“Did ever Spanish lady pace so”: National Identity, Gender Performance, and Metatheatre in John Fletcher and Philip Massinger’s Love’s Cure and Ben Jonson’s The Devil Is an Ass

Abstract

Love’s Cure, attributed to John Fletcher and Philip Massinger and dated to 1615 by José A. Pérez Díez, is an early modern play that offers a distinctive portrayal of gender in early modern drama. Critics have often identified the metatheatricality in the play’s depictions of gender. Overlooked, however, is the significance of national identity in this discussion. My paper will argue that, when examined alongside Ben Jonson's The Devil is an Ass, the Spanishness of crossdressing roles in Love's Cure accentuates the play's metatheatricality. Taking into account its rare Spanish inheritance, alongside the unique access women had to the Spanish stage through the genre of the comedia compared to the exclusive presence of boy actors on the Jacobean stage, I will demonstrate that Clara and Lucio are not just learning how to behave like a woman and a man respectively, but as Spanish versions of these gender stereotypes.