对戏曲稍有知道的人都了解那里面的不少角色都是反串演出的,不少戏曲名家也都是因其反串角色的大受青睐而出名的,譬如大家最熟知的梅兰芳。在海外的戏剧界,反串演出也非常容易见到,他们管这叫cross casting。
There have been several examples recently in the London theatre of what show business calls cross-casting: men playing female roles or women mens, the latter being much more common to offset1 the much larger proportion of male parts in plays.
近期伦敦戏剧界女扮男、男演女的反串之风颇为风靡,在戏剧方面,女扮男的情形要比男演女的情形愈加容易见到,由于戏剧里面的男士角色要远远多于女人角色。
也有人说regender这个词是表示反串的,其实不然。Regender一般用来指the rewriting of texts to convert male parts into female ones in a play(在戏剧演出中将作品中的男士角色改成女人角色,即角色重塑),与现实演出中的反串表演并非一回事。