<i>Sir Anthony Love</i>, Drag Performance, and the Long Con on the Restoration Stage

ABSTRACT The Restoration did not mark the end of England’s fascination with theatrical drag performance. Using one of the more transgressive breeches roles of the period, this article looks at how Thomas Southerne’s Sir Anthony Love (1690) features Susanna Mountfort’s drag performance in adapting the drag hero’s comedic revenge as a breeches role through an affective, historical, and contemporary queer and trans* framework. Her Sir Anthony persona was the actress’s first star turn, and she received top billing over the men in the cast, blurring the view of breeches roles and travesty performance as much more than just a disguise or device. Anthony/Susanna’s theatrical drag elucidates a mode of performance that exceeds the bounds of the diegetic in creating an affective network of awe, surprise, and admiration as well as establishing the dangerous precedent set by posing gender nonconformity and fluidity as a con itself.