ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the performances of beardless boys. While the gender of male children depended upon the fact that facial hair signified mature masculinity, youths were not perceived as unformed men but rather prescribed a separate category of sexual identity. A study of the words which cluster around the bodies of smooth boys in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century drama will show that their subjectivity is a discrete construction both culturally and theatrically. The chapter refers to the ‘boy rider’ who led guild members into performance in the parish drama of Chester, his costume trimmed with ribbons, lace, and spangles. Such trimming remains a feature of boy performance in the London playhouses; however here the practice was connected to his erotic appeal, and beardless Ganymedes became a commonplace of early modern dramatic writing. The stage was also populated by boy players inhabiting the period of adolescence and beard growth, and their place within the beardless/bearded dichotomy of maleness disturbed its polarity. The chapter concludes with an investigation of the gallant, a character frequently represented alongside boys and consistently shown to have imperfect facial hair. I suggest that the extent of the actor’s actual facial hair may have determined casting in acting companies.
