Men Playing Women
Something that is worth noting is that since Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute was an all male school up until 1958, for a majority of performances put on by the drama clubs, male students were playing female characters in shows. The Poly Play Workshop does not have a visual record of this, but it can be assumed that they were cross-dressing for shows. The visual record that I have seen of this is entirely from the Poly Dramatic Association, since they regularly took staged photos for their productions. I am not entirely sure why they did this, since there were definitely women around that could have played the female roles, but I have some speculation as to why.
I could easily say that it was easy for the members of the drama clubs at the time to just play the female roles instead of finding women they knew to do it, but I think it goes a bit deeper than that.
Men playing women dates back to ancient Greek theater, when women were banned from being onstage (Garcia). Women were also not allowed to own property or vote at this time (Case). This concept followed into 17th century England and is seen in Shakespeare’s work (Garcia). There are many examples of cross dressing in Shakespeare’s work. We see it in Twelfth Night, As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and The Taming of the Shrew (Gosling).
It is also worth noting that Poly has a complicated history with female students. According to the official record, the first female student graduated in 1907. In the time between this and when the school officially became co-ed in 1958, there were female students on campus, they just weren’t really acknowledged by Poly itself. From the visual record, a majority of the students in the Play Workshop and P.D.A were white presenting males. It can be assumed that these white males had an idea of what theater should look like, the British theater of Shakespeare, so I would argue that men dressing as women was a choice made by the drama clubs in an attempt to put on what they thought was good theater.
It is quite interesting in that the cross dressing in plays was often highlighted in the student newspaper, and very oversexualized. While this might not be the fault of the actors themselves, it does give an idea of how the cross dressing was received by the male student population. In a review of “Dolly Reforming Herself” put on by the P.D.A in 1922, the Polytechnic Reporter article reads,
“When the women characters were upon the stage, many of the feminine sex looked for signs of awkwardness in their actors, but much to their surprise discovered that most of the fads and foibles of the fair sex had been carefully observed and adapted”
Another notable sentence reads, “He… displayed feminine characteristics in every turn”.
And lastly, “Peters (Dolly’s maid), had to dress up for a few lines, we will say that he makes a fine buxom lassie, almost as substantial as the girl Luba is etherial”.
The review of the play overemphasized the men playing women in the play, which rather than focusing on the artistic nature of it, overshadowed the work with sexist and unnecessary commentary. While this is the only real source I have about the overall reception of the plays by the students, I assume that a lot of the student body also viewed the cross dressing actors in a similar manner, as a form of entertainment in itself.
The good news to all of this is that 4 months after this production, the P.D.A. elected new officers who decided that it would be a good idea to reach out to the Adelphi College nearby to get women in their shows, in another 1922 article from the Polytechnic Reporter, they write, “ In past performances given by the P.D.A., the feminine parts were played by heavily disguised males. This was very interesting, but the members of the society thought it would be more realistic and a lesser strain on the imagination to have feminine parts played by feminine women”. It was after this agreement in 1922 that the P.D.A. became a co-ed theater group for shows.
