaysraatun axp WO Pajspour sdeyrod ‘oneomp isn saauegy “(@1—11 “YTD .asiou pue smoys -qump 2iqeoydxour ing Sunpou jo apqedvo are died ysour axp 305 ous ‘sBunpunoad amp, Sxoreioads re1oqoyd uruzaasipun on spesdde yx asneoaq inq (wuTY 104 aneatp Jo saandalqo supuiom spuodur rym st Bunoe — 9 FD . ye sn Suey or ySnous 21am emp pure Sjarys plnom Aaxp vexp sompeT amp pure 559 “png ay aysuy pjnom nos AyquLI93 002 yop POYE NOA UY 22UUI 4y Suieur Aue op Tim [2erp 2eod [Fm J 001 uoY stp Ae au v2] sono samunoods os aanuo o4p se0x98 189q 01 4ous8x0 on euresp go amssaud axp asian Apuareddte suoneisadssnox0 ~win jo wodsoad ayy 4 sionmrpods Buoure urneye osne> OF MN 9p sem 24 zexp spunos Sep uo tom atp 40} porptasiopun “Twayeatnbs ‘weuinq su se popiefax Anuaredde “weotgy we pu> 1p UY S101 ~eneads Apunoo ayn a1ejaq ogre pnd pu wopamg jo 3sv0q SH0x9 4eyd oy pasodeins sexs wor] © “ppc UE 4moD YsMOoy atp 18 Iwo ureysaiuo ue uy ssoueastamon9 peoureatn payfexo ontab ut pune} 2q 0} ose ‘ionamoy “ouom swonestaozdun pure suonTansqns 28.0244 E-s¢ 4 1p) ,sumysuoopy jo wormed sup ‘iuasoud o1 10 amy 02 sowo> 24 Aes pur tusayuey © ply suiorp Jo yng v qi ut 2W0> ssnur au0,, :ou0 [eoLneatp ATeogioods w wt ho Aeyd speatTEyDoU at) 28019 puv finer ono aig ur no Aeyd snout] Pue SOpUESAT ‘euoqeH ‘eR9gy asorp axgy‘suonnasqns axeudorddeut jo sous S61 e2uaypne we ste, se pamfiguoo 29900 10} st uoneUasordas opeuTEIC] “(L-96% *EZ61L sraquieqs) ur paronb aypo9) remo axp 407 axoy.\4 ¥ 40 Kog op soyeastun 2y ‘pousreurun soar ay se Fuo] Os ing “* ‘same SMEMION, ‘ur Kog aqp 20} weuioN4 up sores 204 ‘SoreTeM 234151, ;wondooiod TPuiorenads ut pure ss200ud sn>uurur arp Ypoq ut tonoIsTp 105 fenuaod up sores Aqferonuo sakeyd wounuos a1p uO HERE 5.2907) uyof” “9191 ur wont “oamonns A1aa sy uy axoyur Aoyy suoneIuasaudor PPouneata Jo asoxp 01 snoSoreue Afprsux wep afour ore oaamoy, ‘onsap Jo sanrmuojap au. “sdrysuoneps snow: joxnsurucsse Ajsnoofenno pue snore Apapiostp saxensuourap BURN], Yat 19) ~moou9 as0y" 9A0| eR onbsmi0s8 Aqeo!UU09 v saqEUT UIOHO, «'tondsorad opeuray Jo sourersqns aanuaox Pue uoquosqe-oor-ye ayp ssazdua on Yorys YEN TUSUIMNSHT 91s hejdumt xp st Sasser Suvoqey arp Jo ppiom soypaU yp jo saquista “tapmg Jo rseoq ‘wionog “IsenUOD Uy “s[souTU Jo sapz0 TeoNIUE ~wits Sussaqoo dqjeonatpsae amp sqeusis oy BuyjoBueyp axp aq Osne> -9q Jo1vereyp 9peuray apgisneid ¥ soyeur Aoq ioayr0d-piom e yong (sez ‘e861 noma) 20119) atp tps se ypoodg om pun [aM se uoxE Your sam Isa stosrod quasar sxaAtp pure [A093 yrLa YS “STA 194 03 Buy ~Puosoe ouop Suraq YORI ,'21079q ysAE Sur OV aspEp HOYp Se [2M os 1 Aes askew noyp ‘Seq au Au “por Avad 1, “Uniog aq 9x0}2q Buphes ‘urefe 2 2ounouo1d a1 Aoq axp papuBuawo> ays “2uI09 upg om Sr way 09 hoop AreIO199g 05 198 YyRLATVIO} YS EY. ‘ypnur os soy paseayd ‘puo ayp 38 S989, aarp ona wen ‘UNE {Wr say] 0} woReIG We SuPyeUr oyM (YOMYD IAYD Jo ueagy 2eT ‘Marea 1¢] Jo AUN ] se wos) mare ise pour Aoq Anaad hz90B soupsaad 194 cquraydnorg sea azarp ‘roquaeY Aatad zany ut SuToq 99C1 aSnBMY ut *pIOFXO ‘AstTYD snduoy ve sue ~ansopiad v ur (qeiaieur at 10} 199NeYD 09 porqopul st wDAiCy LyBN" ‘yory) Gap puv uowmyay § sprEMpy PREIS UL i plo TeaA-udaamay e MareD Jol9g TEM WHE) NUL -2} pure ayer qpoq ur a|qunsap “Ayqeurnsax 20g 4q pansap s0}e axp Jo addroyosd axp st Koq oy ed Ou UF uonmpsqns ongumux pure sno19 10) amnfiy amp st om, BuyABUEYD,, amp ‘fog uepuy oxp 10y asap onsezapad Aqqissod154 What is an audience? the mechanicals are in a position structurally analogous to that of the apprentices who rioted at the Cockpit on Shrove Tuesday “outcasts, raging against expensive pleasures denied to (Cook 1981: 253). Writing in 1654, Edward Sherburne re- calls that plebeians Desert the house round, broke in, wounded divers of the players, broke open their trunckes, & what apparrell, bookes, or o1 things they found, they burnt & cutt in peeces; & not content herewith, gott on the top of the house, & untiled it, & had not the Justices of Peace & Shrerife levied an aide, & hindred their purpose, they would have laid that house likewise even with the ground. In this skyrmishe one prentise was slaine, being shott throughe the head with a pistoll, & many other of their fellowes ‘were sore hurt, & such of them as arc taken his Majestie hath commaunded shal be executed for example sake. (Sherburbe quoted in Cook 1981: 252) ‘The stakes of representation or of the exch tion, both cultural and political, are remark from representa- high. The play demonstrates the tension between the social classes during the mechanicals’ rehearsals when Bottom fears that a hearty perform- they would have no more discretion but to hang us,” (L ii. 66-9) and that, the mechanicals concur: “would hang us, every mother’s son” . ii, 62-70). ‘The threat of hanging in the political context of 1595, the yearn which Shakespeare's play was written, was anything but an idle ‘Annabel Patterson points out, twelve of them took place at mid- summer, between 6 and 29 June." In theatres lower-class disruption ranged from that of apprentices who would “break in at playes for three a groat, and crack Nuts with the Scholars in peny rooms again, and fight for Apples” to that of mobs who set out and pull downe” the theatre itself Fletcher 1905-12: 194) portantly, many acts of violence in the audience were instances of class antagonism. For example, two John Lynsey, were arraigned in Richard Bradley, “assaulted Nicholas Bestney junior gentleman, and with a knife gave him two grievous wounds” (Cook 1981: 259). What is an audience? 158 ‘Common criminality includes 1992: 223). In 1638 asilleweav ‘Thomas Pinnocke, was rcaling, stabbing, and fighting (Gurr ; abelligerent Bottom figure named jgned “for menacing and thre ce of law and th in the awe- nesis, rejoices in thatincapacity of othersto represent Ives, which he sees as a sign of appropriate deference, equat- ing representation with political power. He recalls he nervous behavior of officials who have to speak before him: Where I have come, great clerks have purposed To greet me with premeditated welcomes, Where I have scen them shiver and look pale Make periods in the midst of senten ‘Throttle their practised accent in their fears, ‘And in conclusion dummbly have broke off (Wi. 93-8) Stage fright (the antithesis of Bi ance) reassures Theseus about his power. In contra ly those sensi disproportionately attri herself also professed such sentiments on a progress throu ‘wick (only eight miles from Stratford) in 1574 as a trembling local official made his welcoming speech. Elizabeth allowed the official to kiss her hand and said, “Come hither, little Recorder. Itwas told ‘me that you would be afraid to look upon me or to speak boldly; ut you were not so afraid of me as I was of you; and I now thank you for putting me in mind of my duty.” In Stephen Greenblatt’s interpretation, this episode is, “in effect, a theatrical performance of humility by someone with immense confidence in her own his- trionic power” (1997: 47). This reading would align Elizabeth, then, not with Hippolyta but with Theseus, who prefers inarticulate sub- jects, appreciating “silence” and “modesty”, over tongue/ Of saucy and audacious eloquence” (V. 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In particular, the essay questions a ore fundamental than that of gender or that of meni tal labor, yet one to which Bottoms transformation imy fers, namely, the human dominion over nature: ‘How knoweth he by the vertue of his understanding the inward and secret motions of the beasts? By what comparison from them to us doth he conclude the brutishnesse he ascribeth unto them? ‘When Iam playing with my Cat, who knowes whether she have ‘more sport in dallying with me, than I have in gaming with her? (Montaigne 1897: 209) Montaigne is appalled not only by “mans impudency touching beasts” (Montaigne 1897: 209) but by the idea that linguistic facile ity gives dominance. “[O]ur dumbe me ‘dispute, argue and tell histories by signes. ... And as for other matters; what sufficiency is there is us, that we must not acknowledge from the industry and labours of beasts? ... We perceive by the greater part of their workes what excellency beasts have over us, and how we: our art and short our cunning is, if we goe about to imitate them” id.: 211-14). ‘Nature has not bestowed upon hurnanity “the natur: of brute beasts: So that their brutish stupidity doth in ties exceed whatsoever our divine intelligence can effect ‘We are neither above nor under the rest. ... And if we will take hold of any advantage tending to that purpose, that it is in our power to seize upon them, to employ them to our service, and to use them at our pleasure; it is but the same oddes we have one upon another. ‘The Spanish theologian Raymond Sebond, widely regarded as a heretic, believed that God gave humanity two phorical and one real: the “Book of All Creature Nature) and the Scriptures. After the Fall, the “Book of All Crea~ tures” became illegible to humanity but nevertheless remains com- ‘mon to everyone, in a way that breaks down the distinction between lettered and unlettered persons (Screech 1993: xxv). At first glance this egalitarianism seems to refer purely to class and not at all to gender. But this is not, in fact, the case. Sebond’s audience was primarily female: “divers ammuse themselves to reade it, and espe- cially Ladies, to whom we owe most service” (Montaigne ibid.: 186) What is an audience? 159 Montaigne in this sense takes it upon himself to represent Sebond’s female readership. Female receptiveness is, then, the catalyst for Montai Crucially, Bottom’s scrambled biblical quotation also refers us to the basic physiological requirements of sen to the fundamental conditions of spectator Bulwer 1648: tp). A prefatory poem by Thomas Diconson offers the following exhortation: Rejoice you Deafe and Dumbe, your Armes extend nbrace th'inventive goodnesse of a Friend! Who here intends, for your rel An Academic, on Natvres highest ground: ‘Wherein He doth strange mysteries unlocke, How all the Sences have one common Stocke. ‘Shewes how indulgent Nature for each sence Wanting, allowes a double recompence. ‘How she translates a sence, transplants an Eare Into the Eye, and makes the Optiques heare Inoculates an Eare with sight; whereby Te shall performe the office of an Eie (Bulwer 1648: A7-A8) For John Bulwer there is a marked proximity between defective perception and the positive aspects of metamorphosis the most remarkable properties of M. Gripe, who is wel known to be deaf, and among the rest he said, that a while ago he walk- ing with him in the company of others, one asked him how his Brother did? My Brother (replied he presently) is very well, I heard from him but the other day: ... He that had an Ear in his Eye, might well say, He heard from defect of the Ear in deaf men, may be supplied by the office of the Be, or the defect of the Eyein blinde men by the office of the Ear, so that the Ear also may see; will not appear so paradoxical, if we consider the consent of visibles and audibles. (ubwer 1648: D119 Bulwer sees here an almost magical set of compensations and sub- stitutions, precisely what is involved in the mechanics of theatrical0tEULIOFId 5,4e]d my Jo wonDoqfo2au soypne OM ur usui6m pure ramod reoyeroods toamiog uonwioone jo aspuruce Myomod v suvuros ouury “ioreads opeusay feior v ve Sosieoen Sep snowsaud a9 Aq potqnon Kqeudi “pure pouvam yBnotpny. 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The importance accorded to the female spectator, even, or per- haps especially, when understood as a cultural phenomenon rather than an empirical category, docs not bear out sertion that: “[T]he success of any play was on the receptiveness of women” (Orgel 19! been arguing, receptiveness is a heavil while women mi c stage a tre ton, which, combined the spectacular a stic with the deeply mov- ing” (Laroque 1993: 119), its also the case that this process itwolved more than merely doing something before others, striving to please an audience, but doing “something to” them. This is what Frank Whigham describes as “seizures ofthe will” “the act of grasping, of taking, of violating, of seizing control,” which, in the Renaissarce projections about spectatorship were particularly directed toward women (Whigham 199 That violent female reaction (madness, confess rapture) was the measure of performance in a theatre founded on the symbolic violence of excluding women from the stage neither invariably places women ina position of powernor guarantees women’s pleasure." In this early modern cultural context, current critical claims about women’s putatively untroubled and enthusiastic at- tendance at the playhouse are decidedly problematic. Such assertions presuppose that, asa function of their position as consumer. theatre, whatever went on, women must have “asked fo point is neither to di and amorous presence in the theatre but also their reactions there, in a way that ically perpetuates those early modern fanta- lc spectatorship that it has been my purpose to unravel, Hysterics ‘The Cambridge gentlewoman with whom I began this chapter betrayed hysterical symptoms, which, long before Freud, were asso- ciated with sexual disorder rather than mimetic effectiveness, The Greek words for “womb,” fyster, and, “actor”, histriones, provide an etymological pun that lies at the heart of the gendered division of Jabor in theatre though not the class division, to which I will shordly What isan audience? 163, return) which Ihave been claborating i the meaner sort — and wortien — the bewt Freud shaped modern sensibilities abs the scientific rubric of hysteria. He beg: ‘On Femininity” with the following address: ‘hapter: men acting— t= acting up, Ladies and Gentlemen ... Throughout history people have knocked their heads against the riddle of the nature of feminin- ity -. ... Nor will you have escaped worrying over this problem those of you who are men; to those of you who are women this will not apply — you are yourselves the problem. (Freud 1965: 10¢ Reading this passage, one imagines gasps of consternation among the women in Freud’s audience. But this is where the direct address to the female audience is most misleading, not to say ent phatasmatic. Freud, having undergone an operation for mouth can- cer, never actually delivered the lecture (ee Felman 1993: 42), Like another of Freud’s most notorious remarks, “What does a woman the lecture depends on an address to women but not on their reply. Though from Apuleius on, men have answered Freud's question to Marie Bonaparte about female desire with ribald cer~ tainty, Freud does not expect his female correspondent to solve the presumed riddle of femininity despite whatever claim she might have, on experiential grounds, for being able to do so. Freud erases female subjectivity even, or perhaps especially, when addressing women. ‘A certain skepticism is equally appropriate in relation to the en- ergetic interpellations of women (notably, not just the ladies) in Shakespeare's audience: O men, for the love you bear to women ~ as I perceive by your simp'ring, none of you hates them ~ that between you and the women the play may please. If T were a woman I would kiss as, many of you as had beards that please me, complexions that Iiked me, and breaths that I defied not. (As You Like It, V. Epi. 14-19) I fear Alll the expected good w’are like t For this play at this time, is only in ‘The merciful construction of good women,