Do I look the part?” Peniculus responds: “What in the world have you got on?!” Menaechmus says: “Tell me I am gorgeous.”
See also: History of cross-dressing § On stage and on the screenĬross-dressing elements of performance traditions are widespread cultural phenomena.įor example, the ancient Roman playwright Plautus' Menaechmi includes a scene in which Menaechmus I puts on his wife's dress, then wears a cloak over it, intending to remove the dress from the house and deliver it to his mistress. The "consort" of the Castleton Garland King was traditionally a man (until 1956, when a woman took over the role) and was originally simply referred to as "The Woman". "Maid Marian" of the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is played by a man, and the Maid Marians referred to in old documents as having taken part in May Games and other festivals with Morris dancers would most probably also have been men. A character called Bessy also accompanied the Plough Jags (aka Plough Jacks, Plough Stots, Plough Bullocks, etc.) even in places where no play was performed: "she" was a man dressed in women's clothes, who carried a collecting box for money and other largesse. The variant performed around Plough Monday in Eastern England is known as the Plough Play (also Wooing Play or Bridal Play) and usually involves two female characters, the young "Lady Bright and Gay" and "Old Dame Jane" and a dispute about a bastard child. For example, the characters of some regional variants of the traditional mummers' play, which were traditionally always performed by men, include Besom Bet(ty) numerous variations on Bessy or Betsy Bucksome Nell Mrs Clagdarse Dame Dolly Dame Dorothy Mrs Finney Mrs Frail and many others. Men dressed as women have been featured in certain traditional customs for centuries. Some have suggested that drag stands for "dressed as a girl". It may have been based on the term "grand rag" which was historically used for a masquerade ball.
One suggested etymological root is 19th-century theatre slang, from the sensation of long skirts trailing on the floor. The use of "drag" in this sense appeared in print as early as 1870 but its origin is uncertain. Participants of the High Heel Drag Race in Washington, D.C.
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