Pittsburgh City Paper: When we meet Edward Kynaston, he's kind of a bitch. He's a self-obsessed actor, which is bad enough, but he's also a flirt, a prankster and a spitfire. Kynaston has one talent: He can play women onstage. That alone seals his fame. But when demand for his skills declines, Kynaston falls hard.
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Success stories are always nice to hear, and so it is a pleasure to read an article with glowing praise. This play sounds like it brings up some interesting points and centers around a problem I had never considered before: what happened, all those years ago, when men no longer played every part on stage? All those men who had been stars in their roles as women were now out of work because real women were getting to play their own gender? When the only job you've been trained for becomes outdated and you are no longer needed, how do you pick up your life and keep going? "The Compleat Female Stage Beauty" sounds like it makes you laugh - and think.
Reading about this play and the protagonist's struggle when women became allowed to portray their own gender on stage in the Restoration era made me think of "Singing in the Rain" and, more recently made, "The Artist". Both of these movies touch upon the topic of silent-movie actors being cast aside when speaking movies became possible and popular. This kind of story leads to an interesting thought: who are our generation's outcasts? Who in the performance industry is going to be set aside, and by which innovation? Are actors going to become obsolete as CGI takes over, and are all our movies going to be created completely on a computer, including the performers?
It's really interesting to read about something like this. This is a story that I never considered before I read this article, so now I have to wonder, how many other stories like this are there? Going to a school for theater, I recognize that it's a very competitive world for the performers, but for some reason I never would have thought about the very thing that makes an actor an individual and the reason they got their jobs in the first place, can suddenly be replaced so easily. It all sounds very caddy to me, how people are compared and cast aside for minor things. Like Emma, I also am starting to wonder about when it because acceptable for women to be on stage. I wonder how that went over and If men ever rallied and tried to take back their parts.
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