A Woman Appeared on the English Stage for the First Time on This Day in 1660, Transforming the World of Theater Forever

The audience at the King’s Company production of Othello on December 8, 1660, heard an unusual prologue before the play began. “The Woman playes to day, mistake me not,” one of the actors read aloud. “No Man in Gown, or Page in Petty-Coat; / A Woman to my knowledge …”

The meaning of this cryptic message became clear as Desdemona entered in Act I, Scene III. Instead of being played by a man or a boy in makeup, the ill-fated wife of Othello was played by a woman. For the first time in the history of English theater, a woman played a role on the professional stage.

For many reasons, 1660 was a landmark year for British theater. On May 29, Charles II had returned to London from exile in the Netherlands and laid claim to power. After 11 years of republican rule, the restoration of the monarchy meant more than just the public display of Oliver Cromwell’s exhumed and severed head outside of Westminster. 

It also meant that the English stage was revived and its rules could be rewritten, 18 years after theaters were closed during the English Civil War to prevent civic calamity—a nod to the political power and social relevance of the era’s theatrical performances.

Only two theater companies—the Duke’s and the King’s—were granted royal permission to open theaters in the city once Charles II took back power, according to Jean Marsden in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage.

The two rival companies split the existing stock of plays between themselves. Of Shakespeare’s most popular plays for mid-17th-century audiences, the King’s Company got Othello and Julius Caesar; the Duke’s Company got Hamlet.

“Despite their admiration for Shakespeare's genius, writers also admitted that his works were far from perfect and that his beauties were offset by a variety of 'faults,’” Marsden wrote. “The nature of these faults was to determine the form in which plays were staged and whether they were staged at all.”

Some edits and modifications were implemented with the goal of polishing Shakespeare’s language to fit more contemporary voices, trimming down lengthy plots, and adapting 16th-century plays to 17th-century London’s smaller theaters.

The most radical and longest-lasting change, however, was the introduction of women to the stage.

“The practice of having women play women's roles was noteworthy and even exciting to a Restoration audience,” Marsden wrote. “They were as much a part of theatrical spectacle as the fine scenery and special effects that the new playhouses allowed.”

Despite the excitement that the first professional actress brought to the King’s Company production of Othello in London’s Vere Street Theater on this day in 1660, a glaring mystery remains, even for modern theater fans. No one knows who played Desdemona.

By some accounts, Desdemona was played by Margaret Hughes, one of the first few actresses hired by the King’s Company in 1660. A cast list from a production of Othello nine years later lists Hughes as Desdemona. Despite the long gap in time, theater critic Rosamond Gilder argued in Enter the Actress, a role “belonged” to the actor or actress who first played it to the public’s satisfaction and was only given up “on retirement or under extraordinary circumstances.”

The other likeliest contender is Anne Marshall, another one of the King’s Company's leading actresses who “came to specialize in tragedy,” playing roles similar to Desdemona in other productions, according to Elizabeth Howe in The First English Actresses.

In any case, Hughes, Marshall or whichever actress played Desdemona did so successfully and much to the pleasure of theatergoers and monarch alike. Two years after the premiere, Charles II issued patents to each of the two theater companies, ensuring, among other things, that women could play women’s parts “so long as their recreations … [may be] esteemed not only harmless delight, but useful and instructive representations of human life.”

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.