Poor mixed rags
Forsooth we’re made of it, like those other dolls
That lean with pretty faces into fairs
It seems as if I had a man in me,
Despising such a woman
-Elizabeth Barret Browning
Aurora Leigh, Book VII
Whereas, in the time leading up to the last half of the 19th century the need for inaccuracy in the cross-dressed portrayals was necessary to mitigate threats to heteronormative hegemonic (cis)gender social constructs, by the 1860’s that a new breed of cross-dressed actor or singer would take the stage with a focus on creating a realistic illusion. Theodore Eugene d’Ameli was one such performer whose entire stage career was built around convincing female impersonation in black face performing in minstrel shows during that second half of the 19th century.
Minstrel shows were a form of theater developed in the United States beginning in the early 19th century around the time that Madame Vestris was singing the part of Don Giovanni in Givanni in London. Minstrel shows were , ironically, most popular in the Northeastern United States during the mid- to late 19th century They continued into the 20th century as a form of amateur theater. The characters were predominantly black although they were played by white actors wearing gaudy costumes, their faces painted black with makeup made from burnt cork. Initially the minstrel companies were all male: any female roles would have been played and sung by the available actors.
A minstrel show’s subject matter generally centered around stereotypes of black Americans and depictions of slave life. However, the slave life depicted lacked authenticity as it had been scrubbed and homogenized to make it consumable for white theater audiences. These performances characterized blacks as lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, and prone to thievery and cowardice.
These caricatures usually featured the uncultured, parochial, happy-go-lucky southern plantation
slave (Jim Crow) in his tattered clothing, or the urban dandy (Zip Coon or Dandy Jim), frequently
presented as slow-talking, mischievous and gaudily overdressed. Both were dim-witted, lazy, and
were intensely fond of both watermelon and chicken. For several decades these two stereotypes
remained the most enduring of American minstrelsy.
After the American Civil War there were formed female and all-black minstrel companies. Many times these companies used many of the same popular songs and similar comedic material used by the all white male companies. But the black companies added another musical element that would set them apart from the other companies and offer an element of authenticity: African American religious music.
Naturally, the idea of a black minstrel company begs the question; why were all these performing groups willing to continue a theatrical tradition that exploited the experience of black Americans, misrepresented slavery, and transmitted unflattering racial stereotypes to willfully ignorant white audiences? For many mid-19th century black artists the black minstrel companies provided the possibility for black actors, dancers, singers, and instrumentalists to support themselves and their families. The production of black entertainment and performed by black entertainers allowed for some degree of agency in how these companies could more humanely depict black Americans. Along with the addition of religious music, the companies now had an excellent vehicle for promoting the works of black composers.
Eugene was born in Manhattan in 1836, the son of a baker. He would attend school there and make his theatrical debut at the age of 17. The character he debuted was the seed for the “prima donna” character that he would continue to develop through his career. His “prima donna” was so carefully cultivated and refined that his true sex was virtually undetectable.
In the Spring of 1861, the political climate in the US exploded with the beginning of the American Civil War. With the onset of the war d’Ameli did as many other performing artists did and fled to Europe settling in Britain. Two years later, after working as a star attraction in London musical halls, he accepted a position with the highly desirable Christy’s Minstrels, in Liverpool. Over the next four years, d’Ameli led the company’s burlesques productions of Lucrezia Borgia, Ernani, Fra Diavolo, and other popular operas.
Perhaps Eugene’s stature had something to do with his ability to create the illusion: he was smaller in build and affected a realistic soprano voice when speaking or singing. His female impersonation was reportedly so embodied that following a show in Berlin, German troops vehemently declared that he was really a woman in the production while in the American West, gold miners threw gold coins onto the stage during his performance.
Master Eugene is the celebrated delineator of female Ethiopian character: his voice and makeup are such as they render it almost impossible to detect that he is not what he represents.
“In imitating gender, drag implicitly reveals the imitative structure of gender itself—as well as its contingency,” Butler claims; “part of the pleasure, the giddiness of the performance is in the recognition of a radical contingency in the relation between sex and gender.”
As realistic as his on-stage female presentation, his off-stage presentation was quite the opposite but with the same attention to aesthetic and detail. Master Eugene presented as a biological male and was only seen in men’s apparel, albeit dapper and fashionable: in effect, a dandy.
In “Redefining the Dandy: The Asexual Man of Fashion”, Daria Kent writes:
To dress in this way [the dandy played] in opposition to the rest of society. Knowing this, it is easy to see
the dandy was poised in the perfect position to challenge his world’s views on gender and sexuality.”
Unlike the fop or the beau, the dandy, although highly interested in fashion and aesthetics, wasn’t perceived as effeminate as much as vain. The fop and the beau were seen as effeminate which was not seen as related to sexual orientation. The association of homosexuality and effeminacy would become more prominent at the end of the 19th century when famous dandy Oscar Wilde would go to public trial for charges related to sodomy: institutionalized bigotry aimed at non-gender conforming individuals in an effort to curb those considered deviant of the sex/gender heteronormative hegemony.
Kent goes on to present the possibility that the dandy was much more than a clothes horse but more a part of the queer community by way of their non-binary performativity expressing both masculine and feminine gendered traits. Kent writes that to the dandy gender is merely a costume that can easily be donned or removed. d'Ameli's ability to manufacture a gender was not limited to his prima donna character But it would seem that they also cultivated the queer character f the dandy unquestionable manufactures an outward appearance, how to be seen in public, in prescribed ways They were manufacturing their male persona just as they were manufacturing the female persona
Master Eugene’s two personas seemed to fit squarely into this construct of the dandy as a queer individual whether non-binary, gender-fluid, etc. As an actor, d’Ameli’s female illusion was faultless not just in appearance but in performativity while in his personal life his sense of style is still of note. Elisa Rolle shares in her blog Queer Places shares a quote from an unnamed source that states that Eugene was, “as fine a general figure in the manly attire of everyday life as he was in the gorgeous wardrobe of the sable prima donna at night.” I believe this statement helps to support the assertion that d’Ameli very well could have identified as gender-fluid considering that he easily managed the gender boundary moving faultlessly between his male and female personas; the many details of each having been paid the utmost attention.
During a career that spanned more than thirty years, d’Ameli toured the United States, Europe, and Asia with different minstrel troupes. The last 15 years or so he spent in the United States performing with minstrel companies in New York and Brooklyn. He last performed in 1884 and spent the remainder of his life in NewYork until his death in 1910.
Next Chapter: A Shifting Paradigm