Historical precedents: women unmasked

Abstract

The acting profession of the classical Greek period, linked as it was to religious festivals, was one of both privilege and good repute. Greek actors played an honoured role in the practice of the state religion, and as a result they often received special rewards for their performances.

The whole of her bodily beauty is nothing less than phlegm, blood, bile, rheum, and the fluid of digested food … If you consider what is stored up behind those lovely eyes, the angle of the nose, the mouth and cheeks you will agree that the well-proportioned body is merely a whitened sepulchre. (St. John Chrysostom, fifth Century)

There is yet another reason why the women did not wear masks—namely, that no mask could ever approach the enchanting effect of a lovely woman’s face, whose beauty was obviously the chief requisite of her role. (Pierre Louis Duchartre, The Italian Comedy, 1929)