Creating Another Identity: Aging Actresses in the Eighteenth Century

In the eighteenth century, it was usual for actors and actresses to build a repertoire of roles, and to keep possession of particular parts once they had created them, sometimes throughout their careers. They were, therefore, as likely to be identified with the characters they played as they were either for themselves or for their ability to create such dramatis personae. Yet, paradoxically, their personal identities, formed not only by character or personality and ability, but also by appearance and reputation, could affect the way in which their performances on stage were received by their audiences and critics. During a century in which identity and status were often worn externally, eighteenth-century actresses were keenly admired for their appearance, especially when young. As still happens today, appearance and ability were often juxtaposed by the critics in their reviews of actresses' performances, which mark the culmination of the creative process of acting. An examination of the working lives of eighteenth-century actresses to discover the ways in which their appearance and ability became integral to both their identity and the processes they used, as well as how their choice of roles could affect their reputation and even their health as they aged, provides not only intriguing information about the relationship between the creative processes of acting and the identity of the actress, but also an historic, thereby determined, cultural society of lived bodies, which can help to inform some of the current attitudes toward aging and identity, particularly in female performers.