Over Her Dead Body

Actresses had fewer opportunities to display virtuosity in their demise. They generally served as victims at the mercy of their male partners. A major obstacle to women vying with men in flamboyant stage deaths was social attitudes to female modesty. The ancient taboo on women appearing in public conspired with the equally hoary fear of women out of control to prescribe severe limits on their portrayals of madness, unruliness, and dying. There was something more than indecorous, almost indecent about the physical exertions required by a memorable display of death throes.

Animadverting on Eliza O’Neill's ear-curdling shrieks, eye-rolling, and guttural death-rattles, William Hazlitt offered the Regency-era consensus:

This might be applicable to a performer of either sex who challenges notions of the ideality of art. However, Hazlitt goes on, what's worse is the contradiction between O’Neill's “form and delicate complexion, and the violent conflict into which she was thrown.” He compares her with a little flower contending with a storm. By “pushing truth and nature to an excess,” she was marring her delicate beauty. The following age might add that she was offending modesty. When Clara Rousby in her signature role as Joan of Arc was burned at the stake, the critics concurred that it was a disgusting sight, despite her manager contending “she is burnt only a little.” The need for a dramatic actress to be ladylike confined her to conventional attitudes and actions.

Neoclassic drama offered few if any opportunities; the more grisly Jacobean dramas were seldom revived. Shakespeare was therefore the welcome exception. Some Juliets hoped to outdo or at least match the flamboyant finales of their Romeos.