" Next night he makes entry of a
boy's performance of a woman's part, and that is the final record of
boys masquerading as women in the English theatre. I believe the
practice now survives nowhere except in Japan. This mode of
representation has always been a great puzzle to students of
Elizabethan drama.[17] Before, however, Pepys saw Shakespeare's work
on the stage, the usurpation of the boys was over.
[Footnote 17: For a fuller description of this theatrical practice,
see pages 41-3 _supra_.]
It was after the Restoration, too, that scenery, rich costume, and
scenic machinery became, to Pepys's delight, regular features of the
theatre. When the diarist saw _Hamlet_ "done with scenes" for the
first time, he was most favourably impressed. Musical accompaniment
was known to pre-Restoration days; but the orchestra was now for the
first time placed on the floor of the house in front of the stage,
instead of in a side gallery, or on the stage itself. The musical
accompaniment of plays developed very rapidly, and the methods of
opera were soon applied to many of Shakespeare's pieces, notably to
_The Tempest_ and _Macbeth_.
Yet at the side of these innovations, one very important feature of
the old playhouses, which gravely concerned both actors and auditors,
survived throughout Pepys's lifetime.
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