ACTRESSES AS WORKING WOMEN 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 dressing could be the negation of ‘the phallic mark of desire’ (the feminine) and the signification of a basic, stable male identity Kuhn, op cit., p 49 Mr Maddocks appeared as Mazeppa at Astley’s on March 1853 A playbill illustration depicts him tied face up on the wild horse; he is bare chested and wearing only tight shorts extending part way down his thighs (British Library, Playbills) Menken, who appeared to be naked, actually wore a pale gymnastic suit of blouse and short pantaloons (Kinsey Institute, Photographs) Playtext by A.C.Torr (Fred Leslie) and Herbert F.Clark, Lord Chamberlain’s Plays, 53434, lic 172(F), British Library Department of Manuscripts Multiple costume illustrations from British Library Playbills, vol 475 Anthony Storr, Sexual Deviation, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1964, p 56 Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing Women, London, Women’s Press, 1981, p 124 William Green, ‘Strippers and Coochers—the Quintessence of American Burlesque,’ Western Popular Theatre, ed David Mayer and Kenneth Richards, London, Methuen, 1977, p 157 Peter Fryer, Mrs Grundy: Studies in English Prudery, London, Dennis Dobson, 1963, p 230 ‘French Plays’, Daily Telegraph, 15 July 1869, p ‘The Alhambra Company and the “Days’ Doings”’, The Days’ Doings, 22 October 1870, p C.Willett and Phillis Cunnington, The History of Underclothes, London, Michael Joseph, 1951, p 176 Cited in Ronald Pearsall, Public Purity, Private Shame: Victorian Sexual Hypocrisy Exposed, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976, p 71 Frigga Haug et al., Female Sexualization: A Collective Work of Memory, trans Erica Carter, London, Verso, 1987, p 137 Photo Bits, 24 December 1898, p 27 Public Record Office (London), letter from W.B.Donne to The Viscount Sydney, 10 November 1870, LC1/232 ‘What Cheer ‘Ria’ plays on Cockney pronunciation: an effusive greeting to a woman named Maria takes on the double entendre ‘watch your rear’ It celebrates a woman ‘in the weagetable line’ who spends her savings on a fancy dress, goes to the music hall, and sits by the chairman Her friends in the gallery spot her and shout CHORUS What cheer Ria! Ria’s on the job, What cheer Ria! did you speculate a bob? Oh Ria she’s a toff and she looks immensikoff, And they all shouted ‘What cheer Ria!’ The hoax is up when she trips over a man’s wooden leg, insists it isn’t her fault, and justifies her friends’ greeting/warning when she is chucked out of the hall Words by Will Herbert, music written and performed by Bessie Bellwood, London, Hopwood & Crew, 1887 ‘What’s That For, Eh? or I Know Now’, words by W.T.Lytton, Music by George Le Brun, 1895, reprinted Marie Lloyd, London, EMI Music Publishing, 1977 176