Great Tweet: You've Been Entertained By Drag Your Whole Life...

[Whatthe_Firetruck]

51. My favorite Shakespeare play is a comedy called...

... As You Like It. The layers of drag in this one is surreal.

Where a young male actor (originally) would portray the female character Rosalind, who ran away with her 'female' friend (another boy actor) to the forest from some rotten nobles. Rosalind dressed as a boy to protect her friend, and found the trees adorned with terrible bits of verse extolling her as Rosalind. Curious, she tracked down the doggeral writer who was enamored of her from when he ran into her at court before she fled. She then convinces the young lover who does not recognize her, to woo her (well, 'him' ) as if 'he' was Rosalind in order to get pointers on upping his romance game.

So we have an actual boy, portraying a girl, who was dressed as a boy, and 'pretending' to be the girl.

I saw a PBS presentation of it filmed in outdoor locations, and loved it.

Eta: was probably the BBC 1978 TV version, but couldn't find it on youtube. I did find a colorized 1936 rendition.