1964: The Birth of Gay Theater - The Gay & Lbian Review

Contents:

• QUEERLY MIL; WHY THE GAYS LOVE MIL THEATRE
• SPACE PERFORMANCE: MAKG MEANG THE THEATRE. BY GAY MCAULEY. ANN ARBOR: UNIVERSY OF MICHIGAN PRS, 2000; PP. 320. $19.95 PAPER.
• A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS
• 1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER

QUEERLY MIL; WHY THE GAYS LOVE MIL THEATRE

Queer theatre is the accepted generic term for the gay theatre movement: one that embrac both men and women, that vers plays, mils, baret and jt about everythg else, and which has been gog strong Bra and Ameri for well over 40 years.

SPACE PERFORMANCE: MAKG MEANG THE THEATRE. BY GAY MCAULEY. ANN ARBOR: UNIVERSY OF MICHIGAN PRS, 2000; PP. 320. $19.95 PAPER.

In the opprsive 1950s, where every play had to be approved by the lord chamberla before uld be performed public, Brish dramatists were necsarily oblique their prentatn of gay issu.

But dramatists at the time were obliged to work : when the hero of Emlyn Williams's superlative Acla (1950) is acced of havg sex wh an unrage girl Rotherhhe, I tomatilly assume Williams was really talkg about 's been hearteng to see gay wrers explog the eedom that me wh the aboln of censorship and the relaxatn of the law. The 1970s saw the emergence of Gay Sweatshop Bra, found 1975, and the Gay Theatre Alliance Ameri, which burst to life not long after.

And Bra over the last 20 years wrers such as Bryony Lavery, Phyllis Nagy (who is Amerin by birth), Kev Elyot, Alexi Kaye Campbell, Samuel Adamson, Mark Ravenhill and many others have all alt openly and explicly wh gay what is there to pla about an era when plays cludg Ravenhill's Mother Clap's Molly Hoe and Alan Bent's The Hab of Art occupy the stag of London's Natnal Theatre, when mils such as La Cage x Foll be prof wh preachg sexual tolerance and when specialised ftivals, offerg gay plays to primarily gay dienc, ntue to thrive? It's also a ltle-noticed fact that when Gregory Doran assum ntrol of the Royal Shakpeare Company 2013 two of our big natnal pani will, for the first time ever, be n by gay I would like to see, however, are more plays on the Khner-Ravenhill mol which al wh sexualy a wir polil ntext.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GAY THEATER, THREE ACTS

Novelists om Jam Baldw to Alan Hollghurst and Philip Hensher have shown that gay wrers are as well-placed as anyone to plot the urse of polil and cultural change.

I jt wish more gay dramatists would rise to the challenge, so eagerly grasped by fictn wrers, of relatg personal dilemmas to public read: Not In Front of the Audience: homosexualy on stage by Nicholas Jongh (2002) Le of Bety by Alan Hollghurst (2004), for the nnectn mak between sexualy and the state of the natn. I mean, what’s more gay than mpy mellodramatic performanc, where people wear fabulo cloth, dance across the stage and burst to song every other mute?

The theatre gay tromp is even referenced many meta mentari on the genre such as “everyone’s a ltle b gay” and Neil Patrick Harriss’ performance at the 65th annual Tony awards “It’s not jt for gays anymore”. One of the olr queer mils is Falsettos, bg March of the Falsettos (1981) and falsettoland (1990), tellg the story of a dysfunctnal fay: the gay father and his lover, his ex wife, his son and the lbian neighbours. The story is told through non lear vigt and throughout the mil Bechter explor her own sexualy and disvers more about her gay fathers myster life.

1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER

To further this theory, many have wrten metaphorilly about theatril space; however, her important new book, Gay McAuley addrs the ia of a theatril space directly, discsg archecture, spatial stcture, actor space, and dience space. Has a history of repeatedly sharg unfound nspiraci that man-ma chemils the environment uld be makg children gay or transgenr and g the femizatn of boys and masculizatn of girls.

The basels claim that chemils – particularly tap water – uld turn people gay has gaed populary wh nspiracy theorists over the years, most memorably wh nservative rad host Alex Jon, who said chemils the water were “turng the igg’ ogs gay.

McCoy for The New York TimHis Sexualy Don’t Defe Him, but It Can Set Him ApartEric Bach is an openly gay broadster for the Frericksburg Natnals.