Hairspray (musical) encourages individuality, acceptance and freedom. It is a musical that can be applied to any social context and time, as it highlights ongoing issues such as fat-shaming, racism and discrimination. It also explores femininity in terms of the female characters. Notably, Tracy’s mother, Edna Turnblad, is performed in drag during the shows. Allowing a drag role for Edna adds a queerness to the musical as it does not include any gay characters. Edna is considered to be the non-racialised other that is part of the story in Hairspray. The musical also challenges the societal norms of a female. The body
The Ball (play) simply a mistake, a point of confusion by the publishers: "The Tragedy of Chabot, Admiral of France," a Chapman play that had been revised by Shirley, was printed in the same year by the same house. Traditional critics sometimes complained about the frothy amorality of "The Ball" — judging it to display a "coarseness...unflattering" to the social set depicted. Yet Herbert's adverse reaction to the accuracy of the play suggests that even the revised version may have a certain journalistic quality, showing what the Court of Charles I was actually like. "The Ball" portrays people of fashionable society preparing for