Compleat Female Stage Beauty

Such eyes, such hair, such lips, and voice to stir... The player is Kynaston. And surely he is the most beautiful woman in the house!"

In 1660s London – the era of King Charles II, Nell Gwynn and Samuel Pepys – the English theatre is making a triumphant revival after a decade of Puritan rule. One of its greatest stars is Edward Kynaston, a male actor renowned for playing leading ladies. But Kynaston’s world is about to be turned upside-down when a female rival, Margaret Hughes, takes to the stage.

Soon Kynaston finds himself rejected by his audience, abandoned by his theatre, and even spurned by his secret lover, the Duke of Buckingham. Can he return from the gutter and find glory once again in the changing world of the theatre?

Jeffrey Hatcher’s very modern take on restoration drama combines comical and bawdy dialogue with a tale of intrigue, betrayal, jealousy and revenge recalling the tragedy of Othello and Desdemona, the signature role which unites the sparring thespians.

This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd