Nell Gwynn and Tootsie. Almost indistinguishable. Both plays deal with, among other things, plays within plays. The play within Tootsie is a bastardization of Romeo and Juliet (renamed Juliet’s Nurse), changed to accentuate the part of a man, who is posing as a woman unbeknownst to the rest of the actors in, or audience of Juliet’s Nurse.

Several of the plays mentioned within Nell Gwynn are rewritten to accentuate her parts, in more ways than one, as she takes the place previously occupied in the theatrical world of merry old England by men who posed as women, though those men were known to be men by their audiences and fellow actors, unlike in Shakespeare in Love or Victor, Victoria, where women posed as men posing as women on stage.

In any event, David Bedella did a great job as the actor who had always played, if not possessed, the women’s parts. I’m sure Bedella, or do I mean his character, or both(?), would make a great Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, who is always played by a man, because, as explained by creator John Waters, it’s a secret the audience has, that the other characters don’t know. He actually said cast, not characters, but I’ve already made this confusing enough.

Nell Gwynn, the play, is based upon real characters and real events (I’m pretty sure Tootsie isn’t), though extreme liberties are taken to make it an entertaining evening, which leads me to the bubonic plague.

There’s a joke in the play (or was it in the play within the play?) about the plague, which meets with feigned disapproval, whereupon Bedella asks of his compatriots, “too soon?”. Big laugh, unless, perhaps, you know someone who died from the plague. But, as always I provide important research, having found a pseudoscientific inquiry about when a joke is too soon.