Note 225 — APPENDIX THE FIRST ENGLISH ACTRESSES, AND THE CHANGE IN THE ACTOR’S SOCIAL STATUS
Reading edition
Thomas Jordan’s prologue shows that the “boys” were now sometimes dangerously near middle age:
“Our ‘women’ are defective, and so sized, You’d think they were some of the guard disguised; For, to speak truth, men act, that are between Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen; With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant, When you call DESDEMONA, enter GIANT.”
“Old Chetwood tells a story which amply illustrates the absurdity of the ‘men-actresses.’ King Charles II, he says, coming to the theatre to see Hamlet and being kept waiting for some time, sent the Earl of Rochester behind to see what was causing the delay. He returned with the information that ‘the Queen was not quite shaved.’ ‘Odsfish!’ said the King. ‘I beg her Majesty’s pardon. We’ll wait till her barber has done with her.’”—Lowe’s Betterton.