On the Deceptions of the Deceived: Lelia and The Pleasures of Play

Abstract

Lelia, a young woman cross-dressed as a page named Fabio, is the female protagonist of the anonymous comedy Gl'ngannati, performed as the main attraction of the festive giuochi of Mardigras during Carnival in Siena, in 1531.1 The cross-dressing of a female character as a boy on the Italian stage was not a new theatrical device, even though it was not so widespread as it would become on the English stage. The character of Lelia could be seen as following in the footsteps of Santilla, the first cross-dressed female character, in Bernardo Bibbiena's comedy La Calandria, performed approximately two decades earlier in Urbino. Quickly, gender switches gained wide popularity in Italian theaters as well, with a few cross-dressed male characters and a greater number of female, enlivening many contemporary comedies including L'Alessandro by Alessandro Piccolomini, La Fantesca by Giambattista della Porta, II Travaglia by Andrea Calmo or II Ragazzo by Ludovico Dolce, to cite only a few. Italian critics have viewed cross-dressing on the stage primarily as a necessary part of the comico d'intreccio from which grow the mistaken identities, the exchange of roles and the final resolution and recognition that usually brings Renaissance comedy to its required happy ending. As a result, the Italian studies that have considered the