The first scene of the show launched the audience into the ribald, rambunctious and definitively masculine world of the production as a whole. Under the leadership of master actor Paul Hopkins (Prince Edward), the company animated this scene with the locker-room atmosphere that came to characterize the rehearsal process of the all-male cast. They found a lot of opportunities for physical clown comedy that helped clarify the sexual double meanings behind much of the poetry. They gave free reign to the expression of their characters’ sexual desires. The result of their performance choices was that life in the English countryside was highly eroticized. Even the churning of milk becomes an erotic act. Although we did not decide this intention in advance, the effect accords well with the assumed objective of the Queen’s Men because it makes England seem so desirable. Given the repeated references to sexual violence in the scene, however, it is not an England that is desirable today; indeed looking back at it now the scene’s objectification of women makes me quite uncomfortable. In a full modern production of the play that was not interested in original practices, I might find ways to make the wags () seem more distasteful in their desires and in their attitudes towards women at this early stage. The play later challenges their attitude towards women through Lacy’s resistance to the prince, although Lacy himself then later plays fast and loose with Margaret’s emotions. In our production, Julian DeZotti’s performance of Margaret also offered resistance to the objectifying attitudes of the wags.