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Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies: ‘Ethereal from the Waist Up and All Welsh Pony Down Below’

In this article Helen Grime examines the enduring epithet of ethereality and its persistent connection to the career of the actress Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies (1891–1992). Most closely associated with her portrayal of Etain in the much revived musical drama The Immortal Hour, ethereality is understood as a signifier of 1920s femininity. The offstage presentation of a domesticated femininity further evidences the apparent conventionality of this actress's self-presentation at a time of particular anxiety about the socio-political position of women. These notions of femininity hint at the prevailing social attitudes that confronted an actress whose on- and offstage appearances were subject to public scrutiny while her private lesbian identity remained obscured. It is suggested, however, that Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies's playful negotiation of her demonstrably fragmented identity evidences an agency and self-possession belied by her public conformity. Helen Grime completed her thesis, A Strange Omission: Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Twentieth-Century Shakespearean Actress, in 2008 and is currently a Lecturer in Drama at the University of Winchester.