Gender Theater and Its Discontents

A set of vocabulary-style flashcards covering key terms and concepts related to gender performance in Shakespeare, cross-dressing, and early modern theater criticism.

Gender theater

Theatrical practice of conveying and performing gender through costume, makeup, and performance (often including boys playing female roles).

Doublet

A fitted jacket worn by men, covering the upper body from neck to waist.

Jerkin

A short-sleeved or sleeveless garment worn over the doublet.

Breeches

Upper stockings or knee-length pants that were part of male dress.

Ruff

Detachable, stiff collar around the neck.

Codpiece

A triangular cloth, leather, or metal covering for the genitals, often decorative or attention-drawing.

Petticoat

Underskirt worn under skirts to add fullness.

Bodice

Tight-fitting garment shaping the torso.

Corset

Structured undergarment that cinches the waist.

Farthingale

Hooped undergarment or skirt that creates dramatic width at the lower body.

Detachable sleeves

Sleeves that can be swapped or changed to vary an outfit.

Lead-based cosmetics

Makeup containing lead used to lighten and smooth the complexion, especially on boy actors.

Wigs

Hairpieces used to alter appearance.

Fans

Handheld accessories used to complement feminine disguises.

Jewelry

Adornment worn to enhance appearance.

Ganymede

Rosalind’s male disguise in As You Like It, signaling homoerotic dynamics with Orlando.

Willing suspension of disbelief

Audience’s voluntary overlooking of stagecraft to immerse in the fictional world.

Cross-dressing comedies

Plays in which female characters (or actors) disguise as men; explores gender ambiguity.

Mechanicals

Tradesmen-turned-actors in A Midsummer Night’s Dream who stage the play-within-the-play Pyramus and Thisbe.

Antitheatricalists

Religious/civic critics who opposed theater as immoral imitation and linked it to social ills.

Puritans

Term used as a slur for Protestant reformers who sought to purify England of theater and other sins.

Sodomy

Renaissance term for various illicit sexual acts; used by critics to condemn theater.

Shadow and substance

Platonic idea that imitation (shadow) can blur with the real thing (substance); used to critique theater.

Induction (The Taming of the Shrew)

Frame story where Christopher Sly is tricked into believing he is a lord, signaling theater’s deceptive power.

Sly

Drunken tinker who is the central figure in the induction of The Taming of the Shrew.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Story performed by the mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; often lampooned for its absurdity.