ABSTRACT
In 1835, the British popular novelist Frederick Marryat published a pseudo-translation, The Pacha of Many Tales. Marryat turns this simple action into an elaborate drag scene: Go, then, and quickly summon all our highest officers of state, to lay their robes upon the ground, that she may pass over them to our presence at the dragon below the terrace. The importance of spectacle to drag also explains the centerpiece of Marryat's tale, the wedding procession of Youantee and Chaoukeun. With cross-identity performance, there is always the possibility of reciprocity and of multi-directional performance of various kinds—as underscored in Marryat's tale by the active role of the interpreter as creative mediator who is simultaneously a plain Jane and also a belle infidele. Marryat's adaptation may thus be profitably understood as drag spectacle, a reading that highlights several facets of the text.
