Edward Kynaston
Encyclopedia
Edward Kynaston was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, one of the last Restoration "boy player
Boy player
Boy player is a common term for the adolescent males employed by Medieval and English Renaissance playing companies. Some boy players worked for the mainstream companies and performed the female roles, as women did not perform on the English stage in this period...

s," young male actors who played women's roles.

Career

Kynaston was good looking and made a convincing woman: Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

 called him "the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life" after seeing him in a production of John Fletcher
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...

's The Loyal Subject
The Loyal Subject
The Loyal Subject is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy by John Fletcher that was originally published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647.-Performance:...

at the Cockpit-in-Court
Cockpit-in-Court
The Cockpit-in-Court was an early theatre in London, located at the rear of the Palace of Whitehall, next to St...

, "only her [sic] voice not very good." He also played the title role in Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...

's Epicoene
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman
Epicœne, or The silent woman, also known as The Epicene, is a comedy by Renaissance playwright Ben Jonson. It was originally performed by the Blackfriars Children, a group of boy players, in 1609...

. Pepys had dinner with Kynaston after this production on August 18, 1660.

Simultaneously, Kynaston played male roles as well. He filled the role of Otto in Rollo Duke of Normandy
Rollo Duke of Normandy
Rollo Duke of Normandy, also known as The Bloody Brother, is a play written in collaboration by John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman. Scholars have disputed almost everything about the play; but it was probably written sometime in the 1612–24 era and later revised,...

on December 6, 1660, having played the female role of Arthiope in the same play in previous weeks. On January 7, 1661, Kynaston played three roles in a performance of Jonson's
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...

 Epicoene
Epicoene, or the Silent Woman
Epicœne, or The silent woman, also known as The Epicene, is a comedy by Renaissance playwright Ben Jonson. It was originally performed by the Blackfriars Children, a group of boy players, in 1609...

,
one female and two male.

Part of Kynaston's appeal may have been his ambiguous sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...

. The actor Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber
Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...

 recalled: "the Ladies of Quality prided themselves in taking him with them in their Coaches to Hyde-Park
Hyde Park, London
Hyde Park is one of the largest parks in central London, United Kingdom, and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner.The park is divided in two by the Serpentine...

 in his Theatrical Habit, after the Play."
Cibber also reported that a performance of a tragedy attended by Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 was once delayed because, as someone explained, Kynaston, who was playing the Queen, "was not shav'd."

In the 1660s women were permitted to appear on stage and male actors playing female roles in serious drama was strongly discouraged. Kynaston's last female role was as Evadne in Beaumont
Francis Beaumont
Francis Beaumont was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher....

 and Fletcher's
John Fletcher (playwright)
John Fletcher was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivalled Shakespeare's...

 The Maid's Tragedy
The Maid's Tragedy
The Maid's Tragedy is a play by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher. It was first published in 1619.The play was one of the earliest works in the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators that was acted by the King's Men; Fletcher would spend most of his career as that company's regular playwright...

with Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew
Thomas Killigrew was an English dramatist and theatre manager. He was a witty, dissolute figure at the court of King Charles II of England.-Life and work:...

's King's Company
King's Company
The King's Company was one of two enterprises granted the rights to mount theatrical productions in London at the start of the English Restoration. It existed from 1660 to 1682.-History:...

 in 1661.

Described by Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys
Samuel Pepys FRS, MP, JP, was an English naval administrator and Member of Parliament who is now most famous for the diary he kept for a decade while still a relatively young man...

 as "the prettiest woman in the whole house" and "the handsomest man," the rumor of the time had him playing female roles off stage as well. When already in his thirties, lampoons circulated that made him out to be the lover of George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham
George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, 20th Baron de Ros of Helmsley, KG, PC, FRS was an English statesman and poet.- Upbringing and education :...

.

Kynaston went on to make a successful career in male roles and was noted for his portrayal of Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

's Henry IV
Henriad
Henriad is a common title used by scholars for Shakespeare's second historical tetralogy, comprising Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V....

. He retired in 1699.

Fictional portrayals

Kynaston is played by Billy Crudup
Billy Crudup
William Gaither "Billy" Crudup is an American actor of film and stage. He is well known for his roles as guitarist Russell Hammond in Almost Famous, Will Bloom in Big Fish, and Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke. He also starred in the 2007 romantic comedy film Dedication, alongside Mandy Moore...

 in the 2004 film Stage Beauty
Stage Beauty
Stage Beauty is a 2004 British-American-German romantic period drama directed by Richard Eyre. The screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher is based on his play Compleat Female Stage Beauty, which was inspired by references to 17th century actor Edward Kynaston made in the detailed private diary kept by...

directed by Sir Richard Eyre
Richard Eyre
Sir Richard Charles Hastings Eyre CBE is an English director of film, theatre, television, and opera.-Biography:Eyre was educated at Sherborne School, an independent school for boys in the market town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset in south-west England, followed by Peterhouse at the University...

. He is represented as a fop
Fop
Fop became a pejorative term for a foolish man over-concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th century England. Some of the very many similar alternative terms are: "coxcomb", fribble, "popinjay" , fashion-monger, and "ninny"...

pish bisexual, who slowly reveals more complexity in his personality and sexuality. The film is an adaptation of the play Compleat Female Stage Beauty by Jeffrey Hatcher
Jeffrey Hatcher
Jeffrey Hatcher is a playwright and screenwriter. He wrote the stage play Compleat Female Stage Beauty, which he later adapted into a screenplay, shortened to just Stage Beauty...

.
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