ACTRESSES AS WORKING WOMEN 153
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ACTRESSES AS WORKING WOMEN
though her costume (a close-fitting blue satin doublet, trunk hose,
and tights) was in no way altered. Though her costume was morally
objectionable, it was also integral to the male-female dynamic of the
act and the erotic implications read by this particular male spectator.
Whatever thoughts arose in the spectator’s mind, no objections were
voiced by the Oxford’s audience, for Mlle de Glorion was a performer,
dressed in the uniform of her work, doing what she was paid to do,
and fulfilling one among many ritualized sequences in the evening’s
programme.
Solo acrobats could also provoke unease. As an equestrienne,
trapeze artist, high wire performer, and daredevil,49 the acrobat Zaeo
embodied courage, athleticism, and vigour combined with Venusian
beauty—all characteristics that women were not supposed to flaunt
in public. The conclusion of her most famous act, a back somersault
and fifty-four foot free fall from a flying trapeze, 50 further
communicated her self-control and disturbed her critics. This was
performed at numerous London music halls, but it only prompted
objections at the Aquarium. There, the audience’s perspective on the
act was crucial: one LCC inspector remarked that the architecture of
the hall necessitated that Zaeo perform her entire act directly over the
heads of the audience. ‘It is’, he admitted, ‘not altogether desirable to
place a female in this indelicate position’,51 probably because it
highlighted the whole female body in space from all possible angles
of view. Her gestic pose of autonomous yet feminine physicality
followed by the free fall marked Zaeo as the antithesis of the archetypal
Good Woman: she was neither a specimen of clinging womanhood
nor lighter than air. Furthermore, her fall—like the bold forays of New
Women into the male world —marked her as a frightening predator
of privilege, a virago, and an irresistible villainess who landed supine
and proxemically accessible amidst the gaping titillated throng.
Movement was not a prerequisite for sexual inscription in the mise
en scène. Stationary tableaux vivants (also known as living pictures and
poses plastiques) usually reproduced well-known paintings or
sculptures, or arranged bodies in imitation of a ‘classical’ style. Despite
their honourable origins at the Comedie Italienne in 1761,52 tableaux
vivants had a circuitous and sordid route to the British stage. They
were known in the pre-Victorian theatre, though only with male
models: Astley’s playbills announce Ducrow as the Living Model of
Antiques (7 September 1829) and in Raphael’s Dream (21 September
1830), and boast a Modern Alcides in Classical and Academick Poses
supported by a team of gymnasts (7 September 1832).53 Obviously,
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