Q1- What has made the performances of male dan so appealing to historical and modern audiences?

Looking at the framework of performance- what was the reason for using males to perform female parts to begin with?  It appears to be the Confucian dictates against mixing the sexes along with the social and cultural values of the day.  Females who would perform on stage were seen as lacking in morals- after reading the Tan article, I find that ironic since it appears that much of the appeal of the dan performers was due to the actors being young and attractive, arousing homo-erotic feelings in the male audiences who left either confused about what they felt or determined to act on it!  So, in attempting to protect the virtue of young would-be actresses, instead use of the  dan introduced an entire class of young, sexually provocative men to the stage.  The article pointed out that many of these actors weren't particularly skilled, but they were uniformly attractive and their favors were sought out by men and women alike.

As time went on, the custom died down but has picked up again lately.  The difference between the audiences of today and yesterday are many and what is expected in the actors has changed as well.  Now, the dan is more campy, more obvious, more of a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge".  The actors are highly skilled and older, performing well into their 5th and 6th decades.  The audience knows that a man is up on stage- but the audience allows itself to actually "see" a woman.

However, women are also stepping up to play "their" roles- sometimes with stiff resistance which begs the question, why would a man (or anyone) prefer to see a man play a female part?  I think it's because that way men get the "ideal woman", the woman that they wished existed.  The article points out that many critics of women on stage say that they are "to real", they would rather see woman as defined by man.  It was also mentioned that the perfect actor is neither man or woman- an androgenous someone who can be anyone or no one, a blank slate.  This does make sense when you want to see the character, not the actor.

In British Panto, the roles are always reversed, the starring female role is usually played by a big man, obviously in drag and the male role is played by an attractive woman, dressed in men's clothing but still recognizably a woman.  The actors are very skilled and you do lose yourself in the performance- it doesn't matter who plays what, the story gets told and you enjoy the performance tremendously!  The role reversal is just part of what makes it panto- just like using dan is part of Chinese and Japanese Theatre.  If the actors are doing their job, and the audience is doing their job, everyone enjoys the performance and it doesn't matter in the least that the a man was Cinderella and a lady was Prince Charming!

Peking Opera

British Panto