Some writers object to examining cross-dressing dramas from a homoerotic viewpoint, noting that the act of changing clothes does not change orientation. But Walen emphasizes that the female homoeroticism in cross-dressing plays is situated, not necessarily within the sexual orientation of the characters, but in the dramatic tropes enabled by the cross-dressing motif. It is the audience, more than the characters, who experience the female-female desire.
Orgula (Leonard Willan)
17th century English play involves a woman who cross-dresses in order to pursue the male object of her desire, but is distracted by another woman-passing-as-man character.
