Summary
Sebastian, a young nobleman, is in love with a woman named Mary Fitz-Allard.
Unfortunately for the lovers, their fathers will not accept their marriage because Mary's father, Sir Guy, has demanded a large sum of money from Sir Alexander in order for Sebastian to marry Mary.
Because of his undying love for Mary, Sebastian devises a plan to make his father change his mind.
He pretends to be in love with a notorious cross-dressing thief named Moll Cutpurse. Sebastian believes that his father will grow to see marriage to Mary as the preferable option to Sebastian's feigned desire for Moll.
As Sebastian sets his scheme into motion, Sir Alexander expresses disgust and concern over Sebastian's interest in Moll, whom he refers to as a "man-woman."
Sebastian soon asks his father if he would prefer he marry Mary instead, and Sir Alexander says no, forcing Sebastian to continue his ruse with Moll.
Secretly, Sir Alexander orders Trapdoor (a spy) to get close to Moll and destroy her.
Analysis
The first act of the play establishes the important characters and comedic device on which the entire play relies: the deception plot enacted by Sebastian against his father, Sir Alexander. Like most early modern comedies, The Roaring Girl is built upon a series of tricks, schemes, and misunderstandings among characters, subscribing to the conventional theatrical structure of destabilizing social order only to regain that stability by the play's end.
Nowhere is this destabilization more apparent than in Sebastian's scheme to feign marriage to Moll, as he willingly upends the expectations placed on him as the son of a nobleman by falling in not just with a common woman but with an alleged criminal.
However, Sir Alexander seems more bothered by Moll's cross-dressing reputation than he does by her criminal one. He refers to Moll as a "man-woman" and expresses confusion and disgust over her appearance and behavior, suggesting that the thing Sir Alexander fears most is Moll's lack of conformity to society's standards for women.
Audiences might notice that, for a performance entitled The Roaring Girl, she does not actually appear in the first act of the play. Instead, Moll is only discussed by the male characters once Sebastian announces his intention to marry her.
This structure is important to the play because it highlights one of its central themes of reputation: audiences do not actually encounter Moll until Act II, after her appearance and criminal behavior has already been discussed. In this way, the play sets up audiences to see Moll through the perspectives of the men who talk about her (most notably Sir Alexander, who is perturbed by her), extending a challenge to viewers to interpret Moll independent of her reputation. The play simultaneously builds suspense for when the eccentric Moll enters the stage and subtly colors audiences' own opinions of her through the gossip that precedes her entrance.
