The Repertory of the King's Men and Relationships among Boy Actors

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K13098
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02030:English literature and literature in the English language-related
• Research Institution: Chuo University
• Principal Investigator: Kimura Asuka 中央大学, 文学部, 准教授 (70807130)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 少年俳優 / 女性表象 / シェイクスピア / 演技指導

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project focused on the boy actor in the King’s Men and how his relationships with other boy actors or with his master would have affected his performance of women on the early modern English stage. Shakespeare’s plays almost always required four boy actors, who must have perceived themselves as friends or rivals, as well as colleagues. In 2019, I gave a paper on ‘the Willow Scene’ in Othello, where Desdemona and Emilia are given huge responsibility to command the stage and increase pathos. The fact that Emilia needed to ‘unpin’ Desdemona while the latter was singing suggests that boy actors who played the roles had to collaborate very closely. In 2021, I gave another paper focusing on Middleton’s More Dissemblers Besides Women. I emphasized the uniqueness of the figure of the pregnant Page, and discussed how the boy actor’s performance of pregnancy may have been taught by his senior, who played a pregnant woman in the revival of The Duchess of Malfi.

Free Research Field

初期近代英国演劇

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究ではシェイクスピアが座付き作者を務めた国王一座のレパートリーを少年俳優同士の横の繋がりに注目して再読した。『オセロー』を含む作品について、当時の舞台で女性を演じた少年俳優たちの疑似兄弟関係、上下関係、ライバル関係が舞台での女性表象にどのような影響を与えたのかを論じた。近年、少年俳優の徒弟としての立場に着目し、彼らが親方である成人俳優からどのような演技指導を受けていたかを考察する論考が増えているが、本研究では少年俳優は同じ親方の元で修行を積む年長者の徒弟や、元少年俳優の成人俳優からも多くを学んだことを明らかにし、少年俳優が役者としての経験を積んだ環境をより立体的に想像することを目指した。