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

Contents:

• 1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW
• RSIA LNCH HOMOPHOBIC ‘GUS WHO’S GAY’ REALY TV PETN
• GAY MOSW · CY GUI

1964: THE BIRTH OF GAY THEATER

IF “GAY THEATER” is fed as beg by, for, and about uncloseted gay people, then 2014 arguably marks the 50th anniversary of the genre’s existence. In 1964, spe a social climate of homophobia that pervad Amerin life for the send third of the 20th century, two one-act plays prented Off-Off-Broadway at the Caffe Co revolutnized how gay characters uld be reprented theatrilly. Produced a readg of “Hnted Host” 2008 an eveng honorg Robert Patrick for his ntributn to gay theater over the past five s.

The plays marked a major cultural turng pot, nsirg the outright censorship that gay playwrights faced the precedg s. At the height of the Pansy Craze the late 1920s, Mae Wt penned The Drag, a “social problem” play that argued for sympathetic treatment of homosexuals.

Dranian measur om Cy Hall, cludg the passage of New York Cy’s 1927 “padlock bill, ” prohibed homosexual subject matter on the Broadway stage. A few years later, the Hays Co of 1934 banned imag of homosexualy on the Hollywood screen. Consequently, censorship of gay them theater and film was the norm the U.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

Although Doric Wilson had wrten gay characters historil settgs for the Caffe Co as early as 1961 (Now She Danc! Satirized the trial of Osr Wil sympathetilly), the Wilson and Patrick one-acts were unique that both featured gay characters set the prent time who were not only open, but boisteroly fiant. Beatniks, homosexuals, and alienated artists like Patrick were flockg to the Village om all over the untry the late ‘50s.

He emphasized the reprsed liv that most gay people led ral Ameri durg those years, and the extent to which most reprentatns offered were negative on:.

I was a southwtern art fairy, and gays outsi major ci had to live totally unrground liv back then. People more remote parts of the untry were vaguely aware of the gay culture New York Cy, but an extremely negative way.

RSIA LNCH HOMOPHOBIC ‘GUS WHO’S GAY’ REALY TV PETN

We uldn’t jt log on to the ter or turn on the televisn to fd reprentatns of ourselv, we had to triangulate and hypothize om half-hts and sual pretory remarks by New York wrers about Greenwich Village parti and ffeeho that wh an only half-discerned arty Bohemian environment there might possibly be a ltle more acceptance of homosexuals. The Co fulfilled the dream of a Bohemian enclave, and at the same time startled wh s undreamed-of possibily of gay aterny as well.

As Patrick observed, the ncept of “gay liberatn” didn’t exist at the time the early plays were performed. In tanm wh the work of activist polil groups, which had begun anizg the late 1950s, the wrers at the Caffe Co—wh their wild talents for turng fantasy to theatril realy for their untercultural dienc—metaphorilly gave birth to the ncept of “gay liberatn.

In this way, they ed the stage to shape public disurse, and the muni that rulted n perhaps be scribed as direct precsors of the Gay Liberatn Front and Gay Activist Alliance. (In fact, Doric Wilson, perhaps the first playwright of the “Gay Theater” movement at the Co, was also a pneer of gay polil activism: he participated both the GLF and s scennt, the GAA. LANFORD WILSON and Robert Patrick were not unaware that their impulse to wre plays about openly gay characters was chartg new terrory, as wns Wilson’s “thor not” to “The Madns of Lady Bright”: “I believe the ia of the play shocked me.

GAY MOSW · CY GUI

At first she seems to remble earlier stock gay sikicks. As if her mirror is the homophobic lens of a psychiatrist om the ’50s, Bright se herself as a transgrsive eak of nature. Openg on December 6, 1964, only a few months after “The Madns of Lady Bright, ” “The Hnted Host” has as s protagonist one Jay, a wildly funny gay playwright who has recently lost his lover Ed to suici.

Envisng an alternative endg for the tragic queen archetype, the play enacts a crique of homosexual inti by offerg a visn which the stereotypil power dynamic between the gay man and the straight man is verted.

(Consir Andy Warhol’s films, which the straight htler holds all the power vis-à-vis a smarter gay man. Usg w à la Osr Wil, as a weapon which bts one’s adversary, Jay embodi the image of a ee, powerful, and telligent gay man.