ators of the 19th and 20th centuries have almost universally taken pains to remind the audience of the "deceit", either explicitly or by context as in performances by all-male groups. A very interesting exception was the recent all-male “As You Like It" in which Rosalind and Phoebe were played as characters, by men who made no attempt to clown it. There is reason to doubt that the audience achieved the true Elizabethan attitude. In the author's phrase, the pre-Restoration boy-actresses were in “real disguise", and the more modern ones in "false disguise". Of course, “real disguise" is still a matter of suspended disbelief, and not to be compared with the TV who passes in a very real and hostile setting. Such a per- former was Barbette, whose spectacular trapeze work supported her as a girl for some years before she revealed the truth. There are only three other such stories in the book: Lulu the Circassian Catapultist, Donna Delbert the Lady Fire-Eater (a deserter from the US Army) and Bobbie Kimber the ventriloquist.

There is a chapter of some complexity on the male impersonators. His point is that this is NOT the exact opposite of female impersonation, being much more frequent and acceptable to the public-especially to the men. Many of the girls make no effort to conceal their attractiveness, and these "principal boys" seem to specialize in false disguise as defined above, as distinct from those rare but very real female transvestites who have lived undetected as men.

Then, an all-too-brief chapter on the Orientals, including the famous Kabuki actor whose final appearance was as a 19 year old girl, at 73! (May we all do as well.) In Japan, the girl-actresses do not seem to be displacing the men, both being accepted as separate art forms.

Part III picks up the less-than-glorious history of drag since 1700. It ran to burlesques and parodies, all in more or less bad taste. The 19th century turned up some excellent clown acts, generally classed as “dames”. While some of these were little more than men in skirt and shawl, others made some attempt at realism and even glamour. World War I produced a sharp increase in this activity, due to men experienced in service shows entering vaudeville. (Some of us old bats still remember the dame acts on the Orpheum Circuit). The results ranged from "Minny the Messy Old Mermaid" to the current "Mrs. Shufflewick” (Rex Jamieson). The latter is a middle-aged, slightly baffled woman who presents a long, disastrous anecdote about her highly improbably adventures. This typic- ally "describes things women sometimes do, but to which no woman would ever admit. If a real woman, however talented, attempted a similar act the result would be unbearably obscene or pathetically embarrassing. This gap between subject and audience is an important aspect." (Avail- able on a record “Look in at the Local", Decca, Ace of Clubs SCL-1221).

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