Epicoene epitomizes the themes and characteristics of the plays written for the boy companies. The very title -- a grammatical term for Greek and Latin nouns that "without changing their grammatical gender, may denote either sex" (OED, "epicene" adj. 1) -- suggests the androgyny presented on stage when a boy played a woman. Epicoene has a "fascination with gender, a category of signification which, through stage conventions of crossdressing and the deployment of boy actors to play women’s parts was represented as protean and ambiguous" (Comensoli and Russell 1). Epicoene is overtly homoerotic: Morose marries Epicoene, who turns out to be a young boy. Homoerotic relationships seem to be natural in the world of the play. Clerimont has an "ingle at home" (1.1.24): a boy kept for homosexual pleasure (OED, "ingle" n. 2). It is possible that Epicoene was Dauphine’s ingle. The wits (Truewit, Dauphine, and Clerimont), with whom playgoers are invited to identify, praise these relationships and see them as normal. Truewit lists Clerimont’s ingle as one of the distracting pleasures of a London life of leisure. Dauphine benefits from his relationship with Epicoene economically, and their relationship has a positive outcome whether or not it is sexual (DiGangi 73). Stepping back from the world of the play, we can say that all of the relationships are potentially homoerotic because the supposed women on stage are, in reality, boys. Epicoene does not derogate homosexuality; rather, it is foolishness that is disparaged. Morose, who foolishly thinks that he can have a wife who will be silent, is humiliated by being forced to announce his impotence. The gulls in the play, La Foole and Daw, are also punished for their witlessness and cowardice. Truewit amuses himself by setting up a duel between La Foole and Daw, to entertain himself, Clerimont, Dauphine, and the Collegiates. Dauphine gives Daw’s backside six kicks and tweaks La Foole’s nose. These are both emasculating gestures, but the real humiliation is having their swords taken; the sword is almost inevitably a phallic signifier in Renaissance drama. Morose, La Foole, and Daw are all emasculated by the loss of their swords. This loss is similar to the "lack" ascribed to all women on stage: the idea that the "female body is by definition defective insofar as it is present at all," based on the Galenic "one-sex" model that defines women as incomplete and imperfect men (Adelman 25). The gulls are therefore punished for their foolishness by being twinned with the imperfect bodies of women. Epicoene was certainly written for the Whitefriars playhouse. However, Jonson, unlike most playwrights, edited his own plays for publication in his Works of 1616. Therefore, the text we have is not a wholly reliable guide to Whitefriars staging practices. In 4.5, the duel scene, Jonson places all of the Collegiates in the above with Clerimont. This staging is probably wishful thinking on Jonson’s part because the above could realistically hold no more than three actors. Jonson probably added the stage direction when he was supervising publication of his play (MacIntyre 10). Epicoene is typical of Whitefriars plays because of its homoerotic connotations. Epicoene displays "one of the inherent features of the theatrical occasion [, which] is a ritualistic celebration -- however indirect -- of the spectators themselves" (Shapiro 416). That Jonson was aware of his audience is evident in his Prologue, which addresses the "men and daughters of Whitefriars" (Prol. 24). The "men [. . .] of Whitefriars" probably refers to the playgoers of 1607-1608, and the "daughters of Whitefriars" to the prostitutes who worked the audience. Jonson’s Epicoene celebrates Whitefriars’ unique audience with clever use of boy players and witty language. -- Laura Estill, 2003