The Diva's Gift traces the far-reaching impact of the first female
stars on the playwrights and players of the all-male stage. When
Shakespeare entered the scene, women had been acting in Italian
troupes for two decades, traveling in Italy and beyond and
performing in all genres, including tragedy. The ambitious actress
reinvented the innamorata, making her more charismatic and
autonomous, thrilling audiences with her skills. Despite fervent
attacks, some actresses became the first international stars,
winning royal and noble patrons and literary admirers in France and
Spain. After Elizabeth and her court caught wind of their success
in Paris, Italian troupes with actresses crossed the Channel to
perform. The Italians' repeat visits and growing fame posed a
radical challenge to English professionals just as they were
building their first paying theaters. Some writers treated the
actress as a whorish threat to their stage, which had long
minimized female roles. Others saw a vital new model full of
promise. Lyly, Marlowe, and Kyd endowed innamorata parts with
hot-blooded, racialized passions, but made them self-aware agents,
not counters traded between men. Shakespeare, Jonson, Webster and
others followed, ringing changes on the new type in comedy,
tragedy, and romance. Like the comici they recycled actress-linked
theatergrams and star scenes, such as cross-dressing, the mad
scene, and the sung lament. In this way, the diva's prodigious
virtuosity and stardom altered the horizons of playmaking even on
the womanless stage. Capitalizing on the talents of boy players,
the best playwrights created bold new roles endowed with her alien
glamour, such as Lyly's Sapho and Pandora, Marlowe's Dido, Kyd's
Bel-Imperia, Webster's Vittoria, and Shakespeare's Beatrice, Viola,
Portia, Juliet, and Ophelia. Cleopatra is not alone in her superb
theatricality and dazzling strangeness. As this book demonstrates,
the diva's gifts mark them all.
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