The Roaring Girl

The Roaring Girl is a Jacobean stage play, a comedy written by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker.

The play was probably written c. 1610 and first published in 1611 in a quarto printed by Nicholas Okes for the bookseller Thomas Archer. The title page of the first edition states that the play was performed at the Fortune Theatre by the Prince's Players, the troupe known in the previous reign as the Admiral's Men. In the preface Middleton states that he composed his plays for readers as well as theatre audiences.

The Roaring Girl is a fictionalized dramatization of the life of Mary Frith, known as "Moll Cutpurse", a woman who had gained a reputation as a virago in the early 17th century. (The term "roaring girl" was adapted from the slang term "roaring boy", which was applied to a young man who caroused publicly, brawled, and committed petty crimes.) She was also the subject of a lost chapbook written by John Day titled The Mad Pranks of Merry Moll of the Bankside, which was entered into the Stationers' Register on 7 August 1610. Frith also appears in Nathaniel Field's Amends for Ladies, which dates from this same era of c. 1611. On the basis of documents from a surviving lawsuit, the actual Mary Frith seems to have been the type of person that Middleton and Dekker depicted. The real Mary Frith may have even stepped in once to play her own part as Moll in a performance of The Roaring Girl at the Fortune Theatre.

Mary Fitz-Allard and Sebastian are in love, but their fathers will never permit the union, as Mary's father (Sir Guy) demands too large a dowry from Sebastian's father (Sir Alexander) for Mary's hand in marriage. However, Sebastian has a plan to enable the match: he will pretend to be in love with Moll Cutpurse, a notorious cross-dressing thief, and his father will be so worried that he will see marriage to Mary as the preferable alternative.

Sebastian's father is worried about his son's pursuing a grotesque "man-woman". Sebastian pretends to be outraged, and asks if his father would be happy if he married Mary instead. His father says no. Sir Alexander calls the spy and parasite Trapdoor, and sets him to follow Moll, get into her services, and find a way to destroy her. Trapdoor agrees.

A scene in the street. Various gallants are talking to the shopkeepers and flirting with their wives. The gallant Laxton flirts with Mistress Gallipot in the tobacco-shop. He does not actually like her much, but is keeping her on a string in order to get money from her to take other girls out. Jack Dapper, a young profligate, enters to buy a feather to show off with. Moll enters and Laxton takes a fancy to her, assuming that because she dresses as a man, she is morally loose. Laxton courts Moll; she agrees to meet him at Gray's Inn Fields at 3 PM. Trapdoor then presents himself to Moll and offers to be her servant. She is dubious but agrees to meet him in Gray's Inn Fields a bit after 3 PM.

Sebastian's father is spying on him at home. Moll enters and Sebastian woos her. She is polite but rebuffs him: she is chaste and will never marry. He says he will try again later. She exits and Sir Alexander rebukes his son, saying that Moll will disgrace him because she is a whore and a thief. Sebastian says that there is no proof of those accusations. Sir Alexander exits, still more resolved to publicly shame Moll. Sebastian decides that he must confess his plan to her in hopes that he will get her to help him and Mary.

Laxton enters for his rendezvous with Moll. She appears dressed as a man; he goes towards her but she challenges him to a fight: he has impugned her honor, assuming that all women are whores. He is wrong to assume so—and also wrong to treat whoring lightly, as it is a sin that many good women are forced to, for lack of an alternative. They fight and she wounds him; he retreats and exits, shocked. Trapdoor enters. Moll teases and taunts him, but she finally accepts that his motives are good and agrees to take him on as her servant.