Insubstantial pageants: Women's work and the (im)material culture of the early modern stage

The excavations of the sites of the Rose and Globe playhouses have uncovered thousands of small objects that early moderns wore about their persons, holding together parts of their clothing and headwear and adding lustre to them. The labour of manufacturing and applying such objects was mainly female, in contrast to that of the professional playing companies, which was exclusively male. The drama itself is recurrently concerned with the status of such female labour, which can be read in the context of wider anxieties about women's freedom, sexual behaviour, and appearance. This article explores these anxieties using the data recoverable from documentary and archaeological evidence to reflect upon the stagecraft of the commercial theatre as it was influenced by increasingly elaborate and spectacular court masques. The greater the demand for spectacularly decorated bodies, the greater the reliance upon women's labour and anxiety concerning its products and social effects.