Edward Kynaston
| Edward Kynaston | |
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| Born | c.1640 |
| Died | January 1712 |
Edward Kynaston (c. 1640 – January 1712) was an English actor, one of the last Restoration "boy players", young male actors who played women's roles.
Kynaston was good looking and made a convincing woman: Samuel Pepys called him "the loveliest lady that ever I saw in my life" after seeing him in a production of John Fletcher's The Loyal Subject at the Cockpit-in-Court, "only her [sic] voice not very good". He also played the title role in Ben Jonson's Epicoene. Pepys had dinner with Kynaston after this production on 18 August 1660.
Simultaneously, Kynaston played male roles as well. He filled the role of Otto in Rollo Duke of Normandy on 6 December 1660, having played the female role of Arthiope in the same play in previous weeks. On 7 January 1661, Kynaston played three roles in a performance of Jonson's Epicoene, one female and two male.
Part of Kynaston's appeal may have been his ambiguous sexuality. The actor Colley Cibber recalled: "the Ladies of Quality prided themselves in taking him with them in their Coaches to Hyde-Park in his Theatrical Habit, after the Play." Cibber also reported that a performance of a tragedy attended by Charles II was once delayed because, as someone explained, Kynaston, who was playing the Queen, "was not shav'd".
In the 1660s women were permitted to appear on stage and male actors playing female roles in serious drama was strongly discouraged. Kynaston's last female role was as Evadne in Beaumont and Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy with Thomas Killigrew's King's Company in 1661.
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