Product Description

This Jacobean city comedy is a curiosity in that it presents a real-life character, the notorious cross-dresser Moll Frith, who probably was among the first audiences of 'her' play before she was taken up for public misconduct. Middleton and Dekker's 'roaring girl' may outrage her society with her pipe, bluster and swagger, but she turns out to be the moral centre of the play. Her code of honour leads her to call the bluff on rogues and conspicuous consumers, to thrash a hypocritical gallant in a duel, and to act as go-between for the young lovers thwarted by parental tyranny. This wry dramatisation of female deviancy exposing male ineffectuality is as much to the point today as it was in King James's England. An appendix helps the modern reader to appreciate the canting terms used by the low-life characters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #369254 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

Disappointing play about Mad Moll
Moll Cutpurse is a fascinating figure of Jacobean London, a female transvestite who transgressed social and gender boundaries. She swaggered around London in trousers, drank in taverns, swung her sword around and generally acted like a boorish male gallant. Her life is proof that there was a lot more to Jacobean women than the 'chaste, slient and obedient' role model put forward by the establishment.

Sadly, though, Middleton and Dekker's play - important though it is to gender historians - is not actually very good. Most of it is a stillborn city comedy, with the usual cuckolds, gallants and gulls going through their their usual, predictable motions. Moll Cutpurse turns up in a few scenes, and there is some interesting material as she chastises various men for their wickedness. She swings her sword, wears trousers, and calls herself Mad Moll a lot, which is all fine and dandy. But although Moll wears trousers she remains virtuous and thoroughly decent. The play concludes with a conventional marriage scene, and although Moll doesn't marry, she seems completely supportive of the status quo. It's all a bit of a damp squib. We want a Moll who is genuinely transgressive, but, whatever the real Moll was like, Middleton and Dekker prevent her from being truly threatening, and the play is sorely lacking in entertainment value.